I’ll spare everyone the preamble on the last Backyard Brawl for the immediate future. Maybe there is a surprising deal reached to keep playing the basketball side, uninterrupted, but I doubt it. At the very least Pitt is annoyed with the Hoopies over Luck’s comments back in October, and how screwed up Pitt’s football schedule is by the Big 12’s need to have them leave for 2012. So, I expect at least a year break on the b-ball side.
I may be a touch late starting the liveblog. I’ll be rushing home from work, so if the liveblog isn’t underway immediately just use the comments to do an open thread and keep an eye out for the liveblog.
Simple thing for this game. Just beat the Hoopies. Should be a very emotionally charged game. I expect no matter what from this game to the NCAA Tournament WVU fans will assume the officials will be out to get them for officially leaving the Big East. True or not, that will be their belief. It hasn’t exactly been a good season for WVU and officiating before that point.
The game is a 9pm start on ESPN.
The usual rules are in place for this liveblog. Moderated chat. Not every comment will get pushed through. Especially when they say the exact same thing as a bunch of other comments. Dumb and abusive comments will be mocked, ignored and/or blocked depending on my whims and whether I can get a cheap laugh out of it. There is no formula to it. It comes down to judgment calls. Remember: we are not Hoopies.
If you need to break the liveblog from the site, Click Here.
Otherwise, it is right below.
down with hoopies.
WE NEED TO BRAKE THE SOUND BARRIER.
We can’t lose this one. We win and Thuggy Bear will be getting loaded on the Greyhound Bus back to Morganhole. lol
Maybe the other wvcc drunk head coach will be driving the Greyhound tonite.
What a classless community college. Do we really want Pitt’s good name associated with this classless (insert inbred insult here) glorified high school in the future.
I for one….. think not.
It also seemed that Pitt picked up the energy when JJ Moore was in the game. He even drained an open 3. He seems to be more comfortable in the back of the zone than playing man to man on D.
Robinson needs to be on the bench, the young guards need to play more to see if they have a future, if they don’t, send them packing and look for ajuco or two. Gilbert needs to play more as well as Moore, they need to contribute next year and watching the others struggle is not getting them experience.
I also believe the assistant coaches need upgraded as well, over the years a number of good ones have moved on and I’m not sure they have been replaced well.
Kind of glad I can not be in NYC for the tourney this year,it looks like it will be a quick exit.
A never ending nightmare, it seems.
F*ck the Hillbillies.
Hail to Pitt !
These passes are like to nobody sometimes.
I never seen a team that consistently throws these lame soft passes that get picked off easily and taken in for a bunny.
Coach needs to find another Tom Herrion or someone who can help out coaching. Ask Bobby Knight if he’d like to come back into coaching. haha
jimbo….totally agree with the assistance…knight is just there to pal around..not sure bout the others
I understand the argument that if you don’t like their fans don’t go to the away games, but you still have to deal with them at the home games.
WVU fans lack basic social skills that we take for granted in average human beings. You can’t go to one of their games (home or away) w/o being assaulted.
I’ve been to away games at most big east schools and no matter what the outcome of the game is, at least one of the opposing teams fans say to me, “at least your not wvu fans”.
I’m glad we don’t have them for the foreseeable future and hope we never schedule them again, home or away. They are the big 12’s problem now. Let them piss off a whole new region of the country.
No one having any fun. No, not just tonight or during the losing streak, all year. No fun out there what so ever with this team.
Second half, and I know there are foul shots and 3 pointers, but, it boils down to……..you got beat by just about 9 buckets in the second half.
That’s almost impossible to do, even if you told the team to do that.
Last thing, I know he’s just a kid, has made a ton of 3 pointers for Pitt during his career, but, has anyone seen Ashton Gibbs ever smile in his 4 years here???
When you mix “not that good” with a touch of “dis-interest”, not a good recipe!!!
I’ve gotta say our “leaders” Gibbs, Woodall and Nas did nothing and gave up. At least Taylor, for as many lapses in judgement he had, was working against the Turk all game.
Here’s the thing about Gibbs and Nas: If they can’t get pts, they bring nothing else to the table and in fact take things away. Nas gets sloppy, Gibbs wastes possessions taking bad shots and not passing the ball and failing to play defense.
give Gilbert, Moore, Johnson more minutes and look to the future.
I thought Gilbert played well in the first half and then didn’t see the floor in the second half. JJ Moore’s leaping ability alone gives Pitt a dimension that no other player has demonstrated. JJ really didn’t appear in the second half until if felt as if the game was slipping away.
2) lack of inside game
I saw a handful of times when Sleepy was posted low but Gibbs or Tray ignored him and did their own thing resulting in a turnover or a missed shot that had little chance of going. Isn’t it at least worth a try?
Groat, to his credit, asked Dixon about Nas’s health after the game. Dixon said, “he’s going through some things”. What? Regardless of why, Nas has played terribly. It is time to shut him down.
The Zoo was electric last night. Best sign “The Zoo is harder to get in than WVU”. Awesome.
The highlight of the evening: Some “well fed”, bearded young hoopie caught a t-shirt during the t-shirt toss and threw it back. Crowd went nuts, the usher came down and scolded him. The crowd starting chanting, “throw him out”. A few minutes later a couple security guards came up the aisle and tossed him!!! Apparently the hoopies haven’t learned that you can’t throw things on the court.
“c’mon guys, you can’t do that, that’s high school” referring to a turnover in the first half.
