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February 6, 2011

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.





Can anyone speak to the medical implications of this injury? Will 10-14 days fully heal the MCL, or could this be a lingering problem? Can he come back at 100%, or will it be awhile? Will he be susceptible to re-injury?

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.

Comment by Lou 02.06.11 @ 4:43 pm

It will be tough losing Ashton Gibbs for the upcoming stretch drive. He’s the one who was shooting well. His three pointer in the Rutgers game was the big difference that sealed the win. We have two games with Villanova, West Virginia, so even if he makes it back for the home game at the Pete against WVU, they will have road games at WVU, Villanova and St. Johns. The rest of the team will have to play very well.

Comment by Justinian 02.06.11 @ 4:47 pm

What a mess!

Comment by Omar 02.06.11 @ 4:47 pm

Gibbs has a sprain of the MCL. As long as it responds well to taking it easy then he can come back. Nas had a torn meniscus and surgery. Back w/in 6 weeks I believe. As long as surgery isn’t necessary, Gibbs can come back with some reasonable speed,

It’s a sprain. Not a tear, so it is more likely that some rest and rehab will deal with it (I hope).

Comment by Chas 02.06.11 @ 4:56 pm

scary given that Gibb’s really carried us a few of the past games. But perhaps an opportunity, even though there may be risk of a few losses, the team could find out it has a new offensive asset or two.

Comment by PantherP 02.06.11 @ 5:45 pm

lemons – lemonade
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

Comment by wbb 02.06.11 @ 6:07 pm

So who’s the first “guard” off the bench? Who backs up Woodall at PG? Wanny? (Know he backed up Levance his frosh season.) Can Moore/Patterson play the “2”? Gil?

Comment by Jason 02.06.11 @ 6:51 pm

Probably Gil because of is experience … doubt that he would use a redshirt (Epps or Wright) because a loss or 2 would ot be catastrophic

Comment by wbb 02.06.11 @ 7:27 pm

I just think it’ll be very intriguing as far as sub patterns, we’re so used to what we’ve seen so far

Comment by Jason 02.06.11 @ 8:40 pm

I think Wanamaker would have to slide down to the 1, with Moore playing the 2, Patterson/Brown at the 3, if Woodall needs to sit.

Comment by merlin 02.07.11 @ 12:39 am

Brown, Wanamaker and esp.ly Woodall have to watch out for stupid fouls on defense now. Wanamaker backs up the point position. Coach may want to consider taking the red shirt off Wright too. He has been practicing right along and could fit in at the shooting guard spot. Just a thought.

Comment by virgil 02.07.11 @ 7:34 am

While this isn’t a great thing by any means, it is hardly something that coach Dixon won’t adjust the team to. How many times over his run has he had some adversity (most recently last year) and gotten the team to perform? Maybe, like wbb said above, it will be a lemon to lemonade time for the team. A little adversity might get them strong come tourney time.

Comment by CN 02.07.11 @ 8:19 am

We’re going to see how “deep” this team truly is now. Not that I wanted to see it happen this way.
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 !

Comment by melvinbennett 02.07.11 @ 8:35 am

And just win baby !!

Comment by melvinbennett 02.07.11 @ 8:37 am

Don’t forget, Gibbs is our best FT shooter too, so hopefully we would have another go-to player toward the end of a tight game.

Comment by Lou 02.07.11 @ 8:43 am

Perhaps we would be well served to play this game uptempo even with the manpower shortage. Since points are easier to come by uptempo and with our best 3 point shooter out it might be the way to go. As Gibbs becomes much more important in a half court set as he stretches the defense.

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?

Comment by melvinbennett 02.07.11 @ 9:09 am

Problem is with running an uptempo offense is that we’re already down two players playing 50 minutes a game (Taylor + Gibbs), so we’d end up wearing ourselves out. We need to maximize the number of minutes Woodall gets at the point, and that involves not tiring him out.

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).

Comment by merlin 02.07.11 @ 10:05 am

This is gut check time. A few guys are really going to have to step it up to make up for Ashton’s 15-25 points. I really hope we go into attack mode, driving the lane instead of settling for outside shots. It’s tough to change your offense in mid-season, but some adjustments are in order with Gibbs out. Can we pound it inside and get more offense out of Big G?

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.

Comment by Scott 78 02.07.11 @ 10:21 am

This will be very interesting to watch. Woodall and Gil Brown’s performance will obviously be key, and agree that McGhee and perhaps somebody like Patterson or even Nasir will need to come up with some more offense.

