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November 17, 2011

Cue the Crazy, Pitt Lost

Filed under: Basketball — Chas @ 9:01 am

Ohzz nos. Pitt lost to Long Beach State. A non-con loss at home for the first time in years. Losing to a team whose very name screams low mid-major.

The bigs are lost on the floor. The defense is shoddy. The team is overrated. There is no way the players, the chemistry will improve. The season is already lost.

Yeah, do me a favor. Go back a couple years after Pitt lost in MSG to a less than good Indiana squad. Take a look at the comments after that game. That was a bad loss. To a team that ended the season 10-21. Before that Pitt needed double-OT to beat Duquesne. Struggled to score against New Hampshire. All of that had followed a game effort against Texas (who looked awesome at that point, but imploded by mid-January), but still saw Pitt end up losing to the Longhorns by 16.

Last night’s loss was to a very good mid-major team. A team with 4 senior starters and a really dangerous player in Casper Ware. They got after Pitt, and many of the players were simply unprepared to respond.

I’m not trying to minimize the loss. It sucked. It royally sucked. Right now, Pitt has a lot of problems and definitely isn’t deserving of it’s top-10 ranking. I will get into the problems and the game review in a later post. And, yes, the problems look legion.

But to declare the team has no heart. To announce that players are a complete bust 3 games into a season where they are starting for the first time. Basically, to go Chicken Little is ridiculous. You don’t have to be a blind Pollyanna and pretend that all will be well. You do, however, have to have a little more patience and sanity.





I saw this coming yesterday. That was the kind of team you would want to pick as upset in the NCCA tourney. 4 seniors & a Junior that started most of their games during the last 4 years against a team with a bunch of fresh talent. They looked in control, unshakable, and on mission while a lot of our guys looked lost.

Good thing it’s early in the year. One other thing the last time we lost to a Non-conference team at home was the Bucknell team that knocked Kansas from the field of 64 so remember Long Beach State when you are filling out your brackets in March.

PS. If we don’t start getting in position and crash the boards it’s gonna be a long year.

Comment by Tony in Harrisburg 11.17.11 @ 9:47 am

Chas, some good points. and I’d point to UConn’s season last year also. But yes, this IS a cause for concern. Just as it was a cause for concern when we lost to Indiana and struggled against UNH. Doesn’t mean we wont fix it. I believe we will. But it should be a wake up call.

As far as heart goes, I give you Woodall, Patterson and Nas (if not more players) who were diving on the floor, taking elbows to the face, etc and playing with as much heart as you could ask.

Some problems I saw:
(i) younger players being out of place on both side (not a big worry this early but is currently biggest problem),
(ii) front court defense/positioning, outside of Nas (Taylor really should be better at getting position by now); and
(iii) Guard size (it seems we’re a little undersized up top with Gibbs/Woodall. Harder to get in guys face. Obviously opp shooting percentages against us this year make our back court D look really weak. JJ Moore could help this problem if he could get/stay on the floor);
(iv) Gibbs’ reluctance to give the ball to certain players (i get it, but it stymies the offense and needs fixed)
(v) We need someone who can take over offensively or can at least have the potential to. (Young used to be this guy, Brown could have been more often did it sometimes, but the presense kept defenses honest. Don’t see this guy on our team this year. Could be Taylor, but he’s yet to show up).

There are other issues. But there is also lots of talent and good coaching. Its not the end of the world but for years any time we’ve been down to a team like this (or even a BE foe) i’ve had total confidence somehow we’re just gonna come back and pull it out at the end. Last night that didn’t happen and i’m perplexed.

Comment by PantherP 11.17.11 @ 9:52 am

….regarding point (v) I meant someone other and in addition to Gibbs, someone who can dribble drive. Clearly Gibbs is a great shooter and great at moving off the ball. But he can’t create his own shot off the dribble and I think we need this dynamic to make Gibbs’ more effective and our whole offense more effective.

Comment by PantherP 11.17.11 @ 9:59 am

agree completely with your analysis. it was a tough game to watch, but it was not unexpected. we’re hoping our team will develop and peak later in the season this year. didn’t think we would be missing mcgee…naz was awsome but needed inside help.

Comment by nw pa pitt fan 11.17.11 @ 9:59 am

There were times our bigs — especially Nas and Dante — were working hard and gaining position but it feels like the guards just refuse to send the ball into the post. You can’t expect to maintain position for 8-10 seconds, the guards have to be genuinely looking for the post. I’m worried about how perimeter-focused the offense is, especially because of the lack of penetration. Woodall is the only real threat to get into the lane who sees quality time (Moore and Johnson I think can help too), but he had a poor outing last night, turning the ball over.

