As someone commented yesterday, it only takes one or two players to be out of position on defense and the entire scheme suffers. Plus, others try to do more than possible to compensate. I saw a lot of that. JD will fix it, but it will take a while.

The culprit is Dante “Pat Bostick-bust” Taylor. He is consistently lost, plays with little effort, plays stupid, and has very little general ability.

Joe,
Dante Taylor played all of 19 minutes in the last game because of foul troubles. He was by no stretch of the word good, but to identify him as the sole culprit is inaccurate at best.

It will be interesting to see if Gilbert starts to see more court time. I was at the Albany game but couldn’t make the Rider or LBS games in person due to illness, but from what I have seen in the first 3 games, Dixon is currently playing Taylor and Zanna at the 5, with Birch subbing in at the 4. I don’t think Taylor looks as bad as Joe states above, but positioning is clearly still an issue. Zanna, on the other hand, really does look lost, and I’m starting to question whether his basketball skills will ever really develop (his hands look terrible). I have to wonder if their slow start has opened the door for Gilbert to get some playing time, particularly since defense is supposed to be his strength.

I still think it is way to early to panic. As someone noted the other day, two years ago Pitt was beaten soundly by an Indiana team that was much worse than LBS, and that game was in December rather than November. This team has more raw talent than that team, and has more time to turn things around. It doesn’t mean it will magically happen, but they certainly have the opportunity to work on it.

Big men should be intimidating in the middle. Our big guys just stand there with their hands in the air, looking like a statue, while the offensive guy goes right around or make a nice pass for an easy layup. Swat that thing out of there. You might get some fouls called on ya, but be aggressive.

Taylor isn’t a Center. Plain & simple.

Square peg……round hole.

Just because he’s 6’9? doesn’t mean he HAS to play center.

I don’t care who they play at center, as long as they can block out and rebound and stop a few of these easy layups against the like of Rider & LBSU.

You can have a 6’5 center, if the guy knows how to box out, use body for position and rebound.
Comment by EMel 11.18.11 @ 12:39 pm

Now Gilbert is a true center. Always played Center in HS, unlike Taylor & Birch. Gilbert is supposed to be a very good defender, maybe not chasing around the perimeter in the man to man, but plunk him down in the middle of a 2-3 zone and I’m sure the guy can play defense. He’s a space eater. This team is too overmatched height wise on the perimeter to play man to man.

With another true Center, one Steve Adams a 7 footer coming in next year, why even waste time with Birch learning the Center spot, when the guy is too thin and has played nothing but Forward.

EMel – from what I’ve seen (and admittedly, I haven’t been able to watch every minute of each game), Birch has been playing the 4 when he is out there. Last game, of course, he hardly played, so the sample size may be somewhat small.

Three things are inevitable in this world- death, taxes, and someone on this blog complaining that Dante Taylor is out of position. If we had a nickel for every time that has come up, we could hire Chas an intern to help out.

Besides being over matched, height wise, neither Gibbs or Woodall are particularly good defensively.

They both need constant help defense. With that in mind, there’s no way you can play good man to man defense because your always rotating to supply the help defense. Which is why they were giving Wright more playing time, but he’s totally lost offensively, so then they turned to John Johnson, who they originally planned to red shirt. As Johnson being a Philly kid, adds a little toughness in the backcourt and he seems to have somewhat of a clue as a freshman.

If the defense doesn’t get any better, then another solution is to go to some sort of gimmick defense, which hides your inadequacies and increases the other teams turnovers. As we’re not creating many turnovers at all. For example Rider ONLY had 5 turnovers. No ball pressure or very little at all. With Herron gone off to Marshall, I don’t think anyone on the staff has any experience with gimmick defenses. Don’t know much about the guy from ND Prep, other than that.

@SilverPanther,

You don’t mean moi? haha

You mean he doesn’t seem out of position to you?

For he does to me.

His slow progress COULD (I SAID COULD) be related to something…don’t ya think ?

After all, I do believe one of PITT’s better players in the last decade maybe all-time, that being one Sam Young, ONLY flourished when he was moved to his more natural position.

Remember Sam Young ?

so, looks like Taylor is going to be the Tino of the BB team

True, Dante is not the sole culprit. That was incorrect wording from me. But he is a poor defender.

EMel’s point about size is true. This is a really small team. Almost every guard on Rider and LB was larger than Tray/Ashton. Nas is an undersized four. Zanna is really a four’s size being forced to play a backup 5. Only Patterson, Taylor and Moore are really normal sizes for their positions but of those three, none can defend well (Patterson is slow of foot, Taylor/Moore are clueless).

