It’s officially bad. More of the same.
Coach Jamie Dixon shook up the line-up and the rotations for this game. John Johnson got the start over Cameron Wright and Talib Zanna over Dante Taylor. After a poor minute to start the game, Pitt seemed to find its footing and began to look like they were figuring things out.
John Johnson looked good running things more. Nailed an early 3. Dished well. Even drew two offensive fouls in the first five minutes.
Zanna was cleaning up inside on the offensive glass, and even handling inside passes.
J.J. Moore was aggressive but not reckless. He attacked the basket rather than settling for jumpers.
Taylor showed some fire coming off the bench in limited minutes.
Heck, even Isiah Epps looked competent for a few minutes.
Lamar Patterson and Ashton Gibbs were the only ones struggling in the first half. Patterson was taking mostly good shots, but they were rimming out. Gibbs just continued what we have all seen from him since Tray Woodall went down. Not getting space. Confidence shaken and just putting up some questionable shots.
Pitt was attacking constantly. Getting through the press better and drawing the fouls.
It even seemed the defense was looking better. They held the Blue Demons to only 35.6%. Even the turnovers didn’t seem that bad, since DePaul had just as many.
Then came the second half. A second half that saw Pitt give up 53 points.
Suddenly the defense was gone. DePaul shot nearly 60% in the second half, and was drilling their 3s. Making it appear that it wasn’t the defense in the first half, so much as cold/poor shooting from DePaul.
Indeed, after DePaul missed their first seven 3s, they drilled 10-15 3s over the final 27 minutes.
Pitt stopped being aggressive. In a first half that saw Pitt attacking, Pitt started settling for jumpers. Moore stopped attacking the basket. Sorry to say, they just tried to match DePaul rather than do what worked in the first half.
That allowed a player like Cleveland Melvin to stay on the court — and eventually find his stroke. More devastating, Pitt could not ignore a talented player like Melvin. Thisfreed up Brandon Young to kill Pitt, while guards Morgan Moses and Jeremiah Kelly got space on the perimeter for 3s.
Still despite all of that, Pitt was still in line for the win. They could hold on in the final seconds. Get the win anyway possible. Something to help turn around what is looking like a downward spiral for this year. The problem was, that DePaul would be fouling.
Coach Dixon has seen that scenario before in the Tennessee game, so rather than end up with Taylor or Zanna at the line he brought in guards. Including Isiah Epps who hadn’t seen any action in the second half. Naturally he was left uncovered to get the ball and was fouled.
Epps calmly proceeded to miss both free throws badly. Anson at Cardiac Hill hated this strategy from Dixon, but what choice was there? This is a second-guess situation. If it’s Taylor or Zanna that go and clang them, everyone is screaming about why two well-known bad FT shooters were in there in an obvious free throw situation.
Brandon Young gets to race down the court for a lay-up to tie and Gibbs inexplicably fouls him after being blown past for the “and 1” that he sinks to make the final couple seconds a mere formality.
This Pitt team is a mess, and it goes beyond Woodall’s injury and Birch transferring. Somehow the chemistry is off. The players aren’t improving. The coach is screwing up. Everything is going wrong.
It’s happened to other teams. Teams with more NBA talent. Teams with Hall of Fame Coaches. That is no comfort, however, since it is happening to Pitt.
it may be true that our “hit rate” with recruits may have declined a bit (that is % of recruits that live up to their ranking). This is largely that we’ve over-achieved given the scout rankings. This is also more common wtih programs who commonly get high ranked guys. Sometime they flame out.
In the past, our flame outs were guys like Cassin Diggs that nobody noticed. Not anymore. We have expectations and this is the frustration.
But, we are absolutely trending upwards in terms of the quality of recruits we are gettings over the course of Dixon’s tenure.
With higher quality talent, you sacrifice somewhat the quality of the attitudes, emotional maturity and general b-ball IQ you have on hand. My only knock so far on Dixon is that he hasn’t adapted to this fact yet. If you want to talent, you have to adapt to the egos that come with it.
Goes for Taylor, and Moore and Birch. These three guys were the ones who were supposed to be our future. Not Patterson (a 3 star recruit), not Nas (a 3/4 star recruit), not even Gibbs (a 3-star recruit).
