The last two weeks we got a lesson in being No. 1 for the first time. It was fun while it lasted.
In case you’ve been living under a rock, Pitt lost to Louisville on the road yesterday, 69-63. The Panthers are now 17-1 and no longer the chic media topic when it comes to college hoops. Wake Forest has taken that crown by knocking off Clemeson to become the only unbeaten team left standing.
Now Pitt fans, we get a lesson on whats its like to be knocked from the No. 1 ranking. That, however, will not happen until tomorrow when the rankings come out. Until then, lets continue to bask in the glow. Pitt’s No. 1 baby!!
In all seriousness, as you all probably know, one loss is not a big deal. I find it funny how publications are running headlines such as “Louisville stuns top-ranked Pitt.” Stunned? Probably not. This is the Big East. I’ve also heard talk of Louisville ending Pitt’s run at perfection. Technically, that is what happened, but realistically, were any of us, some of the biggest Pitt homers included, remotely even thinking about a perfect run? Not when sober at least.
Knee-jerk reaction is to be upset with the loss. It definitely had its ugly points. The box score leaves plenty to be concerned with. Sam Young (6 for 20) and Levance Fields (3 for 14) shot ice cold, which happens. It’s just not good when two of your stars shoot that poorly in the same game. Young was paticularlly hampered by a 2-of-10 performance from beyond the arc. Ron Cook latched onto Young performance, since in reality it was his third off-night from the field in a row.
If Young had talked, he almost certainly would have said something like this:
“I’d like to apologize to my teammates and to Pitt fans for costing us the game tonight. I was awful. It hurts bad because all of us wanted to go undefeated this season. All I can do now is promise to work hard to get better. And I will be better, starting Monday night against Syracuse.”
Cook makes some good points, but as usual his wording makes him sound like a prick. Don’t make up a quote for a kid saying that he cost the game. Even if its clear the quote is made up. Bush league, in my opinion. I would have been more impressed by the column if he wrote it a game ago, when it was already obvious Young was shooting poorly. It’s easy to pile on after a loss, but often times the negatives from a loss were already begining to reer their heads in the wins preceeding. This is an example of such.
The best point in the column was made by Dixon. Young was 0-0 from the free throw line, which from a player with Young’s athletisicm, you could argue is worse than going 2-for-10 from the free-throw line. Get to the hoop! Too many jump shots.
More troubling for the Panthers was the 20 turnovers. That is sloppy, regardless of how well Pitino’s teams press and pressure. Again, it happens.
My reaction to the loss will be determined by how Pitt recovers. The Celtics started the season on a remarkable run in the NBA, then after falling to the Lakers on Christmas day went into a tailspin that they are just begining to recover from. That could easily happen to the Panther’s given their upcoming schedule and the nature of Big East basketball. Pitt needs to bounce back and show that Saturday’s negatives were aberations and not trends.
Louisville is certinally a team to fear in the Big East. Good coaches like Boeheim of Syracuse and Pitino will always improve their teams exponentially as the season goes on and the Cardinals are doing exactly that. They have gone from a loss to Western Kentucky early in the season, to knocking off the No. 1 team in the country in mid January.
Five wins in 14 days that changed the Cardinals’ season? Probably too soon to know for sure. This is the Big East Conference, remember. Two weeks into the season we’ve already declared first Connecticut, then Georgetown and then Pitt The Team to Beat.
But if you beat UK and back it up with four Big East wins, you’ve earned a few minutes to holler and high-five adoring fans, the way the Cardinals’ players did as they danced off the court last night.
This is exactly what we expected from the Big East season. Louisville is the hot team right now, but trust me, there will be another. And probably another after that.
Time to look ahead to Syracuse on Monday. They are on a high right now after defeating previous hot team and current ice-cold team, Notre Dame.
