An extended lay-off after Pitt starts the conference play 3-0. Naturally, the players really don’t mind.
“The consistent practice time we put in, getting up and down the court, scrimmaging each other, just getting to know each other more than we did was important,” said Brown, who scored a career-high 17 points against Cincinnati. “I only played four games and Jermaine seven, so it’s really helped us get together as a team.”
Brown and Dixon have changed the team dramatically. In the four games Brown and Dixon have played together, Pitt is averaging 73.8 points per game, shooting 48.8 percent from the field and 47.1 percent from 3-point range. In the 11 games when they were not in the lineup together, Pitt only averaged 65.6 points, shot 43.9 percent from the field and 33 percent from 3-point range.
Brown and Dixon are two of the better defenders on the team, and there has been a noticeable difference at the defensive end as well. Teams are shooting a lower percentage from the field. And although teams are scoring more, the caliber of competition is much different from what the Panthers faced earlier in the season.
Those statistics figure to improve as they get used to playing together more.
“You can say [the break in the schedule] came at a good time,” junior guard Brad Wanamaker said. “[Brown and Dixon] have been looking good the last couple of games. It gave us more time to get better as a team, getting more comfortable playing with those two guys.”
Not to mention allowing Coach Dixon time to work on the rotation. Figure out playing time and starters. The speculation remains that Gary McGhee and maybe Nasir Robinson’s days as starters are numbered. Of course, that speculation has been there since mid-December.
To say nothing of working on the occasional zone defense to throw teams off and protect the frontcourt.
One of the solid things about having continuity with coaches, not just having the same coach here for 7 years but it being the continuation from an assistant to the head coach, is that the past players really feel the connection to the program and to the present players. At the beginning of the season, the players talked of how the past players emphasized to them how they needed to keep things going at Pitt. One of those things to keep going — defense.
“Jaron told me, ‘You have to be able to stop the other teams from scoring and be tougher than your opponents in order to win in the Big East,’ ” Dixon said. “That’s the same thing Levance Fields talked to me about when I was a freshman, and Carl Krauser was at the game the other day, and even he was talking about taking pride in playing defense and always being tougher than your opponents.
“That’s just who we are at Pitt.”
…
“When you come in as a young guy, you have to learn that everybody here takes pride in being able to defend and nobody is going to take it easy,” Jermaine Dixon said. “This is a physical conference and you must be mentally tough enough to survive in it. But the way we look at it, that starts every day at practice.”
Finally, Chris Dokish takes a look at the possible rotations for the next couple years based on recruiting and development.
Woodall has elite speed and has had some nice moments, but some nice moments is not enough in the Big East. He will have to make major improvement if he wants to continue to see the floor because Epps is a talented player who the staff expects will be at least a solid contributor as a freshman.
At the other guard spot, if Gibbs is not playing the point, he will obviously be positioned here. The fact that he has made such huge strides so quickly is a huge event for the program. Don’t forget that he was almost an afterthought as a recruit, and the staff actually had to get Woodall’s blessing to bring Gibbs in. It was Woodall who they thought was going to be making a major contribution by this point. To Gibbs’ credit he has turned himself into a legitimate all-conference player in just his second season. To say he is a pleasant surprise is an understatement, especially since he has proven that he is more than just a standstill shooter.
I recall last year, the issue with Gibbs to many was his shooting technique. He was effective, but they were not the pretty looking shots expected from a perimeter shooter. More like line-drives that just seemed to find the bottom of the basket. Certainly not the aesthetically pleasing look of Ronald Ramon’s 3s.
I hesitate to make this comparison, because it is not fair to Gibbs, but his development does strike me a bit like Brandin Knight’s. Not particularly heavily recruited from New Jersey, from basketball families, and each with a brother that was/is more highly regarded. Both, though, seem to have that spark to make themselves better players. To minimize their weaknesses and a drive to improve.
