I made an uncomfortable link this morning. In 2007, when Pitt upset Duke in MSG the Panthers also lost Mike Cook for the season. The very next game, Pitt got trounced at Dayton (and lost Levance Fields for a chunk of the season just to make things worse).
This year, Pitt loses Durand Johnson and has to go to Georgia Tech. The one common theme is that the coach is the same. Brian Gregory was the coach at Dayton then and is the coach at Georgia Tech now. Anything that reminds me of that loss — no matter how vague — makes me nervous.
Other concerns.
Georgia Tech (10-6) has been a tough opponent at home. The Yellow Jackets are 8-1 at McCamish, and the enthusiastic crowd impressed Notre Dame head coach Mike Brey, who said, “Their fans were great. Their fans gave them probably the confidence to win the basketball game.”
Georgia Tech is 5-0 against Pittsburgh. The teams’ last meeting came in 1989 at The Omni, a 111-92 Georgia Tech win.
That one loss. Brian Gregory’s old team, Dayton.
One of the issues for GT has been that they look really impressive and then disappear for large stretches.
Tech again showed its habit of turning it on and off. It worked out better than against Vanderbilt and St. John’s, when Tech had a double-digit lead in the first half before losing by wide margins. Saturday, Tech had a 17-4 lead that was reduced to two points before the end of the first half and a 54-39 lead with 13:59 to go that vanished after the Jackets failed to score over the next five minutes and 26 seconds.
Kind of late for us Eastern Time Zone people. A 9 pm game on a weekday on ESPNU.
Nice gutty win. I like this team.
H2P!!!
GREAT WIN BY PITT ON THE ROAD IN HOSTILE TERRITORY FOR YANKEES. BELIEVE ME !
Still, lots of lessons to learn as Pitt adusts to life with Duran Duran. On the road in the ACC you need to put teams away HARD! If not the refs will kill you. Now finally for a Big East Game Saturday.
Like our chances! Pitt has always handled the 2-3 zone well. For sure Cuse will not doulbe team Patterson (they play zone only) as he led the team in assists tonight. Great game by Zanna….best game ever by Robinson!
Top 20!
16 points, 5 assists, 4 steals, 3 rebounds only 1 turnover.
4-0 in the conference. 6th place? Okay.
Keep the trash talk clean and fair, and keep it to the players if you must.
My two sons are Cuse grads. (I liked the dorm situation better.) Saturday will be fun.
Excellent.
Gonna need a 3 baller sometime, I guess Lamar can be that guy if needed, and even part of his game.
No bitchin’, nice win in Hotlanta!!!
Lamar was just great on some passes and did finish in double figures, 12 pts, 7 assists, probably 7 more hockey assts., 6 rebounds, 2 steals.
And Cam had a great 2nd half, finished with: 14pts., 4 assts, 2 rebounds and 1 steal
It wasn’t a thing of beauty – too many turnovers, only 67% FTs – but 57% shooting, and out rebounding a good rebounding team 38-18, pretty impressive.
Chris Jones only 4 minutes, so looks like he won’t be taking too many of DJs minutes. Looking forward to the Orange…H2P.
Pitt had as many offensive rebounds as GT had defensive rebounds. Same as WF game. Interesting. Perhaps my rebounding fears were mistaken.
JR only in second season with best game ever. Had a pretty good line against MD last week too.
I was leary early on, even with their undefeated early OOC wins, that when we got tested in the conference that there might be trouble, but I’ve seen the Panthers play tough in the face of adversity all season long when it presents itself.
A matter of fact, if Patterson didn’t get cold at the free throw line against Cincy at the end we’d be top 10 and still undefeated tonight!
This team has what it takes to FINALLY do something in the big dance come March. A win on Saturday would be icing on the ACC cake after this road win, while passing the midpoint of the season.
Come on Keith, its OK to believe!
Young played 14 against Wake Forest, 28 tonight.
Wright played 26 against Wake Forest, 35 tonight.
Thanks for sharing.
Thanks for sharing.
GT fought and scrapped throughout. Great exposure for the freshmen and Randall (although a junior, I consider him stunted because of the Rutgers fiasco).
This was Youngs best game. Although not perfect, he showed more effort on D and hit his free-throws when it mattered.
I was at the game to tonight and it just didn’t feel like the games from the old BE. The dislike of teams hasn’t developed. Oh how we hated this nova and g town teams. It was visceral.
@PittAtlanta as we continue smacking ACC teams in the mouth on their home courts there will be much dislike aimed in our direction.
Brian Gregory quote – where was that from ?
I think some; including me thought Zanna was soft. He’s proving us wrong.
Chris Jones isn’t quite ready to fill in as sixth man.
Why do we wait until the other team has a chance to set up their press at the end of the game? If we hurry we can inbound to one of our guards and catch the defense in transition and break it just by shear speed dribbling up the court and elude the trap. Why do we come out of the time out in these situations with such a poor plan? Is it coaching or just bad execution?
So far the minutes from DJ are going to the starting five – see Howard’s post above.
The bench did fine and can score if they take the shots. Last night they were 5 for 7 from the field. JD is going to have to let them loose and see if they can produce in larger numbers. They also had only one TO.
Robinson will have to look for his shot in the future just like last night.
Don’t get too excited if we hit some bumps in the road in the near future – we are a work in progress.
GT game:
Robinson is capable of scoring; showed last night
Pitt cannot afford to have Zanna in foul trouble; Randall is
big but adds very little
We miss DJ big time
Big Bill Fralic sitting behind our bench
Winning on the road is huge; on to Syracuse
ACC folks are starting to see enough film of us to find chinks in our armor. Hopefully our guys continue to get better.
Where did this Zanna guy come from? I don’t remember seeing him last week? I almost had visions of DeJuan Blair.
Why do you need to let the bench loose when your starters are being highly productive and are better than the bench? I’d rather have Lamar shooting than letting bench guys have more shots. Newkirk is a promising freshman, but he still is a freshman and prone to mistakes. Robinson on the other hand is ridiculous at not making mistakes.