To overcome this, they will have to learn how to help and rotate much better. I have faith they will improve, but I’m not sure by how much.

Gilbert is the only true center on the team. Play him and grow with him. 6’11”, 240. start Nas, Lamar, Gibbs, Tra and Gilbert. Let Dante and Birch come off the bench at the 4. Zanna can be the back up center.

won’t happen with Jamie. He will continue to start Dante. He knows his team and his system better than me. I just think Gilbert, probably better than Birch until he adds weight, can help NOW and add a shot blocker in the middle that we desperately need.

@wbb

I don’t think I ever suggested Tino be moved to Safety.

But thanks, that’s an excellent idea ! lol

Taylor’s is a fine combination of size, height, and athletic ability for a college center. He doesn’t have a good enough face-up game or feel for the court to play PF at Pitt like Nasir Robinson or Tyrell Biggs or Levon Kendall. And I think he improved a lot between fresh and soph years. He played 15 minutes per game. We’re 3 games into his junior year. Way too early to make a judgement about his next step. People need to drop the McDonald’s AA expectation thing and the notion that he’s going to switch to power forward.

…And Sam Young clearly belonged on the wing. That comparison is apples and bowling balls.

Agree Boss,

You da boss !

Silver,

I don’t think he should or will switch to PF. He doesn’t have the face up game, as you alluded to, and he really does fit the size profile of a college center.

Disagree that it is too early to judge, though. After 6-8 games I have seen involving him (including Greentree and three scrimmages plus three regular season games), there has clearly been minimal/zero improvement in on-court knowledge, skill, or tenacity. He is slimmer and jumping a little better, but still has no hands, no IQ, and plays with less apparent effort than most.

I wouldn’t suggest we can do any better this year given the youth of the other options, but it is fair warning that we are going to be at a significant disadvantage on the blocks every single game.

Dante is the anti-Nas when it comes to Basketball IQ– he makes the stupidest decisions that I have ever seen on the court (with and without the ball). He’s almost Wannamaker like on his idiocy at times; with hardly the hustle of Sir Bradley.

Dante’s inability to play defense without fouling is not something you can coach around. Jamie tried his best with Blair and it only worked half the time…and Blair is MILES better than DT on both sides of the court. Dante follows every routine, decent play with stupid fouls or turnovers that kill his PT.

I think DT can be salvaged in some capacity as a garbage, “tip in” guy if he has a strong, dominant player next to him… but as our starting center… ugh.

Yet it took Coach Dixon 3 years to figure that out.

It wasn’t meant to be a comparison, therefore your comment is baseless concerning apples and bowling balls. bowling balls …..lol (little absurd, is it happy hour already?)

That’s a Sopranos line…Dante Taylor made the all-tournament team for Greentree, so someone thought he was playing well in the summer. And Gary McGhee was infamous for high-speed fouling and he grew out of it.

@Joe

I didn’t see any Greentree games but I saw some of the scores. Being that I don’t live in da Burg.

It appears like they’re pretty much glorified playground games. Lots of up & down. Didn’t Taylor have some 20 point games and lots of rebounds? Thought I read somewhere he did.

Were these all garbage baskets, putbacks, etc?
Did he take & make any 10 or 15 footers or handle the ball much outside of the lane or show any dribbling skills at all or any moves off the dribble?

Thanks beforehand for the Answer.

My bad Silver,

I don’t watch TV.

Um, Sam Young didn’t move to the 3 until his junior year because he had virtually no outside game until that point. His outside shot was horribly inconsistent, and his ability to handle the ball in traffic was frightening. To criticize Dixon on that, as if he had missed something, is revisionist at best. In fact, the debate at the time was not whether he should play the 3, but whether he should play ahead of Levon Kendall. He played the 4 because it was the best (only?) position for him at the time.

Chris sez don’t blame it all on our bigs, coaching may be a part of the problem (shoutout to js):

“Former assistant Tom Herrion was known as a great big man coach, and his absence is now being felt.”

link to panthersprey.blogspot.com

Saw that Steve, but I’m unsure.

It could also be argued that Taylor is now on his 3d position coach in 3 years is also a factor more than the skill of a particular coach.

FWIW–Regarding Sam Young’s “natural position”

Sam Young played Center in High School. He had to develop wing skills at Pitt and did so by hard work after hours in the gym. He was not played out of his “natural position” by Dixon as a freshman and sophomore. At that point playing the wing wasn’t natural for him because he didn’t yet have wing skills.

