That’s kind of what it feels like. Even as a fan, I was feeling a little of the grind of the season. No chance to sit back and look at things. Always having to look for the next bit of news and hint as to what is next.
Now, Pitt with several days off, and really just Big East accolades as the primary storylines. The other teams can start playing and I can just enjoy them for the most part.
Well, that and the status of Jermaine Dixon’s ankle. No news on that yet.
While, as expected, Pitt placed only 1 player in 18 spots for various levels of All-Big East, Pitt is in the running for some individual accolades.
Since the conference instituted the Most Improved Player award in 1997, five Pitt players have won — Sam Young, Aaron Gray, Carl Krauser, Brandin Knight and Ricardo Greer. During that span, only one other school has won the award more than once (Syracuse, three).
It is the postseason award that Dixon and his staff hold most dear.
Gibbs, a Scotch Plains, N.J., native, is averaging a team-best 16.2 points and enhanced his case with a 25-footer at the buzzer to beat Providence, 73-71, on Thursday at Petersen Events Center. Gibbs averaged 4.3 points per game off the bench as a freshman.
Other top candidates for the award are Providence junior Jamine Peterson (19.0 ppg, 10.0 rpg) and Notre Dame sophomore Tim Abromaitis (17.2 ppg), both of whom redshirted last season, along with Marquette’s Jimmy Butler, Georgetown’s Austin Freeman and West Virginia’s Kevin Jones.
Pitt also is in the running for other awards — all based on coaches’ voting — that will be announced today. Senior guard Jermaine Dixon is a possibility for Defensive Player of the Year and the Sportsmanship Award, and junior forward Gilbert Brown is a factor for the Sixth Man of the Year award.
Dixon will have to beat out players such as Rutgers center Hamady Ndiaye (4.5 blocks per game), Andy Rautins of Syracuse and Jerome Dyson of Connecticut to give Pitt its first Defensive Player of the Year trophy since the award began in 1982.
Syracuse sophomore forward Kris Joseph (11.0 ppg, 5.4 rpg) is a heavy favorite for the Sixth Man Award, ahead of Gavin Edwards of Connecticut, Dwight Hardy of St. John’s and Brown.
Well, the news is tweeted. Congrats to Ashton Gibbs.
Pittsburgh’s Ashton Gibbs was named the BIG EAST Most Improved Player.
Keepeing the streak of every other year for MIP going.
I figured Most Improved would be between Gibbs and Abromaitis. Peterson is hurt by how bad the Friars are and the skewing of offensive numbers. The edge for Gibbs is the extra exposure he has gotten. Abromaitis has spent most of the season in the shadow of Harnagody. Also, Gibbs has had to do a lot more in running the team.
Really don’t see Jermaine Dixon and Gilbert Brown winning Defensive Player and Sixth Man awards. Not sure that he will get it with all the games he has missed. As for Brown, well that one is almost certainly going to Joseph of Syracuse.
And yes it did. Also Hamady Ndiaye of Rutgers took defensive player of the year.
Then there is BE Coach of the Year. Again, have to expect Boeheim to take that one. I’m okay with it, but a tie would be nice.
For all of the well-deserved criticism the Big East gets for generally copping out when it comes to league awards — there’s a six-man all-conference first-team and a co-something almost every year — this is one time when co-Coach of the Year may be the only way to go. Boeheim took a Syracuse team tabbed for sixth in the coaches’ pre-season poll and led the Orange to the outright league title and a certain No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament. But Dixon took a Pitt team ravaged by personnel losses and picked for ninth in the pre-season to a tie for second — and the No. 2 seed in the Big East Tournament. Villanova and West Virginia have lower Big East Tournament seeds but will have higher NCAA Tournament seeds than the Panthers.
Basketball Prospectus breaks down the Big East Tournament in Log5 style to say Pitt is a distant 4th in best chance to win it. Seems about right to me.
Finally, while this has nothing to do with Pitt, recommended read is the NY Times examination of Seton Hall’s Bobby Gonzalez.
“He has a tremendous skill for being able to alienate himself from everyone,” said Emanuel Richardson, an assistant at the University of Arizona who has known Gonzalez since his days as a high school assistant 20 years ago. “He uses that as a mechanism to act the way he does. It’s his gift and curse. When I’d recruit against him he’d tell me, ‘You’re a shark, but I’m a great white.'”
In a side story talking about his time at Manhattan, it sums it up.
…Athletic Director Bob Byrnes told a story about the bus company Manhattan used to travel to games.
“The guy who runs the bus company called me and said something to the effect of: ‘I have 131 drivers that drive for us. But we’re down to one guy that will drive for Bobby Gonzalez,'” Byrnes said.