Comment by Ghost of Hornman 01.06.12 @ 3:13 pm
You are on target Ghost. This team hasn’t improved since the Rider and LaSalle games. They got a little better against Penn & RMU when Birch got over 25 minutes and that spurred Sleepy to play a little better for a few games(or maybe it was the competition). Of course we did lose our 2nd leader scorer (at the time) and best assist man.
I’ll wait till we get Woody back before totally throwing in the proverbial towel.
Still even without Woody, no way we should lose to Wagner & DePaul.
HTP
clueless in game
zero in game adjustments
relies heavily upon assistants
doesnt bend style to players, tries to bend players to style
completely inexplicable decisions in final minutes of game (biggest win of his career he was overruled by LeVance Fields in Duke win at MSG)
the dean smith etc analogies are stupid… if you watched any NCAA game in which he bowed out early (yes, all 8 where he lost to higher seeded teams) and thought they were well coached you simply do not understand the intricacies of basketball. He was outcoached every single time
This team may not win another game but we can hope for improvement. That’s about it.
i dont wish him ill will and expect him to drag on at least 2-3 more years unless somebody pays him to leave
he has been a great community force and stable influence on this town and school
however – i will critique his deficiencies and will expect championships considering what Pitt has provided for him (MORE MONEY EVERY TIME, facilities, ACC, etc… now it is on him to win more than Howland in March)
I dont want him to be fired, im just saying why do you expect anything better than the past few years? we peaked in the elite 8 run
Are we dismissing the two excellent, immediate impact recruits coming in next year? Oh, dismiss Adams because he will probably only stay two years… So he can’t get the elite recruits, but then when he does, it doesn’t count because they will leave for the NBA. That is what elite recruits do. Our recruiting is fine. Obviously this season hasn’t panned out as we hoped. But we ARE seeing an increase in the quality of recruits we are getting.
And saying that we choked in the tournament last year somehow denies how good the team was doesn’t make sense. We dominated the Big East, which put 11 teams in the tournament including the national champion- who beat us in the Big East tourney on a buzzer beater.
It is simply revisionist history to say that this program is on the decline under Dixon. Yeah, this season is a decline over last season. Last season was a major success that ended with a disappointing loss in the tourney- based on a bone-headed play by one of our players- to a team that ended up in the title game.
Don’t know what I said in responding to scott’s post to generate such a personal attack. But I would love to have the psychic ability to determine that people are ‘loud mouths’ and ‘no nothing yinzers’ , by what they post on a blog.
Veritas et Virtus
Hail to Pitt !
1. he didnt recruit Birch, PAT SKERRY DID… he left to coach at Towson
2. WHO CARES ABOUT THE REGULAR SEASON? do you really want to know at the start of every year pitt will go 12-4 in big east and share some meaningless regular season title and choke in march?
success in this game is determined by what you do in March… just ask Butler if they would trade National Championship runs and final 4s for success in the regular season big east
3. last season was not a success… when you are ranked number one and go 1-2 in the post season as a 1 seed in both tournaments the season is a failure.
3. needs to be repeated. We were the #1 seed in the Big East tournament and lost our first game
we were ranked number 1 overall. we were the 1 seed in our region, we beat a 16 seed then lost and went home
THAT IS FAILURE NOT SUCCESS
Furthermore, Dixon has had success in the Big East Tournament. Just because the last couple of years we have struggled doesn’t mean he hasn’t had success there. When you look at the teams in the tournament, you mean to tell me any team would expect a cake-walk through the BET just because they are the 1 seed?
this is a waste of time
Dixon is good at in game coaching and Pitt doesnt choke or underachieve every single postseason
youre right
Maybe Woodall, Patterson and Robinson were recruited to be role players and now they’re miscast. I doubt it, but I guess it’s possible.
I think they thought they were getting another Wanamaker in Patterson. A guy who could play a two and three and whose shooting would improve and who had a big body and could pass/distribute and make everybody else better. Unfortunately, Patterson is just OK at all that stuff and is never going to be the alpha male that Wanamaker was.
