We’ve got ourselves a nooner.
Let’s get this out of the way quickly. Obviously it’s ESPN3.com or ESPN Full Court’s package. But there are plenty of other outlet options for this one. Root Sports Pittsburgh, Sports Time Ohio, YES, NESN, CSN Fox Sports South and others.
It’s been a decade since Pitt faced the Hokies in basketball, but it seems like nothing has changed. In the Big East they were a bottom feeder with rare spurts of slightly below average performances. In the ACC, more of the same.
Because of the basketball only morons of Big East history, VT only played basketball in the Big East for four years. They finished last in the conference/division three times. This year in the ACC, VT is dead last with only one conference win (Miami). But on the plus side, they did beat the Hoopies.
Their head coach was hired on the cheap and out of desperation. The new VT AD is all but being forced to declare the guy a dead coach walking for the few VT fans that actually notice they have a basketball team and not pining for Seth Greenberg.
Let me try to put this in perspective how bad VT is. It isn’t simply that the mere act of playing VT will hurt Pitt in computer rankings. VT is ranked lower than Rutgers in KenPom.com. They are the lowest ranked team in the RPI among major conferences (and I’m even including the AAC, Big East and A-10). DePaul. DEPAUL is considered better than the Hokies.
To put it mildly, losing to VT would be a disaster for any team.
The Hokies have a local product on their squad in Devin Wilson. Most major conference teams that pursued Wilson did so on the football side as a wide receiver. Wilson really wanted to play basketball, though, and VT was one of the only major conference programs to offer on that side. As a freshman, the guard is playing over 30 minutes a game, which as much as anything speaks to how shallow the depth is at VT.
Speaking of shallow depth: Pitt at the center position.
“You talk about losing guys and anybody is going to be concerned,” Dixon said. “No team is deep enough to lose its second- and fourth-leading scorers. There’s only so many things you can withstand.”
Not only is Zanna Pitt’s No. 2 scorer (12.8) and leading rebounder (7.6), but the Panthers also are still trying to replace Johnson’s 8.8 points a game.
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Rutgers transfer Derrick Randall, a 6-9 junior, has averaged three minutes the past two games. Joseph Uchebo, a 6-10 sophomore junior-college transfer, replaced Zanna against Virginia but was yanked within a minute after a defensive breakdown.Instead, Dixon is relying upon his four freshmen to provide depth while learning on the go. Mike Young starts at power forward but is the best post defender so he moves to the center when Zanna is out. Jamel Artis is getting more minutes at power forward, and Josh Newkirk and Chris Jones are seeing time in the backcourt.
“We’ve got four freshmen that have to get better in the eight-man rotation,” Dixon said. “They’ve got to improve. To me, that’s encouraging because I know they will.”
The center position has been one of constant flux since Gary McGhee graduated. Khem Birch and Malcolm Gilbert transferred out in consecutive years. Steven Adams was a one-and-done.
Uchebo is not confident in his rebuilt knee yet. Randall simply is overmatched. There are rarely enough centers for any team to build something like depth at the position. It’s the one spot where teams are always taking flyers or trying to develop a guy.
Hopefully Pitt will put VT away quickly and keep Zanna on the bench so he can stay off his ankle as much as possible.
Perhaps the biggest concern for Pitt in this game is looking past it. Syracuse comes to the Pete on Wednesday night. I think I would be more concerned about looking ahead if this was a Saturday-Monday turnaround. With the extra days, there’s no reason for Pitt not to focus on crushing the Hokies
shmitlik is like mark madden…. a shock jock against pitt because he knows people have trouble looking past a car wreck. He has played us like a old guitar.
As far as tournament worthy, if Pitt is not selected, we need to respect that. The committee typically does a great job. The problem I have is that we are definitely in the top 68 in the land, but we know the rules. No big wins, no big losses. So my expectation is a loss with the cuse and an overtime with nc. That is just consistency. I sure am pushing for a big upset Wednesday, but it is hard to imagine with the current injury situation. Carpe’ orange.
Currently in those athletic spending rankings Pitt is almost dead last. But that’s with Big East money. Add the June ACC money on top of that and Pitt is in the middle of the list, at about 77 million. I like that ranking a lot better.
Jamie Dixon should immediately put in the HOF if he gets this undersized, injury ridden team to the tourney.
I’ve heard so many people complain that Dixon refuses to play “his best five guys.” Well, he did that against VT, won the game with them, and guess what? People still complain.
