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November 19, 2009

So, yeah there’s a basketball game tonight at 7. Eastern Kentucky comes to town. The Colonels are picked to be a middle-of-the pack team in the Ohio Valley Conference. They won their season opener against West Virginia Wesleyan (D-2) 102-71. They didn’t impress their own coach on defense and they have no player taller than 6-7.

That’s probably a good thing since Coach Dixon wants better rebounding from the Pitt players.

“We’re not worried about our height or size or anything,” Robinson said. “We just have to put a body on somebody and go rebound. Coach preaches about it every day in practice about how we have to outrebound our opponent. So I just try to focus on that, box out and beat my guy to the basket and grab the rebound.”

Some of the other issues have been inexperience and personnel changes. Wanamaker played mostly shooting guard his first two seasons, but he is playing small forward because of Gilbert Brown’s academic suspension. In Pitt’s offense, the small forwards crash the boards when the shot goes up and the shooting guard retreats to play defense in the event of a miss.

Wanamaker has admittedly had a tough time remembering to crash the boards. Getting the small forwards and guards to contribute more in the rebounding department is the main focus as the Panthers get ready to play Eastern Kentucky tonight in another non-conference game at the Petersen Events Center.

“We’ve played teams that have shot a lot of 3s, so there are a lot of long rebounds, and I don’t feel like we’re getting enough of those,” Dixon said. “But I’m always concerned about our rebounding. We’ve been the best rebounding team in the country in certain years and I’ve still been concerned about it. You’re never satisfied with rebounding or defense. We have to get our guards to rebound more, especially on the long 3s. [Binghamton] was taking deep 3s, and the guards have to get those.”

Coach Dixon had noted the problem rebounding by the guards right after the Binghamton rout.





Is there a stream for this game tonight…looking at the colonels team page… has a link for live streaming…

link to ekusports.com

Comment by Snala the Panther 11.19.09 @ 5:10 pm

Remember some faint (and pretty inexplicable) crowing from the Nitters last year when they won the NIT tournament.

They lost to UNC-Wilmington at home tonight by 11.

Comment by Jimbo Covert's my Dad 11.19.09 @ 7:59 pm

Snala – There’s streaming video with the Pitt radio team at the link you provided.

link to all-access.cbssports.com

Comment by Dave in Orlando 11.19.09 @ 8:13 pm

Thanks for the streaming info Dave. Announcers mentioned the sagarin ratings. We’re tied for 6th with Michigan St. Looks like another trip to the elite 8.

Comment by mike t 11.19.09 @ 8:43 pm

Uncomfortable double-digit lead. Perimeter defense – both defending the three and preventing the drive. – needs some work. We also seem to be losing people on ball screens quite often leading to easy baskets. Disconcerting.

Comment by Dave in Orlando 11.19.09 @ 8:44 pm

14 -24 FT couldn’t put the team away. Lot of turnovers and some missed defensive switches. Really had the edge on rebounding but they had a small team with tallest guy at 6’7 — in fact, tied a Pitt record with 12 blocked shots.

Again showed athleticism but still pretty raw

Comment by wbb 11.19.09 @ 10:28 pm

Lamar Patterson impressed. We’ll be seeing a lot more of Dante and him.

Comment by Steve 11.20.09 @ 7:48 am

looks like mcghee is improved but not to a level of gray or anywhere close to blair. (which i didn’t expect)… i hope these early games help him improve so he can fill in for dante later in the season.

I hope get past Wichita, really curious to see what we would do against Texas.

Comment by Snala the Panther 11.20.09 @ 9:54 am

I may be overly optimistic, but I thought this was a good, small step forward for this team. Particularly in the first half, they moved the ball better on offense, and were much better on the boards. They attacked the junk defenses pretty well, getting the ball to the baseline against the 1-3-1. They also utilized the high post, and showed flashes of better interior passing. The rebounding edge was not just because of the size advantage – guys were in much better position.

Defense was pretty good in the first half, but got a little ragged in the second half. The thing to keep in mind is that Pitt’s defensive scheme is actually somewhat complicated with all of the switches and rotations. Last year was really an exception – in prior years, it was not unusual for Pitt to struggle with the scheme for the first month or two of the season. I really think they will continue to improve on the defensive side.

They still have a lot of work to do – if the Big East started this week, they would be in big trouble. But it doesn’t, and I hope they will continue to show slow, steady improvement.

Comment by Pantherman13 11.20.09 @ 10:57 am

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