I feel a little conflicted about how much I should read into this game.
It’s February, so every game seems to take on a deeper meaning. That there should be so much subtext and things to analyze. Yet… if this took place back in November or December, I would essentially view this game as about what I expected. Ultimately, that is the way I feel like looking at this. There’s a danger in trying to read too much into a non-con game against a noticeably inferior team.
RMU came out firing and hard charging as a scrappy local team would want to do against the big cat in the area. Pitt was caught off guard at first, but slowly in the first half began to to take control. The Panthers blitzed RMU in the first five minutes of the second half to make sure the outcome would never be in doubt.
“We did a lot of switching and we weren’t closing in the first half,” Jermaine Dixon said. “Coach got on us at halftime, and they shot 26 percent in the second half.”
Pitt also started going inside against the Colonials in the second half. Gary McGhee, who was held scoreless in the first half without a shot, scored the opening two baskets of the second half as Pitt went on an 8-0 run. McGhee scored eight points in the second half.
“I was afraid they’d go to him early,” Robert Morris coach Mike Rice said. “He sets up so close to the basket, he’s like a wall.
“We were able to play with them. We probably played our best basketball of the season in the first half and we were still down six at halftime. They made adjustments and made it more difficult for us in the second half.”
There was the obligatory run by RMU to try and salvage pride coupled with a bit of a letdown by Pitt’s play. Then reassertion and in the end a 77-53 dismantling.
The best you can say about it, is that coupled with the Seton Hall rout, it furthered the confidence re-building on offense.
Dixon tied a season-high with three 3-pointers and scored 18 points.
For Gibbs, it was his first 20-point game in more than two weeks. He had not scored more than 14 points in any of the previous four games.
“It felt good,” Gibbs said. “It’s something I’ve been working on consistently. I knew they would fall sooner or later. I was finally connecting. My teammates did a good job of finding me in open spots and I took advantage of it.”
Dixon came into the game shooting 22 percent from 3-point range, but he made three of his first four 3-point attempts Monday night.
“I don’t think I was shying away [from taking 3-pointers],” Dixon said. “I’d rather drive to the paint. With someone closing out on me, I feel like I can beat them to the basket. But I have to take that 3 sometimes to keep people honest. Today, knocking them down, it felt good for me. I’m knocking them down more in practice. I had some confidence coming into the game with my shot.”
Of more interest, and maybe a little more of a coincidence than the story paints, Jermaine Dixon hadn’t been involved in a lot of team practices for the past few weeks.
Pitt’s recent slide — the Panthers lost four of five games before beating Robert Morris 77-53 Monday night for their second straight win — coincided with Dixon’s absence from practice. Certainly, sitting out the South Florida game directly resulted in 37 points from Dominique Jones. But Dixon wasn’t practicing before that injury because of twice-broken metatarsals in his foot.
“For three weeks,” coach Jamie Dixon said, “he didn’t practice but played. It’s not good to play once or twice a week and not to practice between games. We did that with Levance (Fields two seasons ago). It’s not good.”
Jermaine Dixon’s ability as a shutdown defender didn’t seem to be affected much. What was evident was his offense in particular and the team’s in general. Since a career-high 21 points in that January upset of Syracuse, Dixon shot 25 of 72 (.347) in his next seven games, not scoring more than 14 in any of those.
…
“He’s a different player and we’re a different team when Jermaine practices,” Coach Dixon said. “Him practicing makes us a better team.”
RMU Coach Mike Rice still doesn’t like to have played the game in February, disrupting the NEC schedule, and being little more than a warm-up for Pitt before WVU.
Not sure I see it that way for Pitt. Yes, WVU had the far more difficult game in their loss to ‘Nova last night. But the WVU-Pitt game isn’t until Friday night. Plenty of time for both teams to get much more meaningful action in practice and forget about Monday night’s games.
