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December 23, 2011

Briefly, at least.

There is a game at the Pete against Wagner tonight. Given the time of year — plenty of good seats still available.  For those of us not in the Burgh, the game is on ESPNU at 8pm.

I may have to go with an open thread for tonight, because it is a better than 50% chance that I will have to resort to DVR delay. Only way out is if my wife is let out of work early so I can take care of my last minute errands. Ah, Christmas time. The moments of personal inconvenience when I think I should have have listened to my grandfather and found a nice Jewish girl. But I digress.

Ashton Gibbs is on the verge of some nice statistical accomplishments.

And in the next few games, beginning Friday night against Wagner at Petersen Events Center, Ashton Gibbs likely will move past Brandin Knight and into 15th place on the Pitt all-time scoring list. Gibbs has 1,417 points, and Knight, now an assistant on Panthers coach Jamie Dixon’s staff, totaled 1,440 from 1999-2003.

Gibbs, who’s averaging a team-high 17.5 points, said reaching performance standards doesn’t excite him. When he was close to setting a Pitt record for consecutive made free throws in 2009-10, he said he didn’t know it until his father told him.

“No clue,” said Gibbs, who set the mark at 46. “That’s one thing about me nobody really knows. I never look at stats. I don’t want it to get in my head like how many points I need to keep up my average. I just keep on playing and just win games.”

But he is pleased to be so close to Knight.

“Just to pass someone who is a great player, great coach, great person, it’s definitely an honor,” he said.

There’s a little more.

Gibbs now stands at 252 3s made. The Pitt record is held by Jason Matthews with 259. Brandin Knight’s record 654 3FGA, probably will fall as well. Gibbs is up to 583. Jason Matthews 45.7% 3FG%, however, looks safe. Gibbs is second at 43.2%. Barring injury, Gibbs should finish this season as one of Pitt’s 10 top scorers of all-time.

Ray Mernagh previews the Seahawks. While the local coverage for Wagner calls the game what it is:

“Great team,” Wagner coach Dan Hurley conceded of the Seahawks’ opponent tomorrow night in a game to be shown on ESPNU. “Big. Strong. They’re an elite program.”

What this is for Wagner is a “guarantee” game, one of those road trips lower-level Division I programs make each season to help fill out a power team’s home schedule.

In this case, Pitt gets to sell out Petersen against a supposedly lesser opponent. In return, Wagner gets to pick up a paycheck approaching six figures that helps underwrite program costs.

These program’s met for the first and only time in the first round of the 2003 NCAA Tournament when the No. 2-seeded Panthers rolled 87-61 on Jermaine Hall, Dedrick Dye-led Wagner, which was making its only NCAA appearance to date.

Pitt’s defense has played better. Mainly the rebounding. But it doesn’t hurt that the opponents have been on relatively easy.

Three of the past four opponents have shot 40 percent or less. The one team that shot better than 40 percent was Oklahoma State, which shot 41.9 percent.

The Panthers held Saint Francis to 35.2 percent Tuesday night — the lowest shooting percentage for an opponent this season.

“We’ve come a long way,” Dixon said. “I feel good about it. We were way below our normal standards. We got it changed. It obviously had to do with some new guys being in there. We’re getting better.”

“You can definitely feel it,” Patterson said. “In the beginning, guys didn’t know certain little schemes we wanted to get done. They weren’t as confident in themselves. Now we’re starting to get our feet wet more. We know how to get it done.”

Dixon said it’s hard to pinpoint one thing for the recent improvement. He said it’s the result of the young players learning the system on offense and defense. Long Beach State and Rider shot a high percentage against Pitt partly because the Panthers displayed poor shot selection on offense.

Long Beach State and Rider got dunks and other easy shots because the transition defense was caught off guard after the offense was not executed well enough.

As the players have become more familiar with the way Dixon wants them to play on offense, the number of layups opposing teams have been converting have decreased.

No one is saying this is going to be a defense, circa 2003. At best this may be an average defensive team this year. There are still too many lapses. Especially late, where the team starts to ease up on defense. Obviously the loss of Birch is not good from that perspective. He may not have been physically intimidating, but he already had created a certain level of anxiety towards the possibility of getting a shot blocked inside.





the NBE piece is pretty insightful. We hear a lot 2nd or 3rd hand about Pitt practices, but by all accounts it’s not for the feint of heart.

One-note bigs who can block shots are kind of a kluge. Good team D should obviate the need for blocking shots (ie positioning, dictating shot selection, etc). Pitt’s D isn’t particularly good this year regardless of recent numbers and I agree that at best they could be a mediocre defensive. They’ll need to win games on the glass and the other end of the floor.

Comment by Ghost of Hornman 12.23.11 @ 1:00 pm

Ghost, agree, defensive stats were padded against VMI, SC St and St Francis .. nonetheless, I am sure they are improving somewhat on that end.

With Woodall return, they may more of a wider open offensive game which may make them a bit more suspect to transition baskets

Comment by wbb 12.23.11 @ 1:16 pm

I’m curious to see how Pitt fares during conference play this year. It definitely looks like it will be a bit of an off year (considering what we’re accustomed to) but I seem to think that they’ll hold their own, for the most part. Like the above posts say, the D really isn’t going to be a strong point this year. I’m also curious to see what other PITTBlatherererers have to say about it. Merry Christmas

Comment by Mike C 12.23.11 @ 3:24 pm

When everyone was concerned about the defence, I figured it was just early in the season with a lot of new young players. I’ve watched Jamie Dixon’s teams for too long to be worried about the defence coming around. The issue, as I saw it, was the number of turnovers. Since that time the defence has tighted up and they’re getting better everything accross the board. The biggest thing that jumps out at you is, how well they are rebounding. I’m looking forward to tonight’s game at the Pete.

Comment by Justinian 12.23.11 @ 3:53 pm

To my hoopster friends, who don’t visit football all the time………

Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah or any other faith, and have a safe and Happy New Year!!!!

Comment by Dan 12.23.11 @ 4:57 pm

If Birch does not come back (and I really do not expect him to) Gilbert will have progressed substantially and by tournament time Taylor may acxtually get to play the 4 occasionally. Gilbert will be quite a force by March and so will PITT.

Comment by jim 12.23.11 @ 5:13 pm

Dan, my sentiments exactly. Enjoy your loved ones.

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