With Dixon out of the lineup, it’s like playing four on five basketball. It is quite apparent that Adams and Woodall are not cutout for this level of basketball. Although Gibbs is a good player, and Wanamaker plays with a lot of heart, it appears to me that Dixon and Brown are the two individuals that really make this team go.

N – I – T …

N – I – T …

N – I – T …

So much for overachieving. Here comes the death spiral.

i bet we beat wvu

I would agree – Coach Dixon can basically count on contributions from five guys (Gibbs, Brown, Wanamaker, McGhee, and Dixon) each night and that’s it. They have nothing else and that is what will hold this team back from overachieving the way they looked to be early on. Woodall and Taylor continue to give them nothing and Robinson is ideally a 10-15 minutes energy guy off the bench. Really, the more I watch this team, the more 6-3 looks like a miracle. We could easily be 5-4 or 4-5 if Louisville makes some FT and Syracuse doesn’t go 1-13 or whatever from 3.

Let’s hope we can pull out a 5-4 record the rest of the way. I think that’s realistic (losses to Nova, WVU twice, and either ND, SH, or Marq.) and 11-7 should get us in the Big Dance without a problem. Right now, that’s all we can ask for with the talent this team has.

NIT?? Come on – Coach Dixon won’t let them fall that bad unless serious injuries to any of the five players that matter happen.

WVU – 2 losses
Nova – 1 loss
Rutgers – win
Providence – win
SH – at home, should be win
Marquette – tough, I guess a loss
ND – win, maybe
St. John’s – grind it out win

Even if they go 4-5, that puts them at 10-8 in the best conference in the nation with a win at Syracuse. I still think they get in with a 10-8 record.

I’m not sure you were watching the same game I was. If we make even HALF of the free throws we missed it’s a different ballgame. No excuse for Wannamaker and Brown to miss free throws like that. And McGhee with the missed dunk and game ending turnover after the rebound with a minute to go didn’t help either….

they are definitely get in at 10-8. those wins will be tough ones tho

This team is weak period NIT

Lots of ball left. Too early to make predictions.

This team will return to form as soon as Gibbs gets his mojo back…and he will. Right now, he has no confidence in his outside shot…No team can win consistently when its best player is stuck in a slump…NIT? Get real…this team will make its 9th straight dance. As for todays game, it did not help that Dixon was out, but that is not why we lost the game. We gave up at least 10 layups. We missed at least five shots within 3 ft or less of the basket. Our best shooter from 3 passes up shot after shot (as did Wanamaker and Brown) when we really needed a 3 near the end of the game. My prescription for Gibbs: Shoot and then shoot some more until they start falling in again.

Although Gibbs is a good player, he’s not a go to guy. He is a zone breaker, just ask Syracuse, but he has trouble creating his own shot and with lousy point guard play, he becomes just another player. Also, Gibbs needs to definitely work on his mid court shooting. How many times has he gotten into the lane and simply threw up a brick? Don’t get me wrong, Gibbs is a good player, but he certainly isn’t capable of putting a team on his back like Jones did today. The scary thing about this team is they can’t afford to lose anyone of their quality players. Here’s hoping we can get our top six players healthy, because we will struggle to win any games if we must go seven deep.

I agree … I think Gil and Wann are the go-to guys since they can drive better than Gibbs if the open shot is not there.

I don’t think Nasir added much today. Also don’t think this was necessarily an upset without Jermaine to defend Jones.

Pitt could not play defense without fouling today. Cost them the game. A healthy Jermaine Dixon would have led Pitt to a win. Oh well, lot of season left. Don’t panic. Pitt will be fine.

And Gibbs really needs to get his jumper back or stop taking it. He is killing Pitt right now.

Btw, just saw Arizona hold off Cal to tie for 1st place in PAC10. Sean Miller has 1 sr, 1 JR and the rest soph and frosh had a .500 pre-season, but just has won 4 straight league games.

any one here pitt to the big 10 is a done deal?

pitt won 5 straight playing teams that are actually going to the NCAA tournament. Sean Miller’s record is irrelevant.

Unfortunately there are no gimmies left on Pitt’s schedule. We are what we are….just make some FT’s and get back that end of game tenaciousness and we’ll be fine. That was a very good USF team we played today. It says here Pitt will go 6-3 the balance of the schedule.

I wasn’t trying to compare Arizona to Pitt .. just that Sean continues to be a good coach. Maybe if Jamie becomes discontented with the move to the BE, he and Sean can switch positions … especially since Sean has some midwest recruiting experience. (I’m not real serious here)

Mike I heard that rumor too, that it’s going to happen this week.