And I think with Robinson they thought they were getting another Greer — an undersized guy who was strong/tough enough to mix it up with the front lines in the Big East. And Robinson does do that — just not well enough to be a go-to guy inside. Like I said before, maybe he’d be a great fit playing with quality big men.
And I think a few years back they decided that Epps and Woodall had the potential to be starting Big East PGs. Some of you think Woodall is one of those; I think he’s just the only option in an empty cupboard.
I still think we’ll pull out some games this year. Wouldn’t even be surprised if we come close to .500 in the BE. Only UConn, L-ville and the Cuse look good. Marquette and G-town are just OK and Pitt is just as lousy as everybody else.
Let’s see what Dixon can do. Like I said, I still think they’ll do alright.
We almost got lucky and hired Skip Prosser instead of Dixon. Prosser was a coach with a good resume of success. That would have been wonderful for us.
Furthermore, Dixon brings more than just wins and stability to the program. He brings integrity. We have no concerns that he will be a Fraud Graham or a Calipari who has success, leaves, and has his success vacated by the NCAA. Chris Dokish (I believe it was his blog, I could be wrong) had suggested that part of why Dixon doesn’t usually go after guys like Birch is because of the necessary shadiness involved in landing them. And there are suggestions that other schools were offering Birch more than playing time to come. We know when Dixon gets a Birch, we won’t need to worry about sanctions against our school in a few years when we learn just how that player was lured here.
In a Post Haywood/Graham era, Dixon is the absolute best thing Pitt has or could have.
And to say the comparisons to other coaches such as Smith are stupid, is well, stupid. The point is that coaches continue to develop over time. Dixon is a much better game coach now than when he first started. If you don’t recognize that, well, I’ll spare the unnecessary personal insults and simply suggest you go back and watch games from his first year. Just two years ago, he was praised on here and nationally for his ability to make in game adjustments, as demonstrated by Pitt dominating the second halves of games.
Dixon is not above criticism, and I don’t agree with everything he does or all of his coaching philosophies. But your blind hatred of him as a coach really undercuts whatever valid points you may otherwise make.
Appreciate it and enjoy your posts as well.
V E V
H T P !
link to panthersprey.blogspot.com
All of these fan bases tried running their respective coaches of town too…I’m sure they’re glad they didn’t.
as far as recruiting the parents and the kids love him.
no need to say more there is a football post up now so i will leave you all to your BB tears
Having gotten over the angst of last nights game, I began thinking about coaching, specifically my coaching experience after losses and what other coaches have also owned up to. We you lose as a coach, especially a close game, you question every decision you made (usually laying awake with a note pad until the wee hours)and many times wonder how you could have made such a foolish choice (it obviously did not work)or why you did not take the advice of your assistants.
There is never a good or a right answer but you use those teaching situations to your and your team’s advantage.
I can assure all of you that a good man and a good coach like Jamie Dixon was up very late last night, mentally pulling his hair out over the results. A classic case of a different move occurred when he pulled the team off the line with Epps shooting his second foul.
(in the NCAA’s he left the team on the line and we all know the result). This time when Epps missed (not having his players defend) it allowed Depaul to run the floor with little or no Pitt pressure and thanks to Gibbs “Ole”” defense…well you know the result.
So with all the angst that I know Jamie had, and all of us who have coached have had, it really always comes down to one thing. If you have the better team, you usually win. If not, you lose.
I questioned a lot of the results of JD’s coaching and decisions…never the decisions themselves. This blog is a Godsend when it comes to knowledgeable basketball fans and our arguements are always good on both sides. It’s going to be a long year. All we can hope for is to see improvement. My one suggestion is to put John Johnson at point guard and leave him there.
Last night he got caught doubling down 4 times in the second half as his man hit open 3’s. Today I heard from JD that it was the plan.
Hail to Pitt…let’s get em tomorrow….and avenge the Cotton Bowl of the 80’s. Hopefully Joe do it all McAll will not forget the ball when he scores this time.
and to counter what “anonymous” said about all of those coucheshaving FFs and championships, none (or no more than 1) got one before first having to head coach for at least 11yrs.
