Pitt couldn’t lose this game, but they weren’t their most inspiring. It was a win, though, and Pitt plays tonight at 10 pm against San Diego State who made it through a late double-overtime battle with BYU. Mountain West payback on the Cougars.
The Panthers came out with much more energy than (I guess) they did against Hawai’i and definitely more than against Samford last week. They got the message about attacking the rim both for rebounding and trying to score.
Unfortunately they were struggling to score early. So even though they were killing Chaminade on the glass and getting a lot more shot attempts, they were not converting the opportunities with any consistency — other than when Mike Young had the ball.
Defensively, Pitt continues to be a surprising mess. Last night some players began to see the effects of their defensive performance on their playing time. Specifically Chris Jones and Jamel Artis.
Neither player is a defense first kind of player that was a given. Both have been handed big opportunities to earn a lot of playing time with the injury to Cam Wright and suspension of Durand Johnson. Neither has come out and seized that opportunity.
Jamel Artis wants to be the small forward, but his inability to keep players in front of him on the perimeter is painful to watch. He gets the inside players in trouble continually on the drive because it forces help defense which results in a foul — when it is late — or provides an open bunny for the other team’s interior player who was left alone. Artis only saw the court for 3 minutes in the second half. To some degree, Artis will have more of a chance to get better on the court simply because of the need.
Chris Jones, though, has a smaller window. He had a very nice offensive game against Hawai’i. But his defense is catching up to him fast. He only played 10 minutes last night. They were fundamental things. Not getting his hands up on the perimeter to defend passes or outside shots. Poor rotation, late close outs.
In the second half, it was noticeable that Jamie Dixon had enough of both of them. He did not play them at the same time — though they were both part of the starting five for the game. Opting instead to use more of freshmen Ryan Luther and Cameron Johnson.
It isn’t all on those two players. Letting Chaminade shoot 25-49 overall and 11-27 on 3s (for a painfully high eFG% of 62.2%) is a team effort. The perimeter defense really struggled to close out the shooters and still couldn’t keep the ball from getting inside for easier scores.
I don’t know how far behind Tyrone Haughton is, since he didn’t get academically qualified until late. Still, if Joseph Uchebo can only give them a couple ineffective minutes, there may not be much choice but to see if Haughton can at least provide some minutes and tolerable interior defense.
Center is still the key…I think last night showed that Young should be at the 4, where he can thrive.
There is a core group that can be a very good team. Agree with you that it is not Jones or Artis because they are really, really poor defenders. We need Randall/Uchebo to be servicable…rebounders, garbage put backs and defense, that is all we need from them. Like McGhee once did for us so well. Add to that Wright, Young, and Nuke, and I like it.
Amazing that Luther and Slim played so much, but they did OK. Slim is going to be a potentially great player.
It sounded like they said Cameron Johnson was Gilbert Johnson’s son? If so, I didn’t know that, nice to hear though. Cam, a true frosh, outplayed Artis & Jones, obviously, and he looks poised too. Maybe that was just a good night for him? TIme will tell.
Last night was not a good matchup for Luther due to Chaminade’s style, but he does look like he could be a nice player. He appears Vargaish… physical power forward who can leap. Nice to see him hit the 3 too.
Maybe the best thing last night was Fraschilla saying that Pitt is a year away of being a real good team.
Nonetheless, unlike our FB team, I am expecting the BB team to actually show improvement as the season progresses.
And yes, Slim is Gilbert’s son.
I knew Haughton would not provide any offense but thought that his reputed defensive skills would be exactly what this team needed … but hard to be an asset when you are on the pine.
BTW, is anyone else here surprised to see DJ sitting on the bench?
The defense wasn’t very good, once again, however, maybe this is the year that we steadily improve throughout the season and play our best basketball by years end. I agree with Chas that a few of the named players above were just atrocious on defense and the reduction in their minutes was justified.
Cam Johnson looks like he is going to be a good one. has the frame to add plenty of weight, smooth shooter, seems to have a good basketball IQ. Granted, small sample size so far but I like his game.
Very, very tough matchup tonight. Those easy offensive boards won’t be there and we are going to have a tough time putting the ball in the hoop. very early in the season but this would be a great, resume-building win.
Dixon needs to keep sending a message that you play good D or sit. Obviously you have to have the athletic ability also, which Artis and Jones have.
Pitt’s inability to pass the ball inside was troubling.
Give this team some time.
And wait ’til next year.