Arizona can keep Sean Miller. Jamie Dixon might be the best coach in college basketball.

Not to mention Pitt would be undefeated and tear through the Pac 10.

There is no reason for going less than .500 in conference play with our full compliment of players.

I can’t wait to hear the negative nillies backpedal when we go down to Morganhole and win…

Also, I can’t wait for the East Coast homers to come out after the move to the B11 and predict the demise of recruiting. Like only NY/NJ/Philly/DC kids are the only talents in the country. If you ask me, I think our recruiting will increase tremendously in Football AND Basketball if we can start picking off the top recruits in the midwest under B11. Villanova, UCONN and the Cuse own the East Coast (elite recruits)….in spite of our tremendous run the last 10 years. If JD has proved anything, he can adjust.

Plus, I still think we will be able to play on the East Coast enough to keep our presence alive in that region.

Went to the game today. Disappointing outcome.
Games like Seton Hall and South Florida are must wins if you want to remain in the upper echelon of the league. Yes, they’re quality teams with some good players, but Pitt can’t let these games slip through their fingers and expect to make up ground against opponents like WVU and Nova. It’s not going to happen.
The loss of Dixon, supposedly our best defender, was tough. But I found it strange that the staff came out and put Woodall on James. That’s a questionable move at best and led to the early foul trouble for our only other ball handler besides Gibbs. it was also strange that they didn’t isolate Brown on James after James picked up his third foul with about 15 minutes left in the second half. A fourth puts him on the bench and essentially seals the game. South Florida ran every single offensive play for James. Without him, they’re dead in the water.
Throw in the technical and the fact that we rarely look to pass into the interior and I have to say that today was not coach Dixon’s best effort. We can’t keep operating from the perimeter for 30 seconds only to launch an ill-advised jumper as the shot clock winds down. I’m still trying to figure out what Dixon is trying to accomplish on the offensive end of the floor. I can’t see a clear system or approach and I think that’s hurting our performance. If Gibbs isn’t open after running through a couple of screens, we panic and heave up a prayer.
On a positive note, I think Gil was great today. Really assertive going to the basket and played decent defense against James. He was the only one who could stay in front of him and I’m not sure why Dixon didn’t start him in place of Woodall, shuffling Gibbs over to point.
Also, the Pitt fan support was great. I’d say at least 25-50% of the crowd was rooting for the Panthers this afternoon. Granted, USF doesn’t have the tradition or fan base of other Big East programs, but the Pitt contingent was definitely more vocal this afternoon.
Oh well. Moving on from this kick in the gut…
Let’s beat WVU on Wednesday! Hail to Pitt!

BTW – It’s interesting to see Levance Fields giving the current Panthers what-for on Twitter for a lack of focus during today’s loss:

link to twitter.com

Good to see former Panthers still invested in the program.

I’m aware that too often refs get blamed for loses, but it appeared to me that they certainly didn’t hurt USF’s chances today. Although Jones is a great player, he’s seems to be given a license to use his off hand when he drives, and establishing position with arms straight up doesn’t seem to deter Jones from plowing through players without receiving a charging call. Several times it appeared Pitt players were simply playing good position defense and were whistled for reaching in when their arms seemed to be directly above their heads. On the other hand, USF players were climbing all over McGhee’s back without fouling. The calls just seemed to be a little one side today in my opinion.

i too felt the ref were letting the usf guards use their strength for positioning…it is hard for us to complain alot of that when we had krauser and fields…..however, something on occasion has to be called, or at least not called, not these create the contact and get the and 1’s…..as i have said on here before, jamie dixon is not doing his best job right now and must go back to drawing board…if nasir starts next game it will be a shame, he has a role on this team, but being a starter and major contributor is not one of them….this team as i said before needs to be given the best oppurtunity to win…and the starting 5 minutes is poorly played game in and game out….and i will say again, why not try some new things, taylor at the 4 and so on…what can it hurt…insanity doing the same thing over and expecting different results…..j.j. has shown he also is a serviceable sub at the 5, so why just use taylor and mcghee…..zone zone zone….protect from those in the paint points….and fouling the penetrator….come on jamie, you see it, know it, now change it…the team can not get a hold of your man2man def….that does not mean it is bad, but might not be right for this team…and that is ok…

no reason to freak over this loss. We got shredded by one player, who benefited from our best defender Jermaine Dixon being out. He may not have shut him down, yet I doubt he would have given up that total. W/ Dixon Pitt wins.

