During the Pitt cruising over Cinci, Ashton Gibbs came up limping. He gutted out the rest of the game, so most of us hoped/assumed it was just a charley horse or some sort of minor issue. Well, compared to a torn ACL, it is still minor, but it isn’t a cramp.
Pitt men’s basketball junior guard Ashton Gibbs is sidelined with a left knee MCL injury and will not play at West Virginia on Monday.
Gibbs, the team’s leading scorer at 16.3 points per game, was injured in Pitt’s 71-59 victory over Cincinnati on Saturday. Team officials have not put a timetable on his return, but it’s expected he will be out 10-14 days.
That’s at least two big road games — at the Hoopies tomorrow and at Villanova for the marquee ESPN College GameDay night game.
Best case would be him coming back in time for the home game with USF before the road game at St. John’s. Otherwise, Gibbs might not be back until the home game with WVU.
Regardless, Travon Woodall has to slide into the starting role and more minutes. He and Brad Wanamaker have to pick-up a bit as both have been slumping lately.
The risk/reward of this is the potential for Lamar Patterson and J.J. Moore to see more minutes as well. The two bring more size, length and athleticism on the perimeter. Potentially creating better attacking of the basket along with Gil Brown.
While Gibbs isn’t Pitt’s best defender, he is consistent and does know where to be. Patterson and Moore will have to play tougher, better on the defensive end.
It’s a sprain. Not a tear, so it is more likely that some rest and rehab will deal with it (I hope).
for those who follow the Penguins, they have seen Crosby go down for an extended period of time 3 seasons ago and 2 season ago. Both times, the team eventually played well without him and when he returned, he was fresher and Pens made Cup finals in both years
Last year, he played entire year and Pens kind of faltered down the stretch and in early rounds of playoff.
Maybe this will make Gil, Wanny, Travon, JJ M, etc more self-sufficient and the tean won’t be so reliant on Ashton for scoring
Gibbs is a class guy and it’s really a bad break for him since he was really starting to become more than just a 3 point shooter and off a career high. (strange how that works sometimes)
Wannamaker & Brown are the seniors in the backcourt and this is their team, so it’s got to be on them to step up now. This is their time to shine. What’s going to be interesting to watch is who is going to be the recipient of Wanny’s passes when he dribble drives or does he take more outside shots off of Woodall dribble drives?
Also we’ll see if Epps or Wright have progressed enough in practice to warrant breaking a redshirt.
That also might have more to do with the severity of Gibb’s injury as well. I can’t imagine Dixon breaking a redshirt now, unless Gibb’s injury is more severe than we’re being told.
Anyway what a bummer, and this right on top of the Steelers losing. Let’s have a great effort tonight and Hail to Pitt !
To further expand, Woodall is excellent in transition, as is Wanny and Brown. Factor in that McGhee runs the court extremely well for a big man, as does Nas and Pitt played uptempo very well in the non-con and even in games against Marquette, Providence & Uconn. Gibbs only scored 9 points against Providence and Pitt still managed 83 points on the road. Pitt also scored 80 against DePaul on the road with Gibbs having an off night. I like our chances uptempo, not so much is a low scoring half court game.
Thoughts?
Also, I really hope Jamie doesn’t blow a redshirt on Epps or Wright for one game. We’re going to make the NCAA tournament even if we lose every game we have left, and Ashton’s only going to miss 2-3 games (one of which is SJU at home). To waste any redshirt at this point in the season would be even worse than Bostick’s appearance his “redshirt” freshman year (before Stull got the concussion the next game).
This isn’t the end of the world. At worst it costs us some seeding in the tournament. But it is a time for this team to deal with some adversity. I agree with the person who said ultimately this may make us tougher next month, when it really counts.
Moore just needs to stay within the confines of the offense and not get lost on defense, which seems to happen quite often.
So goes life and sports…injuries are part of the game.
Here’s hoping Ashton recovers thoroughly and the seniors (yeah, YOU GB, YOU WANNY, YOU MCGHEE) step up and show some leadership over the next couple of weeks…
What did Zanna do (or not do) to get himself so deeply entrenched in Dixon’s doghouse? The guy is supremely talented. He has a knack for grabbing rebounds, getting steals and blocking shots. But for some reason Jamie is reluctant to play him unless he’s absolutely forced to, then he has him on an extremely short leash. I don’t get it.
Oh, and for the record, Brad Wanamaker is a bad man. He was gimpy, but played HARD. He is as tough (both mentally and physically) a player as Pitt has had. If he is physically close to 100% healthy, I would be surprised if he doesn’t carry this team for a couple games.
