Lost (sort of) in the shuffle of the looming biggest football game in years (for this week) and the early signing period for basketball is that the season opener and Elite Eight banner raising is tonight.
Pitt tips off against Wofford of the SoCon.
After Wofford made school history last season by posting a winning record for the first time in 15 seasons as a member of Division I, Young is looking to take his team to the NCAA tournament for the first time.
With five starters returning, some of whom are among the best players in the Southern Conference, Young believes his team can be one of the 65 teams in the NCAA tournament field at season’s end.
“It’s as good a shot as we’ve had,” said Young, whose team was picked to finish second behind the College of Charleston in the Southern Conference’s South Division.
Are they likely as talented as Pitt’s players? No. They are, however, experienced and know each other well. That actually makes Wofford more of a challenge than expected.
Since we all know that Pitt will start a line-up that has one start between the five starters.
For the first time in his head coaching career, Jamie Dixon will have a completely new starting five for a season opener. Four of his starters from last season graduated or went to the NBA early and Jermaine Dixon, the only returning starter, will not play because of a foot injury.
The only players on the roster with starting experience are senior Chase Adams, who was a three-year starter at Centenary in the Summit League before coming to Pitt this summer, and junior Gary McGhee, who started one game last season when DeJuan Blair was injured.
Dixon will use the same starting five that he used in both exhibition games. McGhee will start at center with Nasir Robinson at power forward, Brad Wanamaker at small forward and Travon Woodall and Ashton Gibbs at point and shooting guard.
No excuses (at least at the moment) from the coach and players.
“I know the easy thing is to sit here, and most coaches would be stressing the youth,” coach Jamie Dixon said. “You’re as young as you play. We have no excuses.”
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Wanamaker came off the bench for every game of Pitt’s 31-5 Elite Eight team last season. He said the new-look Panthers will get a chance to assume more ownership of the eight-time NCAA Tournament qualifier in the absence of Sam Young, DeJuan Blair and Levance Fields.
“We all talk about how we’ve been waiting for this moment,” Wanamaker said. “The moment’s here.”
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“I think it’s going to be a good season for us,” said Gibbs, the team’s 19-year-old starting shooting guard. “We’ve just got to keep playing hard and play defense. As long as we play our hardest, we’ll be fine.”
The sharp-shooting Gibbs played in 35 games last season as a true freshman, and also played this past summer for the Dixon-coached gold medal-winning USA Basketball Under-19 team in New Zealand.
“I don’t think there’s ever been a kid that says ‘I’m young. I’m inexperienced, so I’m not good enough,’ ” coach Dixon said. “They look at it a whole different way. It’s not a crutch.”
The storyline all season for Pitt will be it’s youth. It will get tiresome to Pitt fans, but it is the glaring and obvious thing. As Eamonn Brennan pointed out.
So much of college hoops previewing is based on a simple formula: How many players did Team X lose? How good were those players? How good are the players that played behind them? And which recruits will help close the gap? The whole point of this feature is to do something a little bit less cookie cutter than that … but, on the other hand, sometimes the most interesting thing about a team is players lost vs. players found. In 2009-10, few teams in the nation will experience that formula more acutely than the Pittsburgh Panthers.
Pitt still has a 38-game home winning streak in the non-con to maintain.
The hope is that the team can show steady improvement during the season. The hard thing will be judging that improvement during the season. As I have learned and have to keep reminding myself with my kids, progress and improvement is not a straight line. There are fits, starts, steps back. Lots of frustration (at those moments). It’s only when you look back over the course of a time period can you more clearly see where they were to where they are.
That’s going to be very applicable to Pitt this year. There are going to be games where it looks like they are making a huge leap forward. Then appear to have forgotten everything. Some games of incremental progress. We all say right now that we will be patient with the team, hopefully that remains true. This season, is as much about getting ready for a very bright future.
