The Bearcats are better than they were last year. They have slowly, painfully, grudgingly gotten a little better every year since Mick Cronin took over the team. The talent has improved. They have gotten a touch more consistent. Yet, they remain mired somewhere in the middle of the Big East. Somewhere in that 7th-12th best team.
Some of that is certainly attributable to the fact that the Big East is so tough and strong, and that teams at the top (and even upper-middle) just haven’t budged much.
“I refer to the situation that Mick went into as being about as close to a death penalty as there was in college basketball,” Dixon said, “because they really had no players at all once he got the job. They have gotten better every year and that is more than you can ask. Getting better every year is another rare and nearly impossible feat to do in our conference because, you need some teams to take a step backward.
“There have been a lot of teams in our league waiting for teams to take a step backward and there haven’t been too many of those.”
This year, especially, the wide swath of the middle. That encompasses the 5th to 12th teams looks so much stronger. Cinci, St. John’s, WVU, Marquette, Syracuse, Georgetown, UConn, Seton Hall. Heck Providence and Rutgers at 13th and 14th. A lot of improved teams that give tough conference battles, but don’t still find themselves near their usual spots in the conference.
Cinci still finds itself stuck there. Not able to beat the better teams. Like last year, they remain a fringe NCAA Tourney team, despite an inflated 18 win total. They just haven’t beaten anyone of note. Their best win this season is against Xavier. Their best conference win came against St. John’s. They have a non-con SOS of 298.
So yeah, the Bearcats are looking for that “signature win.”
“You need those signature wins to get in,” Gates said. “I think we still need to go out and get one.”
It’s not like the Bearcats won’t have plenty of chances. Of their remaining nine games, six are against teams ranked in the RPI top 22 as of Thursday.
UC (18-4 overall, 5-4) is 1-4 vs. teams in the RPI top 25, 2-4 vs. the top 50, 6-4 vs. the top 100, and 8-0 against teams ranked 201 and above. The Bearcats were No. 40 in the RPI on Thursday.
Cronin claims not to be paying attention to this stuff, but you know he is.
Over on the Pitt side, the team has been off for a week. And thanks for that. Made focusing on NSD that much easier. During the week off, the focus has been on getting back to their offensively efficient ways.
“We’ve got to do some things a little bit better,” coach Jamie Dixon said. “We really worked on our offense a lot this week.”
Against Notre Dame and Rutgers, Pitt (20-2, 8-1) shot 40 and 36 percent from the floor, respectively. The normally ball-sharing Panthers also had season-worst totals in assists, managing only nine in the 56-51 loss to the Irish and eight in the 65-62 win at Rutgers, far below its per-game average of 18.8, which ranks second in the nation.
“We didn’t move the ball as well as we have been,” center Gary McGhee said. “We weren’t setting screens and getting other guys shots. We were looking to get our own at times. We’re trying to get that changed.”
The off-target shooting and lack of ball movement was a departure from the Panthers’ earlier success, which they rode to a spot among the national leaders in numerous offensive categories.
Cinci can be a painful team on offense, so for another game, Pitt will be facing a team that plays a very physical defense and will try to keep the pace slow.
In practice, Dante Taylor banged knees with a teammate, and will have an MRI done to see if there is anything major. No one really seems worried at this point, though he is questionable for the game.
In other stories, a pleasant puff piece on Ashton Gibbs and always working at being better — at everything.
“I’m definitely trying to make my game more versatile, trying to do more floaters in the lane and get to the basket more and more ball handling work,” says Gibbs. “Just trying to mix everything up and expand my game more to help the team.” Helping the team is something Gibbs has done since arriving at Pitt, while also managing his time to make sure he takes care of the academic side too.
Gibbs currently carries a 3.3/3.4 GPA as a Communications major, something he’d like to improve upon (surprise right?). “I’d like to get it up to at least a 3.5,” says Gibbs, “it’s like having two full time jobs so time management is key, but I definitely want to get the GPA up a little.” Gibbs plans on using his degree to go into broadcasting, sports, or something in that area if he doesn’t end up coaching.
“I’m real interested in broadcasting or commentating or worse comes to worse I’ll be a coach,” says Gibbs. “I just want to be around the game of basketball and sports in general so that’s why I take pride in my schoolwork and why I just have to keep it up both on and off the court.” Gibbs hit a huge jumper against Rutgers, just the latest in a series of big shots he’s hit in the last few years that helped Pitt get a tight win.
There’s also a good story on freshman walk-on Aron Nwanko trying to balance the adjustment to college, being a walk-on and pre-med.
“Everything I do: education, sports, whatever—I want to be the best,” he said.
Nwankwo had the opportunity to play on scholarship at other universities as Division 1, Division 2 and Division 3 schools, including Johns Hopkins, Penn State, Elon and NJIT, recruited him out of high school. But academics were his first priority.
“I chose here [Pittsburgh] because I liked the school best and I got to play basketball, so I didn’t really pursue the other schools that were recruiting me,” he said.
Nwankwo attended Baltimore City College High School and he said Pitt also appealed to him because it wasn’t too far from home. He graduated with a 4.0 GPA and played for a Black Knights team that won two consecutive Class 2A state titles.
Even before he was offered a walk-on spot by Coach Dixon, Pitt had offered him a full academic scholarship. Goddamned overachievers.
Finally a post talking about Gilbert Brown maturing into his role in this Pitt team.