“the other 4 aren’t even down the court in position and you throw up a 3 pointer from 25 feet”
referring to a 3 pointer (I forget who) a minute or so into the second half.
as far as BB this team plays like they have no will to win.
read panther prey he nailed it gibbs should have left he is hurting the team ans it backs up some of what KB said
dixon plays someone who put in his time nomadder what even if it hurts the team
some times you need to be heartless for the bettter ment of the teamand sit kids
and new asst coachs would help
were is the RB coach when is JR day some schools have had 30 players in all ready if this is the way he recruits ohio state will eat his lunch he needs to move his ass.
When the obituary is written about this Pitt team it will be summarized in two words, no pride.
We make fun of West Virginia’s team and fans but last night we got our comeuppance from a mediocre Mountaineer team.
Adams and robinson is great, but this is a year when jamie dixon will have to get a big influx in talent. They have three scholarships available, but in my opinion they need to sign 4 players. One will have to be power forward and one will have to be a shooting guard. With birch gone they had no lpower forward capable of playing at this level, not to the fault of nas he just cant do it, so adding someone there is crucial. At the two the probable starter is john johnson. I like him but hes a little under sized and isnt very athletic. Id like to see either a torian graham or a chris jones who are 6’4″ and 6’5″ respectively, are versitile scorers, and can jump out of the gym.
I know everyone thinks he sucks and could never play PF, but he does have some latent PF skills he showed in highschool. And there’s little if any room at the C position next year (Adams, Gilbert) and a wideopen spot for him (and Zanna) to fill at PF when Nas leave.
I’m optimistic about next year (and i need to get this out to help cope with this season). Here’s a few of the reasons:
1) obvious. Adams is the real deal that can fill our void at C. Gilbert is figuring things out but will be at serviceable (better than McGhee his Jr Sr yrs) if not better.
2) Gibbs/Nas are gone. Dokish makes this case. I add that when Gibbs is not scoring, he brings nothing else to the table and in fact takes things away. He gets sloppy, wastes possessions on bad shots and plays no defense. Yet he get more minutes than anyone. Nas is a garbage man (in a good way), but if the dump off shots or sort rebounds arent there, he’s not scoring. He’s trying, but is so sloppy when we tries to create his own shot its almost always a waste of a possesion.
3) JJ Moore WILL be better. Its pretty clear he’s steadily improved over the course of the season. Sure, his shot wasn’t falling. But that will come. It just will. And when it does, he’s already learning to be much more discplined in his shot selection. He’s hustling off the ball and on defense. He has energy (and may have been the only one with consistent energy the last 3 games). All that’s left is for him to feel he has the green light to drive. With real Centers next year opening up the floor and without Nas/Gibbs eating the ball, and with PG who is capable of feeding cutting players (Woodall & Robinson) I’m confident it will happen. (we’ll see i guess. but i’d bet some money).
4) Patterson is going to be a leader….a good type a la Wannamaker. not the bad type a la Gibbs… to compliment the type of more vocal leader Woodall will be. I like these guys in charge.
5) Woodall will have less TOs because he should have less to do to get guys open. (this may be a stretch, but I’m hoping).
All of these things may seem margnal but we can see from this year how slim the margin between a winning and a losing team can be.
which worrys me becuse that was the word on him was it not.
he is not showing a lot of get up and go. when is JR day outhers have had it or it is comeing up we have not even a date for one,
he brings in what 3 players outhers have brought 30 in
what did you all say with TG give him time how did that work for us.
i say hold there feet to the fire till they show us something Were is the RB coach how mutch time does he need to hire one.
you all are to trusting just becuse he is our coach he needs to move his ass do some work bring the kids in show them some love.
this is not wisconsin were you pick the 12 kids you want and offer and they say ok here we come
at lest not yet he is like a turtle and we need a jet plane like ohio state has.
and like i said were is the RB coach wisconsin has only 8 coachs is he in fear that if he hires
one wisconsin will take him agein like last time.
I’m really disappointed in Gibbs’ lack of leadership. This was supposed to be his team. He’s looking like the beneficiary of the last class rather than someone putting his own stamp on the team. We’ve been fortunate to have senior leaders who get their teammates in line for the benefit of the team. This is just bad team basketball. It’s the same old story this year.
I can’t remember turning off this many Pitt games in disgust since the Willard era — I don’t mind losing, but there’s a level of play that I just consider unwatchable (aesthetically, competitively, etc). That’s been about 1/4 of the games this year. At times this year I could walk to the park and watch pickup games with better flow than Pitt’s offense and even better defense.
While Taylor hasn’t played a single minute at forward, it might be best for the team to have him prepared for a back up role there next season.
If Dixon wastes valuable minutes on Taylor at the expense of Adams and Gilbert, especially in the non-con, my head will explode. It will mean that he has learned nothing from this season.
Bottom line, I just don’t see where Dante fits next year.
And I agree with Frankcan, he does seem to be a tad slow in getting things organized. But that is what normally happens when you hire a guy who’s never run his own show before. They’re hesitant since they don’t have the benefit of experience in making ALL the decisions. I would be more apprehensive if he wasn’t able to bring some of these other very good Wisconsin coaches with him.
And I would be extremely apprehensive if Chryst had been Smiley’s first choice.
PITT really seems to have a sense of bad timing, had DW still be here (and I know the hate on this board), we had the Top 20 class last year we lost, there is no telling how well we would have recruited this year, with the mess at Penn State and then Rutgers. But I think DW, Hafley and the rest would have cleaned up bigtime this year and next year. For we would have been the program with stability for a change. That once in a lifetime opportunity was missed !
Big bodies on defense and boards – wvu likes to get the ball to the post. We need to go big with Gilbert getting some time at center and Zanna playing some forward to contain jones and kilicli.
Attack the hoop – can’t settle for jumpers too quickly. Moore, Robinson, patterson and Woodall need to drive the ball. That’s the only way to Get Gibbs clean looks.
Take care of the ball.