That said, they still scored 76 points and lost by 10. As frustrating as the offense feels, the defense is nauseating. Effort? Communication? Understanding? Seems a heavy combo of all three.

Comment by JW 11.17.11 @ 10:12 am

We are a football school.

Comment by TX Panther 11.17.11 @ 10:16 am

I can’t wait to see Jamie Dixon’s version of Boeheim’s smh to the media: Guys, it’s November. You’re overreacting to a young team’s loss.

At least, I hope he does a Boeheim’s shakemyhead versus a Calhoun sputteringmadman.

Comment by Rieur1114 11.17.11 @ 10:19 am

Rieur FYI — this is from Jamie’s post game presser:

They beat us every which way,” Dixon said.

“I anticipated us being a much better team at this time,” he said. “Obviously, we’re not where I’d like us to be.”

Comment by wbb 11.17.11 @ 10:30 am

I’m with Chas. Way too early to panic or write off the season. Should we be concerned? Absolutely. Mostly, this team needs to learn to play together, which has been a hallmark of Dixon-coached teams. Too many people playing street ball right now and too many people out of position on both ends of the court. This loss will provide a lot of lessons for Jamie to hammer home before the next game.

Let’s give Long Beach State some credit too. Like Chas said, they are a very good team, and Munson is an outstanding coach (see Gonzaga). They looked more like Pitt last night than we did. Good team defense, taking advantage of the opponent’s mistakes, efficient offense and strong rebounding. That’s what you get with a well-coached experienced team that plays with confidence. Their four returning starters all garnered conference honors last year and Ennis was a JC star. It will be interesting to see how they do against L’ville, Kansas, Carolina and Xavier. After what they did to Pitt last night, they won’t be sneaking up on any of those teams.

Finally, keep in mind that as badly as Pitt played last night, if Gibbs had hit that last 3 he took, they would have been one possession down with just over a minute to play. I don’t see how that translates to “having no heart.”

Comment by TampaT 11.17.11 @ 10:45 am

is jamie recruiting different mcdonalds all americans than everyone else?? it’s just really frustrating to watch other school’s 5 star recruits come in and make an immediate impact while ours struggle. birch looks completely lost and taylor doesn’t look like he’s improving at all. he does look fitter though, must’ve dropped a few lbs.

Comment by scott 11.17.11 @ 10:49 am

Scott I understand and share your frustration, but I think there are two things to consider:
1) It is more uncommon than you might suspect for an “all-american” freshman to make a big impact. If you go back just the past few years, sure there are a handful who stick out but many more who you couldn’t pick out of a lineup. Even this year, although it’s early, you see others struggling. Even McAdoo at UNC looks out of sorts. Which leads me to…
2) Part of why it’s so glaring is the rarity of Pitt actually enrolling one of these players. When UNC or Duke or even Syracuse or UConn have freshman disappointments it’s not as evident because their rosters are already filled with more prominent, acclaimed names, and they’ll recruit more the next year and beyond. At Pitt, that has not been the case. Hopefully that is changing.

I will say, however, that Birch’s playing time is distressing. About 45 secs in the first half last night. (At least he contibuted a few mins in the 2nd half zone.) And I don’t blame Dixon as much as it’s the team fault for letting these non-con teams hang for so long (or eventually win!), necessitating more starter minutes.

Comment by JW 11.17.11 @ 11:20 am

Hey at least the sky is not falling…. Except over Creepy Valley.

Joey O’Connor, an offensive tackle from Colorado, has become the first recruit to decommit from Penn State since the school fired coach Joe Paterno.

O’Connor is a four-star recruit and recruiting services ranked him as the top player in Penn State’s 2012 class. He is undecided on which school he will attend

Read more: link to post-gazette.com

Comment by EMel 11.17.11 @ 11:22 am

Loss not a big deal — LBS is a very good team who attacked from the start. So far Pitt is missing the ‘voice of reason’ type player that Wanamaker has been the past two years. Patterson has a shot but is too lackadaisical sometimes. I agree on Taylor though…..where’s the improvement?

Comment by Antiguafor200Alex 11.17.11 @ 11:43 am

I want Julius Page or Jaron Brown back.

Comment by TX Panther 11.17.11 @ 11:52 am

I’m not worried it was those video games!!!

Comment by Joe Kumpf 11.17.11 @ 12:11 pm

These are all pre-season games till March. Then they count.