The Cinci game is a ESPN regional game at 6pm on Saturday. There will be a liveblog, as you would expect.
I thought Ashton really put us on his shoulders for that game. He scored some tough baskets in the lane, including a surprising high degree of difficulty one in transition, that showed a fearlessness that we haven’t seen from him. He forced a couple, but hey. I could see he was trying to up that part of his game.….That late 3 to win it almost just seemed inevitable…First game to see him in person since the whole “defensive liability” conversation. I’m not seeing it. He’s not elite speed, but not slow or a weak link that’s getting his ankles broken off the dribble….Woodall, who’s probably the quickest player on the team, got burned a few times. Tough game overall for Woody actually.
Continue to be impressed with Lamar Patterson’s court vision, hustle, and versatility. Looking back at the stats, he only had 1 assist, but I think McGhee or Robinson missed or a foul was called on a couple of nice looks. He committed a bad late traveling turnover, but he saw a lot of action in place of Robinson down the stretch- which I thought was interesting. In Lamar, does anyone else feel like they are looking at this generation’s Jaron Brown- albeit as a forward? He seems destined to make Seth Davis’ “All Glue Guy” team.
With Taylor banged up, I suppose Richardson may see some spot minutes at the 5.
Agree with your take on Patterson. I really like the maturity of his game and never worry when he’s in there in pressure situations. One difference between him and J Brown though is that he has a reliable long-range shot, which I’m sure he’ll take more often as his role grows in the coming years. That will make him even more valuable.
but just
part of the heart
Last I checked, DraftExpress had Gil late second round- link to draftexpress.com…but he also, at 23, is the oldest player on the board.
Maybe this is too simplistic (or just entirely off base), but, again, I’d be curious to hear if anybody agrees/disagrees.
There are variations .. Gil, Wanny and even Travon can win a one-on-one and penetrate but I believe Ashton benefits from the offense that Pitt runs. I think Pitt’s wekness is when they are not hitting their outside shots, they cannot feed the low post for scoring the last 2 years as they had in the past.
Disagree on the bench thing. Woodall, Patterson, Taylor, and Zanna are all in the regular rotation. If you discount Zanna’s minutes, we are about 8.5 deep, which is plenty. For 2 years people here complained the Gilbert Brown wasn’t getting enough minutes, now you’re saying he should give up minutes for a freshman? Woodall goes 0-6 in a tight game on the road, but needs more minutes? The team is usually at it’s best with the starting five.
That being said, the bench isn’t quite the boon I expected it would be.
@Carmen – I too would like to see the offense stay agressive through games. I don’t think its an issue of Dixon worrying that we don’t have the bench support if fouls are an issue. I think its more an issue of Dixon and his players believing in his system, almost to a fault.
Those gaudy offensive efficiency #s are hard to argue with. And half-way thru the BE sched, we’re 20-2 (granted the toughest part is still ahead). A few slow games against grinding teams, should compel anyone to do anything too drastic.
That being said, I’d like to see, as a slight adjustment, a little more aggression. I think it could put the slow grinding defenses on their heels a little and take the NDs of the world out of their game a little bit.
Particularly, I really want that aggression to come from Gil. He’s Pitt’s most effective dribble-driver in my view — despite all the Wanny love we all have, he’s less effective going to the hoop in half court sets than he is in transition (where he’s outstanding). Gil’s length allows him to do a little more in the air, his ball handling is equivalent to Wanny’s and he’s more likely to get fouled than Wanny.
I *want* him to be the guy, but i don’t know that he can be that guy. If he can, to me we’re a clear final four team. But of course, we’ve sort of been waiting for 4yrs and we’ve yet to see the Sam Young in him. (nonetheless, i still like what Gil brings, moreso than most posters)
Of course even with out that aggression, again, we’re a top 5 team.
Lastly, say a prayer that Recardo Ledo’s going to consider coming to Pitt in 2012. Long shot but anything’s possible.
And bench playing time decreased to a mere 20% in the ND game.
I think when this happens players become wary of becoming too aggressive because of potential foul trouble. For example, we committed only 14 fouls vs. ND.
And we were definitely not aggressive defensively in that game.
Here are previous years’ bench time contributions:
2010 29.9% rank 155
2009 29.2% rank 211
2008 29.2% rank 213
2007 31.8% rank 120
Pitt is certainly not like a L’ville, putting defensive pressure all over the court. Theirs is around 39% this year, ranking them #30.
I would actually love to see more defensive pressure this year given our relatively longer bench.
Who cares where our bench is ranked? I don’t don’t see how that yields a conclusion that we need to play them more to make a deep run in the tournament. Some of these guys may actually play less in the NCAAs. And weren’t you the one last week complaining about how clueless Zanna is? Now you’re advocating more minutes for him during the most important stretch of the season?
We go plenty deep on this team and can go more minutes if the situation calls for it. The starting 5 are 3 seniors and 2 heady, experienced juniors. Fear of fouling isn’t an issue. I agree that the team sometimes looks non-aggressive on defense for stretches. But the solution is playing with more intensity. Not dumping more underclassmen into the mix.
This year I think we’ve got better guys on the bench than previous versions of our Panthers. This could make the difference at least defensively.
(And my only comment about Zanna was that he was playing less.)
Could definitely hear the Panther faithful loud and clear during the broadcast of the RUT game. It was good stuff. Thanks for making us proud.
SilverPanther, I think that I was sitting with you at the buffet. If so, you are well versed on Pitt basketball.
