Jermaine Dixon may have gotten a trans-Atlantic peptalk at 3 am, but that lack of sleep might have had something to do with 3-15 shooting.
Dixon still draws a lot of his motivation from Fields, who is currently playing in Russia. The two speak regularly on the computer. Dixon, in fact, called Fields at 3 a.m. yesterday morning to get some last-minute inspiration.
“I couldn’t sleep,” Dixon said. “And it’s the middle of the morning over there. I asked him how he was going over there and he told me make sure we get the victory and make sure we play hard and our goal should be to win the Big East.”
Isn’t Skype great? On a personal level for Jermaine Dixon, it was a measure of revenge. He doesn’t pretend otherwise.
“This one feels pretty good,” Dixon said with just about the biggest grin you’ll ever see on a college kid’s face.
Dixon enjoyed frustrating Scottie Reynolds for most of the game. Reynolds for his part was frustrated that he couldn’t penetrate with ease.
Brace yourself for this, but Doug Gottlieb had a good breakdown of what Pitt did to stop Reynolds in the game in College GameDay Final Sunday night/Monday morning. He showed how Pitt made sure someone always stayed between Reynolds and the basket to force him to give it up or pass out rather than go to the hoop and/or draw the foul on a big guy inside. Even when Pitt switched up on the perimeter a Pitt player would actually slide in front and risk leaving a ‘Nova player open in the corners to keep Reynolds from the basket.
The way Reynolds was stopped and prevented from getting too close to the basket to just throw up the ball and draw the contact also frustrated ‘Nova Coach Jay Wright. That means it is time to play the game with the officials and media going forward.
Reynolds made 6 of his 11 field-goal attempts. He shot seven free throws, making six, but Wright, who was assessed a technical with 9:21 left in the first half after arguing the second of Reynolds’ two offensive fouls, indicated that he could have tried more.
“We played two great defensive teams that have done a great job on Scottie,” Wright said. “I’m a little concerned that he just gets banged around. They just hammer him. He used to get some respect. Now I don’t know what it is.”
Seemingly whiny and annoying. You bet. Of course, just ask Phil Jackson and Pat Riley about the necessity and effectiveness of doing it for games going forward, and you almost have to do it. As the coach you want any edge. Not to mention just making sure that your team doesn’t lose confidence just because they lose two in a row. The counter is that just wildly throwing yourself into somebody should not get you a foul call.
Besides, the Wildcats have to deal with a suddenly emptying bandwagon. Doubts are everywhere about this team (gee, this seems familiar) and they have to make sure the losses don’t let it get to them — especially with a game at the Carrier Dome on Saturday.
And to be fair, Wright was duly complimentary about Pitt’s performance and atmosphere.
“This is a great place to play. It’s really cool,” Villanova coach Jay Wright said. “I think the toughest thing about coming here though is Pitt’s team. They control the tempo here, and they are able to get to the free-throw line here.
“They make it a point of controlling the glass on offense and getting another possession.”
The Panthers outscored the Wildcats, 16-7, on second chance opportunities, but Wright said Pitt’s 21 offensive rebounds did more than just hurt Villanova on the scoreboard.
“They wanted to shorten the game,” Wright said. “We tried to press, but Pitt is a hard team to speed up. They ran clock, and if they missed, they were able to get offensive rebounds and do it all over again.”
Wright doesn’t see a rebuilding team, but a team that has been preparing going back to last year.
“I think [Jamie Dixon] did a good job with these guys last year, preparing them for this season” Wright said. “This isn’t surprising. Ashton Gibbs, Brad Wanamaker, Nasir Robinson – they were all in last year at crucial times. Gilbert Brown has been in the program for awhile.
“Jamie did a great job of having them ready for when it was their turn.”
Dixon, Brown, Wanamaker and Gibbs combined to play 76 minutes in that loss to Villanova last season, and both Robinson and McGhee saw time during the NCAA tournament despite big names like Young, Blair and Fields taking all the headlines.
Even Sunday, with just one senior (Dixon) on the roster, Jamie Dixon was preparing his team for the future.
When Ashton Gibbs, the most reliable free throw shooter on the team, lost his touch late in the game, Pitt got the ball to Travon Woodall. The freshman, who is shooting just 64 percent from the free throw line this season, nailed four straight from the charity stripe in the final 12 seconds to ice the game.
“He was really good out there,” Jamie Dixon said regarding Woodall. “In the second half, we had him in there for most of the half. He was really good, and he controlled tempo out there by defending. He’s a freshman, and he’s been getting better every game.”
Did we mention that former Pitt running back LeSean McCoy, now an Eagle, took it all in from midcourt?
“They shortened the game,” Wright said. “That’s the strength of their team. You’re not going to speed them up. They never once tried to beat our press. They run clock, get an offensive rebound, do it again. When they missed a big play, they got another opportunity.”
The Panthers only shot 20-for-57, but 21 of their 40 boards did indeed come, as Wright noted, off the offensive glass. They shot 26-for-34 at the line. Gilbert Brown had 16 in 24 minutes off the bench. It’s how the best defensive team in the conference tries to get it done.
“They’re just physically tough,” said Reynolds. “They can do a lot of different schemes on their defense. When you play good defense and give up an offensive rebound, it’s like breaking your back.”
Not to mention LaRod Stephens-Howling and a lot of football recruits finishing their junior year of high scho0l. It really couldn’t have been a better game and atmosphere for football recruiting.
The players are sticking with their belief that the goal of winning the Big East is still in their grasp.
“It means we’re a step closer to the Big East regular-season title,” Dixon said.
While the immediate gratification of revenge might be sweeter to fans, the long-term implications of this win could in fact be far more rewarding for the Panthers.
With Villanova in the rearview mirror, Pitt will be favored to win all four of its remaining games. While penciling in a win in the Big East is always dangerous, at Notre Dame, at St. John’s, home against Providence and home against Rutgers isn’t a murderers’ row.
Meantime, the teams in front of or tied in the win column with the Panthers all have queasier finishing slates.
More important — Pitt has the tiebreaker against two of the top three, having pulled off victories against Syracuse and Villanova, and splitting with West Virginia.
Quick: Who had Pittsburgh with a chance to win the Big East back in October? (Players’ families and girlfriends are disqualified.)
“We believed it,” Gilbert Brown said. “We looked at the team we had, the types of players and talent and we had a lot of confidence. We knew a lot of people wrote us off but we thought we were as good as anyone in the country. That was our mindset from the start.”
Pitt is still two games behind Syracuse and a game behind ‘Nova with 4 to go. That means Pitt has to sweep, Villanova lose at least one more game and Syracuse lose two of these four games: at Providence, Villanova, St. John’s and at Louisville — just to tie. Realistically, if Pitt finishes in the top-four and gets the double-bye in the BET it will be hard to complain.
I have to admit, there are games where I don’t want my kids around me when I’m watching. It’s hard to keep language and behavior in check. Let alone if I was actually a coach.
Shannon Dixon, 5, is like most people who attend Pitt home games. She sees her father roaming the sideline with a stern look on his face, working the officials and screaming at his players, never seeming to enjoy himself.
That all changed Sunday when young Shannon actually saw her father crack a smile after No. 19 Pitt defeated No. 3 Villanova, 70-65, at Petersen Events Center.
“She said that was the first time she saw that,” Dixon said at postgame news conference. “She calls me mad dad at games.”
Finally, a useless factoid that just strikes me as very funny. While Gilbert Brown was serving his academic suspension he spent most of his work-outs and practicing on his own at the Squirrel Hill JCC. Just visualize him in some pick-up games there.