Young should be an inspiration to Moore — he was an atrocious defender in his early years and got stuck behind Kendall largely for that reason. He turned into a pretty good one by his senior year.

Young also had an obsessive work ethic off the court which would be difficult for most players to match.

Yes the Greentree games are pretty much glorified pickup. For big men, it is much easier for them to shine as RMU, Duq, YSU, etc. don’t often have good bigs to offer so the league is generally guard-heavy. Statistics in this league are skewed/essentially useless. I think you have to go by what you see with your own eyes.

While Taylor didn’t look bad in Greentree, I confess I only saw him twice and he didn’t “wow” me as some others have in the past.

I’ll get off Dante’s back for the day. But I’ll be right back on him if I see the same out of him against La Salle next week!

So we are small, slow, out of position and standing around….sounds like some of my old teams. Trust me, we will get better. I have also had many problems with Taylor..Zanna had regressed, Trey is a very ordinary PG et al.
Did anyone notice the quickness J Johnson showed?

There was no debate on my part whether Sam Young should have played BEFORE(Over) Levon Kendall.

I witnessed Sam Young personally turn around a game his freshman year(which had to be like the 8th or so game in his career), when Pitt played at South Carolina. I was sitting with some S. Carolina alumni and they all remarked to me, who was this guy. As Pitt was losing and not looking very good until Young came in off the bench and just took over the game on the boards. And scored several baskets which righted Pitt’s ship and we went on to win.

I could never figure out why Young wasn’t playing regularly until his junior year. Because Levon Kendall was not in Young’s class, obviously.

Oh they did make the excuse of Sam having tendinitis in his knees. Which proceeded to totally disappear in both his junior and senior years, as he never missed a game.

Alot of good stuff in these posts so i will throw my opinion and see if it sticks….Defensively the team is poor, positioning and help defense is terrible….alot of it depends on what defense we are playing…having our big men hedge all the time keeps them away from the hoop to block shots and rebound. I agree if we go zone, you have to play Gilbert at the 5, you arent at this point getting offense from there but that will stop some layups. and i believe he will clean up on the boards, and lets live through his mistakes and develop him…birch should only play the 4 as should zanna….in fact zanna is a bench guy, only play as needed. He has shown nothing. Let’s for once look to the end of the season and develop our young players,,,i dont care about a 6 loss season and winning the big east, we need to get it done when it counts. just make the tourney, get seeded, and make a run. as far as offense, we must get touches inside, when they are open give it to them, keep the opponents defense honest, if they shoot and miss so be it, if they kick it out, then an open 3….this is basic hoops…like the j.johnson comments also. need his quickness, maybe he can penetrate, because the rest of the guards would rather shoot a jumper….if this team is going places over the next few years we better develop our post players, and guard penetration….S. Adams is probably a one and done, so after that, it will be Gilbert’s team with Robinson, and Johnson…I believe in the young talent…..throw them into the fire, becuase if i was a top ten recruit, i would never come here for my 4 minutes a game and two touches. one more thought, will we ever fast break off a rebound…or is the PG the only one to dribble it across half court. our bigs do run the floor, but never a touch.

Young would have had to shoulder a lot of scoring in his early years to make up for the number of uncontested points he ceded on the other end. He was lost on D his 1st two years. Those teams couldn’t score enough to cede easy baskets.

Chas, I’m not sure either. One probably has to factor in Dokish’s close relationship to Herrion.

We should all note these stats and what they say about our front court and about Woodall: Woodall is either 1st or 2nd in points, FG%, 3pt%, assists, steals AND REBOUNDS so far this year. The shortest guy on the court! Props to Woodall. He puts the effort in and it shows. That’s leadership you want in a PG. (he’s tied for 3rd in blocks too but…)

Patterson leads the team in rebounding.

The point being — It won’t work if you don’t have forwards leading the team in rebounding. Taylor is 4th. 4th!! I can’t imagine Trautman, Gray, Blair or McGhee not at least being in top 2 for rebounding on the team. I know its early, three games is a small sample. But i think rebounding is a good indication of either effort or B-ball IQ, or both. And it indicates something about our frontcourt at the moment that not one of them lead the team in this stat.

…The root cause I couldn’t pin point. But I’ll take a stab:
– we do have vets, but defense is like playing in a band. Introduce a new guy and its not one new dynamic, its that guys dynamic with each and every other person on the court. Especially with positioning/spacing and these are core elements to rebounding. This will work itself out, but there just inherent learning curve that doesn climb until you play real games with your new team mates and new rotations.
– Chas/Steve point out the bigs have had position coach changes. New stuff to learn, not understanding it thoroughly is certainly going to lead to indecisiveness, which is goin to lead ot lower performance on the boards.

