God bless, Aaron Donald. Not only did he sweep the awards this week. He did it during finals week at Pitt when there was no real news or games. (Let’s try not to think too much about the student part of the student-athlete, I’m sure the athletic department worked something out with Donald’s professors on the finals.)
Not sure what kind of crowd will be at the game. The weather looks like it will be kind of nasty. A wintry mix of snow and ice. Up here in the Cleveland area, it’s just snow. A noon start. But, hey, it is on-campus so you know that’s all people need as motivation to show up for games.
Okay, so about the game and other stuff.
The primary storyline is that Youngstown State has a dynamo guard. The third straight team Pitt will be facing that has one of those. This one, however, played in the Greentree Summer League.
“He’s a workaholic,” Wright said about [Kendrick] Perry, a 6-foot-1 senior who was teammates with Pitt’s Lamar Patterson and Mike Young in the Greentree Summer League. “In the summer league, he was very aggressive, a very athletic guard. He was a guy in the summer league that I really had respect for his game.”
Pitt (9-0) hosts Youngstown State (7-4) on Saturday at Petersen Events Center.
The Horizon League preseason Player of the Year, Perry leads YSU in scoring (20.7 points) and assists (4.9) while ranking seventh nationally in steals (2.9) and shooting 51.4 percent from the field. He is the only player in school history with 1,500 points, 400 rebounds, 400 assists and 200 steals.
Perry kind of fell to YSU. A Florida native, he was getting a lot of attention from FSU, Florida and Miami as a high school sophomore, but suffered a broken leg as a high school junior.
I guess we will see how much Pitt worked on its defense during finals week.
After the Panthers’ 85-68 win against Loyola Marymount Friday, Dixon said they still are not playing well enough consistently in either area to be the team he would like them to be.
“I thought early on we were not aggressive enough with our hands on defense and they hit some shots,” Dixon said. “We did a better job as the game went on and there were some stretches in the second half where we did lock them down and make them take some tough shots, but we have to get better. We have to continue to try to play a complete game.”
The hands were definitely not as active. In the first couple weeks, Pitt was really moving their hands on defense. Not putting them on a guy, but keeping them in motion so that it obscured the offensive player’s vision and helped create more turnovers. When they stop moving their hands and just keep them up, it makes it easier for teams to move the ball.
“We also didn’t get a lot of offensive rebounds, but you don’t get a lot when you shoot it as well as we did. But we also need to do a much better job on the other end and not give up 16 offensive rebounds.”
Of course Coach Dixon would also toss in the rebounding.
The game is a nooner. It is on ESPN3.com, but also ACC Network affiliates. Root Sports (Pgh) has it. As does NESN, SportsTime Ohio, CSN-Mid Atlantic, MSG+ and a bunch of regional Fox Sports stations.
A couple more competitive games would be nice, but meaningless by tournament time.
Randall: 11 points 7 rebounds
Total from the 5: 21 points 22 rebounds!
Why would a competitive team want to sully their non-con record by playing us at home?
FT shooting 80% – great
10 players with double digit minutes and 5 with double digit points – excellent
This is why you play a team like the Penguins. Work out the kinks. Check out depth. Check out how a different mix of players on the floor works. Playing a game – even against a weaker opponent – tells you things you can’t see in practice.
The teams that have turned down home-and-home series since we left the BE are both former BE opponents.
Man.. I’d love Pitt to be able to get Mostella for next semester. I’m not entirely optimistic about it, though.
The reasons are two fold one we do not recruit at the level of those teams. Two it is a fact that Pitt plays a soft non-conference schedule and glides into January undeafeated. Even the terriblr 2011-2012 team came into January rated in the top ten with one loss (Long Beach State).
A difficult pre-conference schedule in 2012-2013 a change in the Dixon philospophy to apadt his system to the luck he recieved in player acquisition in 2012-2013 and perhaps Pitt would not have crashed and burned as they do each March.
Building the team around Adams would have created more losses early in the seasoon but would of made incredible dividends in March/also sitting using Woodall as the 6th or 7th man would have had the same benefit.
I agree with Dixon the ACC is weak this year and the one loss going into January should help us get into the NCAA. However this team has no height and Zanna is easy pickin’s for a decent center.
The team has been living off of high percentage shooting. This is the same team (Zanna and Patterson) that when the defense is stepped up in conference games in the lasttwo years have often disappeared. Jamie is very worried about this team but he is not going to say it. And with the incredible weak 2014 recuits if he indeed can coach he will be tested.
Dixon is our’s his star diminished after the 2011-2012 season the misuse of Taylor, Birch, and Adams.
Totally disagree regarding Taylor, Birch and Adams.
Luck in player acquisition? Getting Mostella was lucky too. And I guess already getting a 4 star recruit for 2015 is luck too. And you might be the only person who says the 2014 class is incredibly weak. Many people say Luther is underrated as a 3 star, Shaq is a 4 star center on ESPN, Jeter played and did decent as a true freshman in the SEC.
Not a homerun commit, but this class desperately needs some help on defensive side of the ball…
Turn off fox news. It’s polluted your brain,
It’ll be a fun season.
from Cardiac Hill:
Gottlieb and the rest of the CBS team took repeated shots at Pitt’s schedule during every break of the Az v. UM game. Every time they’d show clips from the pitt-ysu game they would follow up with jokes about us. We’re getting no respect at all. We need a statement game in NYC against Cincy. Otherwise, we’re really going to get hurt come tourney time.
He looks like a great 3-star find having had a 71 or 72 Scout grade rating.
Am I missing some deficiency?
His playing time is being limited by his weaknesses on defense this year. Next year he could start at the 3.
