Semi-late night game. At least, as I get older it feels later. Especially for mid-week. May have to stick with some session beers tonight rather than the stronger stuff.
It’s the first basketball liveblog of the new season. I’m sure everyone will be rational, well-reasoned and not at all reactionary during the game. Zen-like, even.
Definite plus for this game. Bill Raftery with the color commentary. That is the way to kick off the first liveblog.
As usual. Moderated chat. Not every comment will go through. Not because I hate you (probably), but generally because of redundancy. The abusive will be blocked. The stupid will be mocked.
Liveblog is just below, but if you need to break the liveblog out from the site, Click Here.
Need pts & bounds from Nas and Dante. would love to see Birch contribute. Gibbs will be pumped against Ware, and we may see a shoot out.
Jamie was emphasizing D after the close call with Rider, so let’s see if the perimeter D improves. Maybe Wright can be our shutdown guard. Ready for a good game.
Has Birch played yet? Didn’t catch the first 10 minutes.
Got to get Taylor involved.
I so wanted to believe Taylor could take a step up — I know his coaches don’t teach him to slump his shoulders, sulk, and look like the biggest waste of talent the program has ever seen.
I hope this is just a small bump on what looks to be a steep learning curve.
I really did not realize until tonight just how much this team is gonna miss Gil, Wanny and Gary.
control the glass, and allow teams to run, Syracuse will beat us by 40. Have to do a better job handling the ball, dealing with pressure, or we are going to see this every night. Amazing how much I already miss Gary McGhee–our inside game is nowhere to be found, despite our 2 all-americans. Way too dependent on the outside game–need to establish a solid inside presence and a reliable scoring threat inside. The current better team won tonight–hopefully, we will be a lot better than this at the end of the year.
Zanna had 0 points & 5 rebounds.
Birch is so weak at this point he can’t get on the floor, but Sleepy & Zanna can ?
JJ Moore had 0 points & 1 rebound. Can you say stat stuffer.
This game was predictable after the Rider game.
Had this game been on a Neutral Court or at L.Beach, it would have been a blow out.
Pitt has NO Defensive toughness other than Nas.
As I said several weeks ago, the media was nuts ranking this team in the Top 10. Just added pressure on Jamie and high expectations for the fan base. They(the media) did this to Wanny in 2010 as well.
1. LBSU is a pretty good mid-major.
2. Missing a presence inside.
3. A lot of non-chalant passing, especially
trying to get over half-court.
4. Don’t seem to have any “fire” at all.
5. If Jamie was bored with the lack of challenges
the past few years, he should be fired up
again.
I’m very confident in Jamie, gonna have to do something with the rebounding, if they’re not blocking out, gonna have to do some switching and get some of Taylor, Zanna, Birch, Gilbert on the floor at the same time.
What was it, with a couple minutes to go, 46-22 out-rebounded??? When is the last time that happened.
We seem offly “skinny”.
Should be a fun year to watch and hopefully see this group develop into a solid team.
No fear, great coach, talented players, lots of work to do this year though.
If we had Zanna, Taylor, Birch & Gilbert on the floor at the same time, we’d wouldn’t score more than 30 points a game. Only because Gibbs would score 24 of them.
LOL!!!
Jamie better come up with something!!!
Nas played a great game but when he is your second best player (which unfortunately he does look like this year) you may be in trouble in the BE. Lamar played well but again would probably fit best as a sixth man type on a great team.
Dante Taylor – 2 pts, 3 reb, 4 fouls. Goodness that’s awful. It’s not like we can use the excuse that he is still learning. He’s now a junior. Excuses don’t cut it. He looks like he is just not a very good basketball player. I hope he wakes up but wouldn’t he have done so by now if it was going to happen.
We got exactly two points from our bench. 2 points. Zanna seems like he just doesn’t care too much. There doesn’t seem to be a fire in either Zanna’s or Taylor’s belly. At least Birch has an excuse of being a freshman. This is now Zanna’s third year with the program. Sad effort tonight.
The fact that JJ Moore played 7 minutes tells you all you need to know about what coach Dixon thinks of him. I can’t say I blame him – don’t see much there either. John Johnson now has to become the third guard in this rotation as at least he looked like he belonged out there. Cam was completely lost.
I’ll take a few ugly losses in November if it means Pitt gets a few more wins in March, but boy, it looks like coach Dixon really has his work cut out for him. The talent level has seemed to have been overrated. God forbid if Gibbs goes down with an injury or something. There is absolutely no post presence whatsoever and perimeter defense looks like a mess (missing Brad and Gilbert big-time there).
It’s a long season – all we can do as fans is have faith that coach will fix things like he normally does. This is not a good start however. I am kind of worried.
And now you can’t yank him off the court when he falls asleep on defense, which is mostly.
Seems to be a listless group. Gibbs threw up 24 shots tonight and only hit 8. Pitt shot a paltry 41% FG. The Beach like Rider shot over 50%.
Pitt use to be able to overcome it’s offensive shortcomings by playing defense better than most teams and being tougher than most all teams.
I don’ see anyone playing defense against Rider nor tonight against a team that traveled over 2000 miles to play the game. Weak,,,,really weak.
Steve Adams can’t get here quick enough. Anyway he can skip Notre Dame Prep and just enroll in January.
And since Adams was killing over in NZ when they played a US All Star team, he can just skip ND prep and come to PITT, like immediately, like yesterday.