This is all ridiculous. Do none of you remember Paul Evans and Ralph Willard. I sure do.
Zanna’s sprained ankle is not going to miraculously disappear this week. Our rebounding vs VA Tech was non-existent. Unless Michael Young does his Dejuan Blair impersonation, I see long nights vs Syracuse and NC.
Syracuse has too many weapons and NC is just going to run us out of their gym.
There will be a lot of hand wringing and Dixon bashing this week, gleeful articles from Cook and Smizek, and a lot of I told you so’s.
Consider the source and take them with a grain of salt.
We will have eight days to recover and regroup, and then the real season begins. We will then find out what this team is made of.
We need more Penn State games, and others like it to fill the seats. An SEC game would help, but we need a competitive Pitt team and marquis opponents to fill seats. Yes, even WVU. Youngstown State doesn’t travel well enough.
Yes, the last couple games were not great, but they did win. Our shooting has got to improve, hell, many things have to improve.
I’m open to critiquing, I do it myself, but the silliness of “Dixon sucks”, “this team is lousy”, “so and so stinks”, is frankly, sophomoric.
Seriously, think about this for a second. If the average Joe came on the Blather, and read these 300 comments, without knowing a thing about Pitt basketball, the only assumption that he could come too (many of them, certainly not all) would be that…………….
Pitt is about 9-15, in 14th or 15th place in the league, a bottom feeder, and their RPI he’d have to guess is about 275.
He would probably also assume, that the program is in such a shambles that Pitt basketball hasn’t been to the NCAA Tourney since the mid-90’s!!
Little insight, check,
Negative to a fault, check,
Hasn’t gotten any better at writing after years of practice, check.
Sounds like he is a loyal Blatherite to me. LOL.
Dixon sure loves to ride on his pathetic non-conference schedule and brag about his wins. The fact that he gets so defensive about any criticism shows he knows the fan base is divided about him.
You can harangue at the bloggers who criticize Dixon all you want. You will not change attitudes. Nor has anyone given you the right to tell people to go find another team. My suggestion is stop reading the criticism if it makes you resort to name-calling and childish behavior.
Dixon’s pathetic recruiting is all on him. Latest rankings show us next to last in the ACC.
If I want to watch a slo-down mo-down, I’ll go to junior high basketball games. Pitt needs to get some shooters fast, even if Dixon goes back to the JC ranks. Obviously, his virtuous nature and absolute knowledge of hoops isn’t persuading high ranked high school seniors.
The only other ways to speed the the game up is by creating turnovers and rebounding .. and lately Pitt has been doing neither.
However, all teams play patsies. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t like it. Every team has about 10 home non-con games.
I’m mad, because all 10 of our home non-cons are against patsies. I’d like at least one or two good games.
With that being said though, you can’t say Jamie “pads” his schedule with victorys.
They all do it.
The difference is some teams may only play 7 or 8 patsies, opposed to 10.
So, if you’re gonna rip Dixon for “padding” his schedule, then you have to rip them all. They all do it.
It’s not like Dixon gets 10 free wins, and other teams only get one or two or even none.
Teams that have a better home non-con, still get 7,8,9 patsies and “pad” their victory’s too, just not 10.
Pitt a 6 seed facing 11 seed SMU
link to sbnation.com
Dixon wins without top recruits. It’s a proven fact. What is the point of even mentioning where Pitt’s recruiting classes are ranked?
The fan base isn’t divided about Dixon. 90% like him, 10% are the vocal ignorant delusional minority that thinks Pitt can do better with the head coach.
I suspect you are a paid employee of Steve Pederson’s directed to this blog and others to blunt criticism.
You have written nothing to change my mind. But save up your energy. You’re going to need it as we roll through the conclusion of this season, the ACC tournament, and a post-season tournament.
Dixon isn’t as popular as you claim. You are right, however, Pitt BOTS adore him, Pederson is too incompetent or lazy to try to find anyone with an impressive NCAA remedy, could never get Sean Miller to come back to Pitt because Arizona pays Miller very well, and we have Dixon for years to come.
Maybe Dixon could spend as much time and effort recruiting as he has done getting himself raises.
It’s amazing that for as cheap as Pitt is, the university is paying him nearly $1.8 million a year.