I think the front court play, particularly the indeciveness, is throwing the whole scheme out of whack for the moment. There’s less opportunity down low cuz the guys aren’t getting good position, so putting pressure on Gibbs/Woodall to score, who are occasionally forcing shots and not distributing the ball as well.
This all also means poorer rebounding, cuz bad shot selection means more difficulty getting offensive rebounding. Poor, inefficient offense puts pressure on the defense by creating more fast-breaks against us when we don’t control our offensive boards or offensive tempo.
There’s also pressure on the guards to play D if they know the big guys arent where they need to be on help defense. It causes the guards to play defense a half-step off the offensive player, cuz they think if the guy beats them there isn’t someone there to help. This opens up easier shooting for the offense.

I’m not saying our poor play is all on our front court. But I would argue that the problems we see very much have as their root-cause in front court disorganization / uncertainty. The good news is this would likely get better over time. And I think the overall improvement of the team will be exponential.

Here is your answer Panther fans:

link to pittsburghpanthers.com

Since Kinght’s days the defensive torch has been passed anually from one squad to another. I fear that the torch has lost its flame, mainly because Dante Taylor couldn’t fulfill the expectations. Blair passed it to Gary, Taylor dropped it. Hope Dixon can get this fixed or this team will be mere motals and it’s going to be a long year.

Blair didn’t pass any defensive torch….he wasn’t much of a defender. Heck of a player but D wasn’t his forte. He had a decent number of steals because he gambled a lot, but he was not terrific on that end.

DeJuan was a tough SOB in every respect and Pitt is in its second consective decade of being a hardnosed squad. Blair was the heart of that toughness and Gary perpetuated it. I’m talking gritty, physical toughness. UCONN sportswriters called him an animal with the utmost respect. Taylor does not have that beast mentality, more like a tall pussy cat.

Gary McGhee and Brad Wanamaker were two of the most maligned players ever on this blog. People would regularly question why they were in the program and how could we expect them to perpetuate the legacy they were inheriting- until they improved into their junior and senior years. And now they have somehow attained sainthood.?.?….Nearly all of these players will go through phases of development. Dante Taylor improved between his freshman and sophomore years. The only place this is disputed is a couple, few people here. Everywhere else, it’s acknowledged. He had a good summer playing locally and is just getting started in his junior year. Everybody needs to calm down. Drink some beer. Watch some more games. Stop trying to sound so smart. Let’s see what we got here. It’s still way to early.

You’re right Old School. I’ve never seen Sleepy try to muscle his way in there a la Troutman, Blair or McGhee.

I always supported Gary McGhee on here.Always liked his hustle and toughness. And he wasn’t a highly touted Mickey D’s AA. Gary didn’t have BB hands, but always banged. Sleepy is not Gary.

not writing Taylor off yet, but we have seen plenty of him in 2 plus seasons to raise legitimate, constructive criticism of his play. He has his moments, but is a disappointment so far to this long time fan.
Don’t need him to be an All American, just bang and box out and rebound and score 10-12 a game. He just seems to take silly fouls and gets frustrated.

Go with Gilbert NOW and grow with him—all 6’11” of him. He’s a true center. Dante is a 4 playing out of position. Still remember Sleepy trying to jam on Gilbert in the Blue-Gold game and getting rejected. Will have freshman moments, but gives us the shot blocker we don’t have in Sleepy. Plus, he will bring that Philly area toughness in him (like Nas has).

Steve and Old School, you got the exact point of my post above. This team lacks a big man with toughness. It’s not about a big man with talent. This team needs a big man that does not let the opponent pull down 5 or 6 straight offensive rebounds like we all saw in the last game.

Some random thoughts
-When Young came in his “natural” position was the 4. Jamie wanted him to learn the 3, and at first Sam was resistant. He had a raw, natural talent, but was lacking on defense, ball handling, passing and making wise choices on the court. I remember a lot of people saying Sam’s sophomore year he should have been starting ahead of Kendall at the 4 spot, but no way was Sam ready for major minutes at that point in his career. I give Sam credit for putting in the hours and arguably being one of Pitt’s best players all-time.

