Missed bunnies, missed free throws and some unkind iron.

Those are the top three reasons for me that led to Pitt’s 5-point loss yesterday. The officiating sucked, but it sucked both ways so I consider that a wash.

The freshmen looked like freshmen for large portions of this game. This was their first game in a truly hostile road situation (sorry, I can’t count NC State or GT when they were dead or half-empty crowds). It showed at points, and they will learn.

I can’t say I expected Pitt to win this one going into it. I can’t say I’m surprised at the loss. I am, though, disappointed.

What I am not, though, is frustrated.

This team is better than I expected it to be this year. They are playing better than expected. They have proven adaptable and play at different paces and styles.

This is not a moral victory thing. This is simply, not hanging the head and gnashing teeth. The chances were there, they didn’t take them all, but there’s a rematch in February at the Pete against the Orange. There are a lot more games to play.

(Oh, dammit, I just agreed with a Ron Cook column.)

If there was any doubt that this was a game that both teams wanted and fought. That was being played all out to win, just check out a box score and look at the minutes played.

Syracuse played three of its starters (Fair, Grant and Ennis) for all 40 minutes. Pitt had Zanna and Patterson go 38 minutes, Wright logged 37 and Robinson lost a couple because of foul trouble to play “only” 35.

Can we at least give some credit to Syracuse as well as bemoaning what Pitt didn’t do? They are the #2 team in the country for a reason. They did make the plays late in the game after Pitt stormed back and took a lead late. Tyler Ennis took over for the Orange.

It’s also worth noting that Pitt isn’t the only team to have players improve and develop over time. Rakeem Christmas and Jerami Grant were completely overmatched last year. This year they are key starters and they did a number on Pitt offensively. Zanna had no answer to Christmas (who is shooting 73.6%) and Grant was very good attacking the basket.

The one thing that Syracuse couldn’t do against Pitt, get a rebound.

Said Dixon: “The rebounding is what we came in here to do. We talked about getting 15 offensive rebounds and we got 16. We need to finish some more, but we got the ball inside and did what we wanted to do on a regular basis. It just seemed we didn’t get enough finishes out of it.”

The Orange came into Saturday’s game leading the ACC in offensive rebounding percentage. Syracuse was grabbing a startling 44 percent of the caroms that came off its offensive glass in its four previous ACC games.

The Panthers limited SU to a total of four offensive rebounds. Baye Moussa Keita grabbed two of them.

Admittedly, there weren’t nearly that many opportunities for offensive rebounds when a team shoots better than 50%. Still, Pitt was able to grab 16 offensive rebounds. The struggle was in converting them to points. Zanna was okay at 50% shooting to get 12 points and 11 boards. Mike Young, though is still struggling to get through the trees. He grabbed 3 offensive rebounds (5 total), but was only 1-4 shooting. Derrick Randall was 0-2 including an excruciatingly painful missed bunny. Jamel Artis seemed to drift away from the paint at times.

It’s one of those things. You look at each player on the box score, you see that for the most part, the shooting on each was just a hair off. 3-7 each by Robinson and Wright (42%). Lamar Patterson was 6-15 (40%). Zanna, 4-8. But then you add in Young, Artis, Newkirk, Randall and Jones shooting a combined 2-10 and suddenly Pitt had a horrible game shooting the ball. Same with the free throw shooting (aside from Jones).

James Robinson said as much after the game.

“That’s tough,” Pitt point guard James Robinson said. “We’ve been a pretty good free-throw shooting team. I hate to come here and let that be one of the factors that play into us losing, but there were other aspects of the game that we didn’t execute or do as well as we should have.

“When you start letting all of those different categories add up — and not in your favor — that’s when you tend to lose.”

You can make yourself crazy. Get two of those bunnies. Find two more made free throws. A friendlier bounce on the rim. Suddenly it is a gritty, stirring win over the #2 team on the road. Knocking off an unbeaten.

Chris Jones played better defensively in this game than at GT, but he was definitely unnerved by the hostile crowd on offense. Newkirk was not able to control the tempo. He is Pitt’s fastest player, no question, but against Syracuse he had to slow it down and was unable to change speed. He was rushing it up the court and right into the Syracuse zone with no where to go.

If you saw the way Syracuse dismantled UNC a couple weeks ago, that was the way that went. UNC wants to constantly push tempo. Syracuse let them rush it up the court and become a mess on offense because they found themselves going  right into a disciplined defense that was already there waiting.

Both will learn. Both will get better.

So, yeah, Syracuse did more to get the win, but Pitt knows they had their chances.

“I thought we had opportunities, we had chances, we had a 3-point lead with the ball down the stretch and obviously didn’t get it done,” Dixon said. “I thought we had some pretty good looks that we didn’t knock down. I don’t know what we could have done differently as far as get better shots. Simply put, they made a higher rate from the free-throw line and the floor.

“We have to learn from some things, but we played with a lot of heart and a lot of energy. They had seven blocked shots, so that was a part of [the missed layups]. I thought we powered up, there were some plays that I thought we did everything we needed to do and I thought we got it inside and had good looks but they have lot of physicality and a lot of long athletes.”

And yes, I know about the football recruiting. I’m still at my in-laws. I went down to a Starbucks to glom on the wi-fi to get this out. Hopefully later today I will get a chance to post thoughts on the recruiting stuff when I’m home.