Moore just needs to stay within the confines of the offense and not get lost on defense, which seems to happen quite often.

Comment by Carmen 02.07.11 @ 10:30 am

Win or lose…this is exactly what this Pitt team needs…a little adversity to cope with. Agreed on the uptempo game. We will need some cheap buckets to win either or both games. The adversity will sharpen our focus for sure.

Comment by Dan 72 02.07.11 @ 10:32 am

Our most important player going down for an extended period of time in conference can never be a good thing. This is not at all the way you want to get more PT for the second string. Gibbs’ assassin shots, ability to get to the line abd finish will be sorely missed. And, if this injury lingers we could see an earlier exit in March than we hoped.

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…

Comment by Pauly P 02.07.11 @ 10:52 am

A couple thoughts:

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.

Comment by Boubacar Aw 02.07.11 @ 11:08 am

Hey Melvin B,

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

Comment by wbb 02.07.11 @ 11:08 am

Yeah, losing to the Hoopies….wbb

Comment by melvinbennett 02.07.11 @ 11:19 am

The Pirates are actually going to have pitchers this year……. now that’s a novel idea.

Comment by melvinbennett 02.07.11 @ 11:20 am

I think Zanna just doesn’t have the feel for the game yet. He’s one of those guys who started playing b-ball later hi-school yrs. You’ll see Dixon get after on misc plays where he gets to aggressive on a defense (jumping on a pump fake, etc). Don’t think its his effort, skill or practice, just he’s not quite ready for big minutes.

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.

Comment by PantherP 02.07.11 @ 11:24 am

Interesting concept mentioning the up-tempo point melvin. I like the idea. It seems on more than one occasion we’ve been known to pass up open shots while running sets and clock time only to take a more difficult one when the clock runs down. When you run clock the pressure is really more intense on the players to make that shot prior to shot clock expiring. Pressure is not something that players like Patterson, Moore, Zanna and Woodall need it this point in time.

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.

Comment by virgil 02.07.11 @ 11:27 am

Every season we go through these stretches where people start speculating that we’re going to change to an up tempo offense or pressing defense, etc. And every year, game in, game out, the team pretty much plays the same grinding half-court style. They’ll let the game itself dictate style, but I don’t think being one guard short, they will deliberately play up tempo.

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.

Comment by SilverPanther in NYC 02.07.11 @ 12:39 pm

[…] big deal for Pitt, as we all know, is no Ashton Gibbs. The bigger question mark is whether Dante Taylor will be playing. If Taylor is out too, the […]


Melvin B, It’s a good opportunity for Travon Woodall. He’s really our best ball handler. A few things about Travon’s play that I would like to him improve on. Not rushing his shots because there are times when it’s better to make the extra pass. Knowing when to give up the ball, sometimes he just dribbles too much. Time management, I’ve seen him shoot too many times when he should be running a little clock and looking for a layup. Despite all that, I like him as a player, I just would like to see improvement in those areas. Maybe being “the guy” at point will help him manage the game better. If he does we all win.

Comment by Justinian 02.07.11 @ 2:18 pm

We have been playing uptempo, so it’s not like it’s something new this year. Teams are actually slowing the game down against us this year. (see ND & Rutgers). Pitt is averaging more PPG than they have been in all Dixon-Howland years.

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!

Comment by melvinbennett 02.07.11 @ 2:31 pm

Agree with all that Justinian. Big opportunity for Travon Woodall tonight, he played really well against WVU last year in the 3 OT game. Let’s hope he doesn’t get intimidated by the Hoopie crowd.

Comment by melvinbennett 02.07.11 @ 2:35 pm

I think the hoopie crowd is still a walk in the park compared to what I’ve heard/read about jersey city. Just hope Trey doesn’t try to do too much, as is his tendency.

Comment by Jason 02.07.11 @ 3:02 pm

I like the idea of uptempo play but as SilverPanther in NYC points out Dixon usually sticks with the half court. Except look at how we dominated Syracuse in the beggining of the game, with fast breaks. I know that was to get around the zone but damn did it work!

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.

Comment by WC Steve 02.07.11 @ 3:21 pm

Did anyone get hit in the face with spare change, like Quarters in Piscataway (?) NJ.

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 !

Comment by melvinbennett 02.07.11 @ 3:23 pm

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