Stillers lose
Pens lose, Malkin done for the year and who knows about Sid?
and now Gibbs out … can it get any qorse for the Pittsburgh fan?
Oh yea, I guess it can .. pitchers and catchers report next week
I think we’ll see a combo of Wanny and Woodall but have to manage their minutes because they’re it for PG duties. I expect to not see them on the court at the same time for very long.
I think we’re gonna have to go with a bigger/quicker line-up. Until Taylor comes back, its JJ spelling McGhee (which, hey, isn’t as big a drop as when Mcghee spelled Blair in ’08-’09 and we did OK-ish). More JJ Moore, Zanna and Patterson – no revoking reshirts. Gil/Moore are gonna have to be our 2 guards for most of the game — too risky to have Woodal and Brad in together for too long. But our crunch time line up has to be McGhee, Nas, Gil, Wanny & Woodall.
I agree with the sentiment that this should be a good thing in the long run. Don’t see us dropping below a 2, maybe 3 seed. That’s still a sweet 16 track, at which point seeding almost doesn’t matter anyway. During this stretch we should be able to just get better and not rely on Gibbs so much which I kinda thought we should be doing anyway.
We’ve still got 3 talented seniors to guide the ship and enough talent that this shouldn’t be a disastor of any sort. WVU/’Nova will be very tough, & can go either way. USF we should beat (a loss there is a disaster), then we should have our footing to run out the games until Gibbs gets back and we have a better team to go in to the final stretch and the tourny season. That’s the hope anyway.
As for Zanna, I think his defense is the problem with him not seeing the court. He is getting better of late. With most players and Dixon, if you can’t play defense you don’t play – example Moore.
This week is Travon’s chance to take the reigns and show that he’s matured. Two tough starts on the road. Last year in the triple overtime games against WVU, he came off the bench and provided energy, clutch scoring, and disuptive defense. Hopefully he’ll bring all those things, plus distribution tonight and Saturday. He needs to play with composure.
If Dante’s still out, we need Richardson to give us quality minutes. After last Saturday, he can only get better. He had some nice spot minutes in that game last year as well, so hopefully he’s holding on to that mentally after the shit show vs. Cincy.
Zanna played like crap the other night. He committed two turnover perimeter screen fouls, traveled, and could not finish on a couple of tough, but makeable looks close to the basket. 1 of 4 at the line. He had one decent rebound, a couple of steals, but pretty much nothing else. He’s a great athlete and is dependent on that natural ability at this point. It’s not surprising watching the other night that Patterson passed him on the depth chart and was getting more minutes at the 4. Wonder where that breakdown is going to fall tonight.?.?.
I don’t think Brown will play guard at all. Maybe I’m wrong. He hasn’t played 2 guard in a couple of years and you would prefer his ability on the wing. I guess if either Woodall or Wannamaker are out, we’ll see JJ Moore at the 2. Or maybe Patterson. After he turned the ball over trying to break the press, Moore was switched to inbounding the ball instead of being down floor. So we may see him play 2 in the halfcourt, but Brown may be involved in bringing the ball up with Wannamaker.
If I’m Huggy and Coach Wright, I might consider pressuring Pitt a little more than usual. If not full-court, then half-court, or at least nominal pressure. This would be to shorten the shot clock, let Pitt swing passes around, and force Woodall, Wannamaker, and/or Brown to beat them at shooting. Both Rutgers and Cincy did this and both times we fell back on Gibbs to drain shots. Just my take.
As far as a defensive press, that is not in Dixon’s scheme of things. However with this team having athletic wings and a big guy who can block shots, they should be practicing a full court press for that game where they are behind by 3 or 4 baskets with 3 minutes or less left. You know like in the NCAA’s. They could put it into practice…say against…a USF in the first half, just to get some real game practice in it should the dire need arise, that they have to use it.
There’s really no reason why this team and future Pitt teams (as we’re recruiting better athletes now) shouldn’t be able to press other teams. As you know, pressing teams do not like to be pressed themselves. And that means Louisville, Georgetown and several others.
And …no….I’m not expecting a press tonight. But I would like to see uptempo, as I’m sure Huggins is expecting half court. Let’s make other teams react to us rather than vice versa.
HTP!
Also, Pitt now has the athletes to play uptempo unlike in past years. Maybe Dixon could change it up every so often. I’d love to see it but I guess I won’t hold my breath.
From what I’ve heard about the show Jersey Shore, somehow that doesn’t surprise me. Although everyone I know from Jersey is pretty cool including ALL of OUR PITT ALUM from NJ.
Let’s go Pitt !
This is a story that will likely get lost around the ‘Burgh today, but come Monday against WVU, it will sound pretty devastating to Pitt’s season.