* hot team, playing infront of 20,000 rabid fans
* inconsistent calls by the zebras, especially effecting our pivot in the paint
* cold shooting by two of our go-to players
* a geeked up team playing a rabid brand of pressing d
* when last second and off balance threes start swishing you know you are behind the 8-ball
with all of that said, u of l was just six points better. so be it.
i think the thing that bothered me the most is that we seemed to lose our poise for the first time this year. we have to learn from it, tighten some things up, and crank it up monday night.
btw, for those that didn’t see it…here are some comments from the world-wide-leader on the game:
Against Pittsburgh on Saturday night, the telltale moment came near the four-minute mark, after a Samardo Samuels dunk tied the score at 58.
“You could see it right then — they were wasted,” Louisville guard Edgar Sosa said.”
thats the kind of comment that can come back to haunt you…in say, march at MSG.
I hope the Pitt fanbase will take your words to heart.
ONE GAME does not a season make!
Louisville IS the hot Big East team of the moment. But nothing can be taken for granted in this conference.
The Panthers are a strong, smart basketball team that is also well-coached.
As Louisville Coach Pitino tells his players, “Look ahead, not behind.”
Thanks for a memorable, hard-fought game.
1) Louisville always plays a very ambitious pre-season schedule and not afraid to have losses before conference play … yet they are battled-tested. The two times Pitt were tested earler this year (at Rutgers and FSU) were against inferior teams. FSU is good but by no means real good.
2) Sam is in a shooting slump, making less than 33% in his last 3 games. More revealing, he did not shoot a free throw which remarkable, even though replays clearly showed him being hacked at least 3 times … you may remember when the Lville player jumped over him but landed on Sam’s head & shoulder. I know the BE is a physical conference but it is unsettling when Blair gets called on non-shooting touch fouls … which leads into my next point …
3) Pitino is quoted post-game as saying, ‘refereeing in the BE is a tough job, I wouldn’t want to do it.’ I’ll let you decide why you think he said that.
4) Nonetheless, in the end, UL was the better team last night … time to focus on SU for tomorrow night.
Lastly, not a good week for Pitt …. (1) Shady goes pro, (2) Pitt gets 1st loss, and now (3) Paul Jones, big (junior) QB prospect just gave verbal to PSU – said he has always been PSU fan. The last 3 major PGH area QB prospects (Morelli & Pryor) have all left the area.
Pitt wins easily last night on a neutral court. the Cards couldn’t hang with us when Blair was in, regardless of how poorly Brown/Wanamaker/Biggs/Young played.
All else has been said about the loss. As an ex coach, I always think teams learn much more from losses than wins…We’ll see soon.
As a huge Steeler fan, I hope this in not a trend!
UL has a history of runs — that is what they do. Pitt was just unable to minimize them especially with Blair on the bench, Borwn a no-show, and Young in a slump.
Forecasting what’s going to happen to Pitt isn’t all that difficult. You pretty much know Blair’s going to get in foul trouble when he’s facing a front line that’s as big as he is, you know Fields might not shoot well against larger, quicker defenders and Sam Young struggles when he’s facing defenders who are just as athletic as he is. No surprises in any of that.
What was good about last night was how Dixon and Biggs played. It’s really good to see that those kids are coming along. Dixon was really aggressive and you can’t make fun of Biggs these days because he’s bringing a solid effort night in and night out. Even Wanamaker had his moments.
All in all, not a bad effort by the Panthers. About what you’d expect. I think this team, because of the supporting cast, has a bit more chance to do well in March than the teams of the past few years.
All I can think of is that he’s just not as comfortable on the perimeter, which is where he has to spend more of his time these days. I hope Dixon spends some time thinking of ways for Sam to get the ball on the baseline and in the lane, because I think that’s where he excels. (And it’s where he can draw fouls.)
I know the conventional wisdom is that Sam had to move his game outside because any NBA aspirations would be based on his perimeter skills, but sometimes he seems like a fish out of water 22 feet from the hoop.
Also, big ups to Agnes and the women, for snapping their losing streak with a dominant performance over a solid South Florida team. Good to see.
Go Pens! Go Stillers! Hail to Pitt!
I agree with everyone’s comments – we don’t deserve to win when Young doesn’t get to the free throw line.