1. Robinson is willing to drive. It did not always work out as he missed half his layups, but he HAS to keep that up!!
2. Young scored 27 points and I am not sure any bucket was the same as the last one.
3. Newkirk is showing a great balance between pushing, but also holding back when appropriate.
4. Randall I said last night sucked on defense but I take that back, I think he got burned for giving help early a few times but that is a failure of team defense as much as himself and he otherwise had moments where dare I say he played like McGhee….strong positional defense, not giving up position or biting on ball fakes.
It has to work out that Pitt plays Arizona, if only because Sean Miller played on the team with Cameron Johnson’s dad.
Agree that Jones and Artis are struggling defensively.
Randall had a surprisingly strong game, due in part to the opposition, but still a positive. Also, I think why Uchebo didn’t play after the first minute.
The freshmen are going to be good.
Jeter missing in action?
We were spoiled by the great passing of Patterson and Zanna, very uneven so far. Wright will help there as well.
Young is “The Man”
Robinson had an all-around good game and made his shots, really important.
Overall, team has to shoot better, defend better, and keep rebounding, pretty simple.
Thanks to those 3 shortcomings – Cameron Johnson has an opportunity and from the looks of things… he’s gonna take it.
But he only spelled Young briefly in the 2nd half and played last minute or so. I suspect JD was staying with the hot hand, and also played 3-guard offense with JR, Nuke and Slim a bitmore for perimeter defense, since Randall and Young had little trouble rebounding.
I’m afraid we will see more of Uchebo tonight because our bigs will be in foul trouble … but maybe I’ll be pleasantly surprised
It’s 2014: six months for smoking pot is beyond excessive. He’s in college for goodness sake — you’re supposed to smoke pot in college. I realize there’s an entirely different conversation around allowing yourself to fail a test with so much on the line, but he’s a kid. A year long suspension for smoking weed is beyond punitive.
11, 30, 64, 24, 28, 22, 149, 21, 29. So it’s not like the D has been horrible.
gc, you might as well get used to random minutes from guys off the bench. I’m sure going to see wild variations in minutes for all the guys depending on how they are playing.
Since JD’s system thrives from being sound defensively I am wondering how this team is going to perform this season.
SDSU is a ranked opponent coming off a grueling 2OT game and Pitt is a 4.5 point underdog, go with Pitt and the points tonight.
Did you inhale?
The defense Dixon employs in man to man uses an incredible amount of energy. It will take the team a while to assimilate to it. Again, this is a very average team. Let’s all enjoy watching them improve game to game. If they don’t ….ugh!
SDSU opened up as a 3 point favorite, it has been bet up to 4 on some books.
Not willing to put up any money on Pitt at this stage. I think they could cover, but slightly more likely to get blown out. I would take SDSU and lay the 4.
Regarding Robinson, I for one think he drives to the basket plenty already considering his strengths & weaknesses. He’s never going to be Newkirk athletically, so he needs to play within himself. That said, one attainable area of improvement is 3 point shooting consistency. Last night was a good start in that respect, I hope it wasn’t just an aberration, and that he keeps firing away.
And we can’t even hire a decent football staff.
sorry, not fair, don’t know why for he in trouble.
Comment by pittisit 11.25.14 @ 9:44 am
That’s exactly what you do. As a coach you have to at least give the other team some different looks, throw them off their rhythm, get them out of their comfort zone, etc.
Pitt had more turnovers than a D2 team. That’s incredible. You have to play a defense to create more turnovers, where those turnovers lead to easy baskets on the runouts.
What’s very strange is Pitt played a trapping defense against Colorado in the first NCAAA game and had great success with it. It produced 17 turnovers against a better team than anyone we’ve faced so far. It rattled Colorado to the point, that the game was over by halftime.
We’re going to lose tonite unless we do something different on defense. Than relentless man to man, cause, as I said before, we don’t have a bunch of superior players than the other team.
Final Score….BYU 121…Chaminade 85
Good thing BYU lost, they would have run us off the court. Thing is… SDSU outscored them.
Young played 35 minutes.
Newkirk played 31 minutes.
Randall played 30 minutes.
Could be telling tonite, if they have to play man to man defense for 40 minutes against a Top 15 team.
You know we’re living in the ‘entitlement’ age.
good defensive team ???
Jaime must be into to some of that Kona Gold.
I think if we drew anyone else, we lose.
QB Ratings
Chad Voytik is #40 at 141.6
Clemson’s Cole Stoudt is #106 at 113.00
WVcc’s Trickett is #38 at 142.3
Pitt scored 30 points against Cuse, could have had 50 points.