Man I’m really getting depressed, I was looking forward to Hoops season after 2 wasted months watching Sunseri change High Octane into a Model T
Ford. Now this. Can you imagine how bad we’d be in Ashton actually was drafted by the NBA after last season.
Bad maybe, lazy maybe, but not young.
Sleepy is a Junior. Zanna is a redshirt Sophomore.
Nas is a Senior. Gibbs is a Senior. Woodall is a redshirt Junior. Patterson is a redshirt Soph.
That’s the core and these guys have been around the block and in the program for quite a while.
And then we have a bunch of guys who look lost(other than Sleepy & Zanna) and you really shouldn’t have to expect much out of them. Usually anything you get from incoming freshmen or 2nd year sophomores is a BONUS. The only one out of that group who looks like they might provide some help is John Johnson.
By the way, what ever happened to the other Johnson, Durand? Anyone…
And if we can’t play defense, which the last 2 games suggest. As Rider( a team that Robert Morris beat by 26 points) scored at will from inside and outside and The Beach did it from inside, outside, all around the town. We can’t play defense and we don’t have much of an inside game other than Nas. So you then, are going to have to have Gibbs & Woodall hitting over 50% of their shots, to EVEN HAVE A CHANCE TO WIN.
And with them being small and not real good at creating their own shots, we better find a couple guys who can shoot it from the wings. That can only be Moore & Durand Johnson(who has yet to see the court yet) and Patterson.
As far as center, Taylor looks like a flop, and if that is the case, just start giving more PT to Birch & Gilbert. At least they might block a shot, here and there and possibly get a rebound.
And they actually might get better.
Life is indeed strange, as I find myself longing for the days of Aaron Gray and even Gary McGhee.
Maybe having a team that needs to _learn_ to win changes the dynamic, the karma, of a long season, and we’ll come to life when it counts.
Seriously, the big guys inside are just outright horrible!
This could be a very long season!
Of course, LSBU appears to have more talent than BG … but the point is the learning curve required for inexpereinced team. (remember, only a game later, that Pitt team beat a pretty good Iowa team with Shon Geene and Rick Stanzi.)
This Pitt team may well break the mold that it will be a far better team in March than it is i December … certainly hope so.
* Didn’t LBSU remind you of every team that has upset us in the NCAA’s
* On a positive note, I see a huge form difference and result in our foul shooting. Someone has called the shot doctor.
* We are in trouble agains Bobby Mo and Duquesne early.
* Don’t care how many we lose early as long as (for once) we are ready in March.
* We are not even a top 25 team right now.
* Gilbert again looked very ordinary playing against a talented point guard
* Trey Woodall cannot hold up at the 1 vs talented point guards…look for J. Johnson
* As bad as Pitt played, they had a much better (if not misdirected)effort in the second half.
Note to all…it’s only one game!
I am not ready to cry that the sky is falling like some here are, but there is a lot of work to do. They just looked and played like the young, inexperienced team that they are. We have been spoiled by our recent streak, but if this ends up a downer year, let’s keep it in perspective. UConn won the national championship last year. They year before they lost in the second round — of the NIT!
This is going to be a bumpy season – get used to it. This is a team in transition. The defense will get better, but it will not be the kind of defense we’ve come to expect from a Pitt team — something that could often be said of last year’s team as well.
Hard to judge Taylor’s performance b/c he was sitting so much of the game. He does commit stupid fouls, but the refs don’t seem to cut him any slack and call lots of baby fouls on him. And who the hell knows if he has any post moves? He never freakin’ gets the ball in the post! I saw numerous times where he had good position on his man and the ball just does not make it in. That has to change. They have to be able to go inside to somebody other than Nas.
Overall, aside from some stupid turnovers, Woodall looked really good and has clearly worked on his game. He played good D on Ware, the guy just hit some great shots. I think he’s going to have a great year.
Patterson, aside from one or two bad misses, also has significantly improved and I predict will have multiple games where he is the leading scorer.
Zanna is really disappointing at this point. Dude lacks intensity and grit.
Nas is Nas. Dude gives 110% and if he gets injured we’re in deep s@#$. Did y’all notice his FT shooting? Still not pretty by any stretch, but he made them and it’s a much smoother shot.
It’s hard to judge guys like Birch and Gilbert who get 2 minutes in the game and then get taken out. I don’t expect anybody to do much of anything when they don’t get the chance to get into the flow of the game. Birch had a nice block in the second half and seemed a little more in-tune to what was going on at least w/ some extended play.
Cam Wright does indeed look lost. That is very disappointing.
The biggest disappointment is Moore. He has the skills, but his problem is clearly mental – his attitude sucks. As I wrote at the time, during the Blue-Gold game, he was all over Woodall for not throwing him a half-court alley oop. That’s unacceptable behavior. I don’t understand why somebody who has such a selfish mindset would choose this program, one predicated on defense and team play. At least he didn’t force up any bad shots last night. The one stupid foul. Ref could have easily let that go though.
And, again, where is Epps? Is he a bust? If J. Johnson is the third guard, does that pretty much mean Epps should look to transfer? He’s already red-shirted once.
All of the whining aside, there were multiple times with the lead at 6 where they were one stupid turnover or missed shot away from really tightening the noose. One or two possessions made a big difference.
I expect significant improvement by the time BE play starts. This will undoubtedly be a tough season, but if players like Taylor (and hopefully Moore and Zanna) can step up, it might turn out to be an enjoyable one.