I disagree with the previous negative posts about Wannamaker. Yes, he did play out of control a few times but no more than anyone else ast night including Fields. Wannamker was more useful than being credited. Coach Dixon entrusted him with breaking the press even when Fields was in the game therfore taking some of the pressure off of Levance. Even though not a natural point guard, Wannamaker may prove not only to be valuable this year but even maybe more so next year when Fields is gone.
Pitt may not have the richest college fotball tradition but they certainly have given some of the best performers in my lifetime with the likes of Fitz, Dorsett, Marino, Fralic and even Shady.
Nontheless, the best college football player I ever saw (from Pitt or any other school) was undoubtedly Hugh Green.
– He had some guy jump on his head, NO CALL.
– he got pushed to the ground grabbing a rebound – TRAVEL on him.
– Young takes it to the hoop, guy slides under him while in air causing him to miss – AND he gets rung up for a bullshit offensive foul. 2 More FTs he got screwed out of.
Young should have been at the line plenty last night, and there is NOTHING more he could have done about it. He was getting jumped on, grabbed, pushed, you name it, and didn’t get ONE FUCKING CALL.
I can’t wait to kill them in the BET. They better hope they lose before they get to us. We won’t get homered there…
I will say this, though. Pitt still could have and should have won in spite of the officiating. Even with the officials taking the ball out of our players’ hands and forcing our stars to the bench on BS call after BS call, and then ignoring rapings by Louisville players, Pitt still was up 10. If they make any shots in the last 10 minutes they still win the game. This team had a chance to play through piss poor officiating and still come out with a win.
The real positive that I see for this team coming out of the loss is the amount of high pressure game time our younger guys got. Say what you will about them not putting up the numbers that you want, but we led the entire game until slowly pissing it away at the very end. Guys like Wannamaker, Brown, and Gibbs really got some great experience so that when this team rests on them, it won’t be the first time they are in a huge pressure situation.
Jamie Dixon needs to use Nasir Robinson and get him minutes and experience. Gary McGhee isn’t a viable option and shouldn’t even see the floor.
You are way off base about the t-shirt issue. That t-shirt wasn’t made for anyone but Pitt fans. It may be a miscalculation by showing the rest of the country that we are relative newcomers to this success. But Pederson has always been great at marketing and getting Pitt fans fired up and getting new people in Pittsburgh interested in Pitt. Why shouldn’t the University be happy and celebrate such an event as being no. 1 for the first time?
So we lost. Oh well. Raise your hand on this board if you thought Pitt would go undefeated this season…
No one…
OK. Most of us believed that Pitt would lose at least 1 game in this 5 game rough stretch. None of us thought there was a chance to go undefeated in the Big East.
I, for one, am quite proud of our first 2 weeks at no. 1, and look forward to longer visits there in the future.
I don’t know if you, Andrew, are a Pitt fan who is belittling Pederson, or if you are one of these guys who goes to other boards and doesn’t link back to the team you root for when you post. If you are a Pitt fan, just be happy with what we have accomplished. If you are a fan of another school, what is that school ranked?
I am a Pitt man thru and thru! I agree that the loss does not make the season, and love the way we rebounded tonight. I just think the t-shirt was a bit silly, that’s all. I’m all for the hype that this team and school deserves.
Hail to Pitt!
Fields was 3-14 with 6 TO’s. Did he have six turnovers all season combined before this game? How many times is he going to play that poorly.
Young was 6-20, 0 fts as you pointed out, and 2 rebounds I believe. You have to believe he will not play this way for much longer.
Blair played 20 minutes. I do wish Jamie would have put him in a little sooner (5-6 minute mark) and taken a chance.
The bench gave them nothing except a few more turnovers and some fouls. Wannamaker and Brown both played very poorly.
Now with all of this, they were up 10 against a very good team on the road with 8 minutes or so to play. They were still in this game into the last minute (How does Blair miss that layup on the missed free throw?) After shooting 1 for their last 18 shots and going something like 8 minutes in the first half without a FG, they still could have easily won this game.
That’s my main take from this game – maybe this team is good enough that even on a very off night, they have a chance to beat anyone they play. Again, maybe I am being too optimistic. If they lost to the Cuse, maybe I’ll start worrying a bit too.