It’s obvious, but not having Dixon to guard Jones at least some of the time hurt a ton. But you have to win games against teams like USF even when you’re not at full strength.

When Dixon is out and you have Gibbs and Woodall playing, then it’s a pretty bad defensive backcourt.

Gibbs just doesn’t look good. He’s passing shots up and starting to defer a lot, which he can’t do on this team. He’s never going to be great going to the hoop, but he has to play aggressively.

I also was disappointed in McGhee in that game. He had way more bulk than the USF frontcourt and just didn’t through his weight around enough. Don’t know how many pts he had, but he should have been able to get 12-14 and 10 boards against that team and it didn’t feel like he did that. Maybe that’s too much to expect from him, but Pitt’s got nothing else inside, so he has to produce.

Still think they can get to 10 wins…….

McGee had 8 points and 11 boards. One more field goal and he would have had a double double. Not bad for a player who was supposed to play behind our McDonalds all-American. How can anyone pick him out to be disappointed in when Robinson, Adams, Taylor and Woodall combined to score a total of 3 points.

I thought McGhee played to his capabilities, which is all we should expect from him. He rebounded, and generally played good post defense. At times his hands (or lack thereof) were exposed, but frankly, that is just one of his weak points. He’s never going to have great hands. That being said, we are getting far more from him than I thought we would.

The lack of scoring from the four guys that Shady mentions is not what lost this game – it was the inability to stop Jones. I’m not sure if they win the game with Dixon in there, but I agree with hugh that it would have been nice to have one more option on the court, particularly with the way Pitt was switching up.

I still think there was some potential good to come out of this game. First off, both Wanamaker and Brown had success taking their man off the dribble. I am hoping that this becomes the blueprint for the rest of the season – guys attacking the basket. Pitt is not a great outside shooting team, but they do have athletes who can get to the rim. This can (and in my opinion, should) become the identity on offense that this team has been lacking. When things go well, it will also free up Gibbs on the perimeter and clear space for rebounding.

I suppose that back in December most of us marked off expected wins and losses on the schedule to see if Pitt could make it to 10 wins. Not that it means anything, but on my sheet, this is the first game I had marked as a “W” that ended up being a “L”, and Pitt is still 2 games ahead of where I thought they would be. They need 5 more wins to make the NCAA’s, and they still have a really good shot.

McGee is the least of our problems. He scored as many points and as his Famous counterpart did and had 7 more rebounds. If you want him to score more or be an alternate option, somebody needs to get to Dixion and tell him to get McGee involved in the offense because his primary role in the offense is to set picks, block for the drive to the basket, and rebound all of which he is doing rather well. Yeah he doesn’t have the greatest of hands, but he isn’t getting enough touches to score a lot of points.

McGee also plays somewhat tentatively because if he fouls out there is literally nothing behind him.

And yes, we win the game if the combination of Robinson, Adams, Taylor and Woodall would have scored a not unreasonable average of 2 buckets apiece. They need to contribute both on defense and offense. And when Jones scores 37 they’re not cutting it on defense either.

I hate to think that Wanamaker and Brown taking their man off the dribble is two-thirds our offense.

Nice to see McGhee getting some love, he certainly has earned it. If this team had one more offensive threat they would be tough to beat, but sadly we don’t. We are passing up open looks because Dixon plays defense with his offense. Not a bad thing, but it often causes poor shot selection late in the clock. This team is what it is!! We can seemingly beat anyone on any given night, but we can be beaten by anyone on any given night. So much for life in the Big East. To be honest, I am more than happy with our record at this point of the season, because I truly believed we were going to get our butts hand to us this year. Thank you Pitt for proving me wrong.

tough loss but these things happen without any seniors playing. i was impressed with wanamaker not turning it over yesterday and gil needs to be more aggressive like that consistently. 3 things we need to do to make a tourney run: get maine healthy, play offense from the inside out even if that means guards penetrating, box out aggressively

Agree with drgags that Brown has to start. I can’t possibly understand the rationale for that not to happen.

And a greater effort has to be made to get the ball inside. McGee has some decent post moves and is gaining confidence. Even if he misses a few bunnies, has some balls bounce off of his hands here and there, some more inside out play will open things up for Gibbs on the perimeter and possibly draw some fouls on the other teams’ big men.

In the end last night’s loss, though, was very much about FTs (and, as others noted, what I thought was some pretty atrocious reffing) and just no production from role players. Sneaking out this win would have been great, particularly before an away game at the hoopies.