Comment by alcofan 11.17.11 @ 12:16 pm

I cant believe some people are calling NAs and Taylor ‘Bigs’

Gray, Blair and McGhee.

these were the bigs for the past 7-8 yrs and Jamie built his team around them…now we dont have that physical presence and Pitt basketball has a totally new persona that Jamie is obviously struggling to find.

And yes, this team is way overated. Seriously, Dante Taylor sucks a fat one, Gibbs and Tray are the entire offense(Nas a lil bit) and the rest of the kids look very lost and intimidated.

Long Beach is a great team, they deserve credit here as well. Lets see how they do against L’Ville, Kansas in the next few weeks…

Comment by Yup 11.17.11 @ 12:16 pm

One game is one game and one can discount bad play, bad shooting, bad defense, etc….again because it’s one game. And then we can delude ourselves even further by building up the opposition. Even if said team had 12 losses last year and traveled clear across the country to play in your gym.

But this is more than one game, we were fortunate to beat a middling Rider Broncs squad that had been trounced by Robert Morris in the game before.
And we didn’t look exactly impressive beating a D2 Kentucky Weseleyan in a tuneup game. Rider shot 53% from the field, Beach shot an incredible 59 almost 60% from the field. And outrebounded us.

Big problem I see, is we lost 3 pretty good players, in Wannamaker, Brown & McGhee. McGhee and Wannamaker did most of the rebounding last year. And Brown could rebound and defend, as well as Wanny.

There is NOBODY at the moment to replace any of these 3 guys. There is nobody on the front court as versatile as Wanny & Brown, nobody that can defend like they did and score 10-15 points a game. The only one close is Patterson and that is offensively. Wanny & Brown could also distribute the ball as Wanny led the team in assists.
And while Gary McGhee was limited offensively, he overcame that with determination and physicality and actually had some games in double digit scoring and always got around double digit rebounds. I find it hard to believe that Taylor learned nothing, nor picked anything from McGhee, since they practiced against each other for 2 years. Now there is no one on the team for the bigs to learn from.

Well, at least…. no one you would want them to learn from.

Comment by EMel 11.17.11 @ 12:21 pm

Yeah, Dante Taylor has been a serious disappointment. In retrospect, I’m confused why that guy was so highly touted coming out of high school. I can’t name a single thing that guy does well.

Comment by Jeff 11.17.11 @ 12:22 pm

I’m not saying this team lacks heart as a general rule — they just showed none of it last night (at least they rallied against Rider). That’s not to discount this year, but it certainly plants some legitimate big doubts as of this morning (if the Rider game hadn’t already). It was a lackadasical effort. I was thrilled to see Johnson enter the game with a little fire — it didn’t seem like anyone else came to play. Even Gibbs looked frustrated and forced a surprising number of shots. That could be a theme if his teammates not named Woodall and Robinson look too scared to get involved in the offense.

But the biggest concern has to be the interior defense. They hit a lot of long shots (some better defended than others), but he number of ridiculously easy baskets yielded near the rim was quite possibly the worst I’ve ever witnessed from a Dixon coached team. I don’t care if there are a few capable shot blockers — there were at least 2 post players out of position or otherwise out to sea on nearly every defensive posession. This team didn’t look undermanned — they looked out prepared.

Birch needs to start looking less like he’s in the wrong place (‘what, this isn’t Psych 101?’). Moore with a stupid extraneous shove immediately after entering the game and after a timeout – what the hell was that? We talk experience and I’ll cut some of the younger guys some slack, but Zanna and Taylor are in year 3 in the program — they need to start playing like they belong.

Comment by Ghost of Hornman 11.17.11 @ 12:25 pm

I’ll respectfully disagree with Chas on the Indiana analogy. That team had lower expectations, as did Indiana. It was a bad effort, but it didn’t reveal as many fundamental team weeknesses as LBSU exposed. Ultimately that team overachived, whereas this one looks like an underachiever to me.

Comment by Ghost of Hornman 11.17.11 @ 12:30 pm

Ghost.
Really? Didn’t reveal as many weaknesses? Check out your own comments from the Indiana game?

link to pittblather.com

You do make the key point. In 2009, the preseason expectations were low. So, that team was seen as overachieving by the end of the year. Because of that sort of year, and all the years on average under Dixon, this squad has higher expectations at the very start.

Comment by Chas 11.17.11 @ 1:29 pm

. . .
and I hope I’m proven wrong!

Comment by Ghost of Hornman 11.17.11 @ 12:31 pm

My bad, I forgot to mention the play or lack of it from Zanna. What happened to the guy who scored like 16 points or whatever and had like 10 rebounds against Maryland at MSG last year.