-Want to talk about our 2 seniors- Nas and Gibbs. Neither are vocal leaders; Nas is more of a lead by example type of guy and Gibbs-well he just wants to play, doesn’t seem like a rah-rah type of guy. Also, neither are defensive stars either. From day one, Gibbs defensive skills have been in question and Nas, hard as he tries, is a defensive liability due to the position he is playing (the 4) and his size.
I have read quotes from them that they need to be more vocal in practice, take a more leadership type role, so hopefully they will improve in that aspect, which will give this young team some direction.

-I was talking to a friend the other night about Pitt’s “slow” start; maybe this is the year we have a rebuilding year where we have more losses that we are accustomed to having. Jamie has made the most of some teams where the cupboard looked somewhat bare; 2 years come to mind: the year after Page and Brown graduated and year after Fields, Young, Biggs and Blair graduated/left. Those teams overachieved and made the NCAA’s when I said, going into the season, making the tourney would be the icing on the cake for that year.
As mentioned previously, we have 3 new starters, 2 of which (Patterson and Taylor) haven’t logged a lot of minutes, plus a lot of true freshmen coming off the bench and being expected to provide some major minutes. Add in 2 seniors not quite used to being the team leaders and you see why there has been confusion and lack of focus on the court, especially on the defensive end.
After watching them versus Albany, I noted that the starters are going to have to log major minutes; if anyone gets hurt or in foul trouble we could be in for a long night.

-Pitt’s teams in the past have been made up of a majority of great athletes that played good basketball. Now I think we are seeing the transition to getting great basketball players. The only problem with this is great basketball players rely on their skills to get by; they don’t haven’t had to play much defense (as opposed to the great athletes who played great defense to overcome their offensive liabilities).
Add this in with the relative youthfulness of this team and we might just need to give this team some time. Yes, some players might get more minutes than they deserve, but gotta look at the big picture; maybe even to next season.

-Although some on this post chose to bash them, I feel Woodall and Patterson are 2 of the bright spots (so far) in this young season. Patterson has some good overall skills and I feel will get better as the season goes on. I am very impressed with Woodall’s play (he had some bad spots vs LBS) so far as well.
I don’t see Jamie’s rationale for having Wright be 1 of the first guards off the bench; I haven’t seen anything that warrants these many minutes. So far he has been just a placeholder on the floor; no point production and not a defensive stalwart by any means. I think John Johnson should be getting more minutes. He has provided some sparks vs Rider and LBS.

-As far as the bigs (Taylor, Zanna, and Birch- will exclude Gilbert due to lack of PT) not sure what to do here; maybe Jamie needs to bring in a big man consultant: with the NBA not looking to play games until late Dec at the earliest, maybe some trainers, coaches etc would be willing to help out.

–

@ updave nice points

I predicted that Woodall would make a big jump this year (especially on the offensive side); however, he hasn’t carried that leadership from the point torch ala Brandin, Carl, LeVance…that would be nice if he did.

Lamar has been another pleasant surprise, IMHO.

Question for you all– where’s the transition and up tempo game? I think our bigs are more suited for this style of play…

Updave, I’ll follow on to what you have said about Woodall’s play by saying that if every player on this team played with Woodall’s toughness, we would have this long comment thread.

You’ll know Woodall is playing well offensively when he gets the front line easy hoops. We’re all glad he’s shooting better, but that’s of relative unimportance compared to getting some offense from the bigs.

And because Taylor, Zanna and Birch don’t have back-to-the-basket moves, the points are going to have to come on drives and dishes. If Woodall can’t get in the lane and create, then he’s not giving this team what it needs from a PG.

I think we should give up the notion of the bigs even getting an entry pass — our guys do not have the ability to do it (as evidenced last year).

I want a back to basket, stand up big man more than you believe….but you need a wide body with the moves AND you need guards that can make the entry pass….and it looks like we have neither.

So, my Pitt friends, I’m starting to like the idea of a up-tempo, lights out shooting, athletic wings/bigs for tip ins kind of a team this year…that learns how to defend as the year goes on, and relies on offense to win. What the heck? Maybe it’ll result in a deeper run in March.

Apparantely nobody headed SilverPanther’s suggestion that we should “stop trying to sound so smart”. Cuz afterall the this is the comment section for a basketball blog, so we should talk about other things. or something. (sorry silver, you comment just sounded pretty condescending).

Hugh, Woodall’s doing everything we could ask of him right now. He’s not a BE player of the year or anything, but he’s producing all the offense he can given the poor showing of our front court to date.
We DO have guards (Woodall) that can get the entry passes in, but there’s just little opening for it. Our front court doesn’t know where they need to be or how to create space….YET. I do think its a matter of adjusting to the personnel and new dynamics on the floor.