I still cringe at the thought that Sonny Vaccarro — then at Adidas, the supplier of Pitt gear — once pushed for him to get the Pitt job after Howland left.
Peterson was definitely impressive against Pitt, but his team didn’t end up near the top of the conference with him at the helm.
Abromaitis is similar, playing in Harangody’s shadow, as PITTapotamus mentioned. Sure, his numbers have skyrocketed, but it was all done more quietly, and he didn’t have a bullseye on his back like Gibbs.
In my mind, most improved player should be someone whose numbers do go up significantly, but much more importantly, propels their team to a much higher level and is likely labeled as the “key” to their success. Maybe if Harangody had gone down earlier in the season Abromaitis would have won the award since he would have become a more obvious part of the offense. I don’t think Pitt fans would have complained if Abromaitis won it, just like we won’t complain if Boeheim wins COY. But that doesn’t mean that the coaches were sleeping at the wheel.
My vote for Gibbs as most Valuable Pitt Player.
I’d imagine Brown officially moves into the starting line up and Gibbs and Wanamaker are locks to remain.
So then the questions is who starts at center? Does Taylor remain at center?
This is of course assuming no freshman crack the lineup, which seems like a safe assumption knowing Jamie Dixon, unless your name is DeJuan Blair.
Dixon also tends to give deference to seniors, so if Taylor is still slotted in at C I suspect McGhee starts, especially since he’s become a pretty respectable option.
I’d imagine some of the possible iterations would look like this:
PG – Gibbs
SG – Wanamaker
SF – Brown
PF – Taylor
C – McGhee
PG – Woodall
SG – Gibbs
SF – Wanamaker
PF – Brown
C – Taylor/McGhee
Good point by Omar on the redshirts too.
As far as Gibbs vs. McGhee: I agree McGhee has come surprisingly far, but Gibbs has come farther. Which guy is the one we need on the floor most of the game? Which guy MUST be on the floor at the end of the game, of everyone on the entire team? He was not that guy last year nor was he expected to be this year. There’s your answer.
i like the first starting line-up defensively and the second one on offense. it will be difficult to play the second line-up against a team with a really good 2 and 4. gibbs won’t be able to stay with a really athletic 2 and brown won’t be able to stay with a really physical 4.
the first line-up only has one true hole on defense and that is an uber-quick, penetrating point guard. the rest of the team could really hold up well defensively.
i think pitt will try to get travon on the floor as much as possible, therefore i think option 2 is the front-runner right now. woodall will be given every opportunity to succeed next year. i hope he can deliver.
Don’t count Nas out of the mix. He started all year, he’ll work hard to improve in the offseason and we’ll need someone to replace Dixon as the defensive stopper. He could end up starting at the 3 or stay at the 4.
There are just too many possible combinations to think about. That’s a nice problem to have. Not sure it really matters anyway, because it’s really about who’ll get the minutes.
Here’s the link:
link to sports.espn.go.com
Congratulations, Ashton—Well DONE! You earned it!
Hail to PITT!
-al-
I will say, that if we think Peterson’s numbers are inflated, how the hell do we explain Wannamaker’s numbers? Surely it is not smoke and mirrors, but if anybody’s stats should be given the eye test, IMHO, it would be Wannamakers.
Mark: Go back and read all the comments instead of arguing semantics over one person’s comment. You’ll see a number of good points on why Gibbs won over Peterson and the others. And, you’ll see that most would be satisfied and understand if we had been completely shut out. But we’re freaking Pitt fans here. Pitt is in the name of the blog for heaven sake. What do you expect – a bunch of negative?
You should follow your own advise.
“Go back and read all the comments instead of arguing semantics over one person’s comment.”
also i heard epps was promised playing time next year, and it was a deciding factor for him to pick pitt.
Losing Jermaine will hurt, no doubt. But the improvement of everyone else and the additions of Epps et al, Pitt still should be better. The question is HOW MUCH BETTER?
Jamie will give the seniors/juniors first crack at the starting positions. So my guess will be:
Gibbs
Wanamaker
Brown
Robinson
McGhee
Woodall will be the third guard and get a ton of minutes/opportunity. Taylor will be the third big kind of like Biggs was last year, he’ll either come in for Gary or Nas, then move over to the other spot. If Dante is slow to develop, I could see Gil moving to the four at the 15 minute sub, Brad moving to the three and Gibbs moving to the two when Woodall comes in.
Richardson, Patterson and Zanna will likely get some minutes, but there are only 200 minutes available and with the others coming back, it will be tough to find too many for them. I expect that Miller will counseled to transfer.