Was that something to do with a comet passing within 200,000 miles of Earth or something. Or were his birth planets lined up perfectly that night in conjunction with the Sun and the Moon.
It’s beginning to look like that planet conjunction was a once in a lifetime event.

Sleepy & Zanna, the walking zombie twins.

Comment by EMel 11.17.11 @ 12:40 pm

This would be the year we’re playing like almost all the schools in Philly. LaSalle and Penn are up next on the non-con, followed by Bobby Mo, Duquesne and then a trip to Tennesshee (in honor of Lisping Lou). Then VMI & a visit from Oklahoma State.

It appears we don’t have the firepower to play uptempo, so perhaps we need to slow the game down, like in year’s past. You know the patented Pitt halfcourt game. But of course we have nobody to work the inside-outside game as in year’s past either. Other than Nas. (we are realy dependent on Nas this year, amazing is it not!)

Maybe it would be better to just go small, with Nas at center or just play 3 forwards. There have been plenty of teams that excelled in the past playing 3 forwards instead of having the traditional center. (off the top of my head I remember the Triplets at Arkansas) At least maybe until Birch and/or Gilbert improve to the point in practice where they can actually contribute.

Comment by EMel 11.17.11 @ 1:09 pm

No defense + No rebounding + No points in the paint = NO WIN FOR PITT!

Comment by Leaseman 11.17.11 @ 1:41 pm

After reading some of the 2009 comments I’m kinda now afraid to post. lol
For they might be used against me somewhere down the road.

One thing reading those comments did do, was remind me of one guy named JJ Richardson, you know the guy who actually was a center. Not a PF that Coach was insisting play center.
Richardson played hard when he got in there and could mix it up. Would love to have him on this team right now.

Perhaps some of these defensive problems with the Taylors & Birch’s is that Coach is insisting they play center, when they aren’t centers. Taylor earned Parade All-American status by playing NOT with HIS BACK TO THE BASKET, but facing the basket. Is Coach trying to force round pegs into square holes? I think some used this cliche for TG as well.

But hey it’s a nice cliche and we Americans love all of little cliches. Which is why they’re laced throughout most TV shows & the Movies.

Comment by EMel 11.17.11 @ 1:54 pm

Chas

I’ll stand behind those comments then and now.

Those were legitimate doubts then and both games revealed some disconcerning points, but we didn’t get mauled on the glass in that game. We shot horribly and didn’t protect the ball, but it was more closely contested until a late IU surge. Most people saw 2009 as a down year without a lot of talent in the pipeline and Blair departed early, but as I said then and still believe, the expectations were different. McGhee was totally unproven, Nas was an anomolous starter, Taylor was showing little early promise, Wannamaker had yet to establish himself as a consistent player (at least he could defend despite being a turnover machine early), Brown was suspended, Dixon had a broken foot, and nobody regarded Gibbs as much more than a spot up shooter. Things looked genuinely bleak.

They played a terrible game against an 2009 Indiana squad that was much weaker than 2011 LBSU, but I’d argue they still ran coherent sets, played some defense, and hit the glass. They weren’t manhandled like they were last night, where they were sloppy and didn’t really execute on any level or show much energy playing at home. They just looked lost last night. They didn’t look lost against Indiana, but things didn’t look good then either.

The sky isn’t falling. Pitt just doesn’t look very good in bball THIS year. that’s not to say they can’t improve or turn it around, but nothing last night convinced me that it’s likely to happen this year.

Comment by Ghost of Hornman 11.17.11 @ 4:20 pm

Pitt football lets me down i have got used to that but i am not used to BB doeing the same .
now every thing is screwed up.

Comment by FRANKCAN 11.17.11 @ 8:40 pm

How can Kentucky replace almost an entire team every year with Freshmen and be superior, and all our big time recruits seem to need to sit for ever?
With the front line we have how can you sit KB for the bulk of time, If that is all the better he is wow!

Comment by Jimbo 11.17.11 @ 11:05 pm

I had similar thoughts about Birch coming into the year, but the little bit I’ve seen of him suggests he’s more of a project than the hype suggests. Aside from his lack of polish except for shot blocking, he’s still figuring out the game at this level, and his body is not ready for D1 play. He looks like he’d be tossed around like a rag doll underneath, and he doesn’t have impact skills away from the hoop.

I honestly don’t know how he could have been pegged as a 1 and done, but the NBA is obsessed with raw talent and unteachable physical capability. He’s long and lean and athletic, which projects well for the NBA but may be irrelevant over a <= 4 year college career without a lot of work.

Comment by Ghost of Hornman 11.18.11 @ 10:37 am

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