I think the concensus here is that Dixon is a good coach, we’re happy to have him. But some of his shortcomings are being magnified this year.
also, he’s not a terrible in game coach as someone said above. he does stubbornly rely a bit too much on his system and fails to adapt to players and situations. but i’ve witnessed a number of brilliant in game coaching decisions. remember two years ago all those last second wins during BE play? is he the best in game coach? No. He’s a very good (if not quite elite yet) all-round coach? absolutely.
I am glad I don’t work for some of you guys.
This is going to be a tough year. Only two seniors, one under performing junior and a lot of underclassmen.
I bet that Jamie has this team improve over the course of the season, but the upside is not great.
If Adams is the real deal, they will be back in the mix next year.
The expectations of some on this sight are outrageous. We haven’t made a final four boo hoo hoo. Even Birch was not going to make that much of a difference.
We do miss the outstanding defense of guys like, Wannamaker, Dixon, Jaron Brown. None of these guys are willing to play defense first.
Every great coach misses the tournament. Villanova beat Georgetown, Phi Slamma Jamma lost in the finals, It’s hard to win the big ones, how many times have Boeheims teams underachieved?
For some the grass is always greener. Get over yourself.
The talent level on this team is not appreciably different this year than in years past. The offensive and defensive schemes are the same.
The problem is the individual pieces don’t fit together. Players are not comfortable in their roles.
Is that coaching? Yeah, partly. He recruited these guys and put them in these positions. Some just haven’t developed. It happens.
My biggest concern is that this team seems to lack toughness. Is that leadership, coaching or the individuals? More than likely it’s all of the above.
The program was headed in the right direction. They have to figure out a way to right the ship. A down year is acceptable. Killing the Pitt brand is not.
Sam Young and Dejuan Blair were professionals from day one and i give dixon no credit for their career development. Under howland i saw orlando lett improve, donatas zavackas improve,jaron brown improve, aaron gray improve, chevon troutman improve,need i say more, people. The x’s and o’s are lacking on this team, the effort is horrendous, the unity is piss poor, the understanding of smart basketball is far out of reach, basic basketball is just not stressed or cared about here, and it shows!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
While Howland turned the program around, Jamie was there with him.
Howland has had far superior talent (as it is easier to recruit to UCLA, duh)but his record is not that much better, and he fell on hard times before Jamie.
Jamie has got far more out of less talented kids than just about anyone. Sometimes kids just don’t turn out. To blame Jamie for Brown’s inconsistency, or Taylor’s performance is just plain wrong.
Sometimes a Scotty Reynolds or Kemba Walker beats you and sometimes you miss a foul shot to win.
Jamie has been loyal to a fault and is a class guy.
Would you rather have a scumbag like Pitino or Calipari or a nutball like Huggins representing your University.
However, at this mid season juncture following so many consecutive NCAA tourney seasons, your views only convince me that you are a classic example of a spoiled frontrunner glass always half (maybe completely) empty type of fan.
Sam Young and Dejuan Blair were professionals from day one
You mean Sam Young who couldn’t stick with his own shadow on D as a frosh, or freshman Dujuan Blair, who would have fouled out by committing 5 reach-in fouls within the 1st 5 minutes if Dixon didn’t manage his minutes?
Get a grip. Young got a ‘most improved in Big East’, as did Gray and Gibbs, all under Dixon. Not to mention Knight and Krauser, one Dixon coached and the other he recruited.
Yes, but embarrassing a decent Clemson team in a BCS game is above a final 4 or elite 8.
I hate WVU with almost all the blood that courses through my veins, but I will give credit where credit is due. That win put some stuff into perspective. They have handed their postseason opponents some serious losses on the biggest stages in the BCS against some of the highest distractions and adversity (beating Oklahoma IN a western based Fiesta bowl without a head coach (after 13-9 Hail to Pitt!)). Pitt has done NOTHING but sh@t the bed constantly on the big stage and has handed out cockamamie excuses on why we constantly come up short. We’ll be lucky to win a BVCA bowl with an interim coach!!! Not to be a downer, but Chryst has a lot of work to do.
Apologies. This may be whiskey-fueled.
And I stand by my original comment – I can’t see any top flight coach, including Sean Miller, leaving a stable situation to coach at a school that fires someone with Dixon’s overall body of work after one bad season. It would be career suicide.