Moore and Wright (and maybe Walker?) will be likely redshirt candidates. Unless they come in and really tear it up.
The key to whether Pitt will be a lot better (re: Final Four contender better) will be Epps and Taylor. On paper, those two guys have the necessary pedigree to fill the current weaknesses of this team. 1) Big, reliable TRUE point guard 2) Big Reliable TRUE power forward. Only a TRUE optimist expects them to take that step, but hey, why not dream a little?
Spot on.
The only comments I would like to add to what you already said, is that Epps is tall but at 170 pounds he isn’t big and Moore may have to sit out the year due to academics. And that unless Epps is a defensive demon, Woodall will get the call because he’s got more experience.
So, let me change the angle on this thread slightly to how the minutes get divided. Here’s my average minutes per game guess, at this moment in time:
Gibbs – 28
Wanny – 27
Brown – 25
McGhee – 22
Robinson – 22
Taylor – 21
Woodall – 20
Epps – 12
Richardson – 11
Patterson – 7
Zanna – 5
Looking at this against last year, some player’s minutes stay the same or go down. However, some are skewed by the fact that Dixon and Brown were out about 1/3 of the season, so this year’s total is 240/game. My guess is based on 200/game.
I think Gibbs and Wanny get a little more rest because of the depth, which is good. I think it will be hard keeping Taylor off the court next year so he’ll probably work both the 4 and 5 as you suspect taking minutes from Nas and McGhee. I think Woodall gets his opportunity as suggested. And I think Epps gets a lot of “grooming” PT especially if Snala’s source is right about that being a promise. Again, this is my guess at this moment in time.
Thoughts, anyone?
“Probably the same people who thinks Jamie Dixon will be Coach of the Year, Jermaine Dixon would win Defensive Player of the Year, Gilbert Brown would win the 6th man award, and Wanamaker would make 3rd team.”
I don’t think I heard anyone (or very few) saying we would win these other awards. But to say they were not possible is just showing you have some strange bias against anyone on this team winning any type of award. All of these players/coach likely finish 2nd in the voting for these awards (aside from Wannamaker 3rd team, too many talented players in the BE) which means they are pretty darn close and worth condsideration. An argument could be made for Jermaine, Jamie, or Gil. However, people here aren’t screaming outrage if they lose because there are other excellent candidates.
Also, there is some precedent for a freshman to come in to pitt and light it up. Knight, Krauser and Fields were all productive early in their careers, particularly by the END of their freshman years.
The final piece of my argument is that other than Epps replacing Dixon, the names on the backs of the jersey’s will be the same as this year. No one is suggesting that this year’s team is a LEGIT final four contender. So for next year’s team to make that leap, they will need to make a big improvement somewhere. Certainly, there will be some natural, organic progression. They will be senior laden, a good thing for Pitt teams.
Woodall will be a nice player. Hugh Green (back when he used to post, where you at Hugh?) had the best analysis of his game and I wish I had saved it, but it was basically, he lacks the size to guard effectively and lacks the consistent shooting/offense to be a real threat on offense. Without them, he will never be the lead guard on a final four team. Those things probably won’t change. POTENTIALLY, Epps has those things.
Lastly, let me officially start the Taylor for Most Improved Player in 2011.
Epps being all that + Taylor being most improved + a little luck = Final Four 2011.
More of a dream than a predication. But that’s my story and I’m sticking to it.
And we all know how pitt grooms their talent… so we will be improved at all spots.
That, once again, brings it down to Epps and Woodall. I never said Woodall would be the Final Four starter. I said I thought Woodall would improve and that how things played out between he and Epps would determine whether we were a contender or pretender.
But if Epps is “all that” and Woodall still holds him at bay, then it must mean Woodall is also “all that” but in some different way. Either way it’s good for us.
I hope this explains my comment a little better and doesn’t start another rant on Woodall’s shortcomings.
Yep, tons of talent. Think about the Blue/Gold game next fall:
Blue:
Woodall
Wanamaker
Patterson
Robinson
McGhee
Reserves: Walker or Miller, Moore
Gold:
Epps
Gibbs
Brown
Taylor
Richardson
Reserves: Wright, Zanna
Who ya got? I think Gold by three. I’d pay to watch that!
Regardless, half the big east would take EITHER one of those squads going into next season.
Jay Williams has Jamie as BE coach of the Year. Gottleib (aka DOOFUS) has stan heath, SERIOUSLY?!?!?! Boeheim, sure. Even Buzz, maybe. But Stan Heath? Come on man.