According to a report issued on December 7, 2013,
Dixon is the 24th highest paid college basketball coach at $1.8 million. No one begrudges Dixon his pay. Past tournament failures and subpar recruiting (there is no excuse for lack of talent and blaming it all on injuries – he is the recruiter and program CEO)indicate Pitt may have reached its Dixon ceiling. More of that talk will emerge if he and his team stumble through the rest of this season and end up with a high NCAA Tournament seed, or an invite to the NIT.
He seems to be very sensitive to criticism and reads his criticism. The next step is to try to improve. After all, aren’t we all engaged in trying to become better at our life’s work?
Thanks for confirming my comment about hitting a Dixon ceiling. “Wins without top recruits.”
The non-com was particularly bad this year because the NY tournament gave us Stanford and Texas Tech, the Jimmy V gave us Cinci, which wasn’t thought highly of at the time, and the ACC Big Ten gave us PSU instead of anyone good.
In the story, Twain says he took over editing the paper while the owner went on vacation. He started writing ridiculous things like, “It’s time to pick the turnips from the trees.” Everybody was talking about what he was writing. Circulation went way up!
Here we are talking about Smizek and his no-nothing negativity when Gorman wrote a great piece which gives us an insight into this team’s great chemistry. It starts off with Robinson talking about Wright as a jokester who works hard every day in practice:
Jamie Dixon should immediately put in the HOF if he gets this undersized, injury ridden team to the tourney.
I’ve heard so many people complain that Dixon refuses to play “his best five guys.” Well, he did that against VT, won the game with them, and guess what? People still complain.
This is all ridiculous. Do none of you remember Paul Evans and Ralph Willard. I sure do.
Comment by Denny 02.10.14 @ 9:55 am
Spirit, I said you were overreacting before Lamar was hurt. Pitt gets enough wins if Lamar is healthy. But if Lamar misses time, then I could see Pitt missing the tournament. But still I think even without Lamar Pitt beats BC, NC St and FSU.
I wonder if Dixon is thinking of sitting Patterson for the Syracuse game…
@@ good points on impact of injuries.. too bad this team is not that same that play Syracuse close there. Would like to see a rebound on Wednesday but just feels we are tailing off now due to injuries and ‘cuse is for real this year.
@@ I had a question earlier. Does anyone know with ACC money when/how that hits and if Pitt has stated if it will up its budget for coaches and programs then?? Thanks,
Also, I hope he proves me wrong, but I do not think Syracuse is a good match up for Newkirk, because of his size vs the length of that zone.
I’d give Patterson’s minutes to Artis and pray he plays D. Otherwise, it’s the equally thumb-challenged Jones to help.
I find those that want to see Dixon fired are the ones who only watch Pitt college BB games and no others. It’s just plain ignorance.
Out of his top three guys he has one out for season and 2 others playing at half speed. Any wins at this point are a plus.
Anyone notice how Arizona played when it lost Ashley…loss to Cal and should of lost to Oregon at home (they won by 2 at very end..sound familiar) ..How about Notre Dame when they lost their main guy..they are a bottom ACC team after being predicted to be at the top.
Milo:
It’s pretty simple why Pitt is struggling… Pitt is struggling because they have players hurt. And Pitt is screwed if Patterson is not 100% healthy and if you watched his shots on Saturday you know there is no way he’ll be 100% for Wednesday. I would actually sit Patterson if he’s not 100%, the uneducated college experts (Ron Cook) try to say this is a big game, but actually if Pitt lost it really isn’t going to hurt them much…(though winning would really help seeding in March). You need Patterson 100% in March…if ANY chance playing slows his recovery…sit him.
I find those that want to see Dixon fired are the ones who only watch Pitt college BB games and no others. It’s just plain ignorance.
As we’ve seen in the past with ND, when an opponent wants to slow down the game, unless we can get out in transition there is little we can do to speed it up.
WVU sure knows how to score – why can’t we be more like them? Even whipped up on DeAndre Kane.
Be careful what you wish for.
As far as Dixon I can care less if he loses 15 games a year as long as they are against real competition. I also don’t care if we barely make the tourney as long as we are actually in in past the first 3 days. I care about MARCH. I give two shits what he does against Gannon and West Texas Baptist. I don’t even care if he wins the ACC ever. Recruit legit D1 Guys and win in March. If he does that over his 45 year tenure ever I will be happy. I still think we go to the final four. We need to get Archie Miller before he goes to NC State and they kick our ass.