7 pm, ACC Digital Network/WatchESPN

Big game for Pitt. A must win.

At least as far as I’m concerned. My sister and brother-in-law both got post-graduate degrees at Rice. Have settled in Houston and are big Rice supporters overall. Needless to say, family bragging rights are on the line.

Rice is 8-2 on the season. After a slow start that included a loss to Texas Southern, the Owls have shown improvement from their usual residency in the basement of whatever conference they have been in (presently, Conference USA for those keeping track). They lost by one at Texas Tech two weeks ago.

This team is coached by Mike Rhoades who is part of the Shaka Smart coaching tree. He came over from VCU a few years ago and has been working to implement a similar style of play.

Rice head coach Mike Rhoades was hired from Virginia Commonwealth three years ago (where he was an assistant to Smart) to revitalize the moribund basketball team that was the Rice Owls. And Rhoades has set out recruiting players who can play fast, who have no so-called conscience and thus aren’t afraid to shoot the ball and don’t dwell on misses. Players willing to commit to him, the school and his style of basketball. He’s had to find starters, and he’s had to find depth, so this type of play has been something that Rice has only employed in short spurts the past several years. But that’s changing.

Rice wants to run and press. They do one of those things pretty well.

Their offense is up-tempo and they have scorers in the backcourt. Marcus Evans is a sophomore point guard averaging almost 20 points a game and five assists. He was the C-USA Freshman of the year last year.

His partner is Egor Koulechov, who transferred from Arizona State. Koulechev averages over 19 points per game and shoots 60% on threes. Despite being a deadeye shooter, he also gets over 7 rebounds a game.

Needless to say, there is going to be a lot of defensive pressure on Pitt’s backcourt.

The flip side is that Rice is rather bad on defense. They are aggressive on defense, but foul way too much.  They also lack size, as their guards get most of the work. The five players that get the most minutes per game on this team are all guards. The tallest being 6-5. After that, they use two forwards that are 6-7 and 6-8.

Pitt has had the week off for finals, so there is a rust concern and just a general lack of focus Pitt has shown from half-to-half.

“We are playing at a really, really high level at times,” Stallings said. “It’s more positive for me that we can have the brilliant stretches because that means there’s brilliance in there.

“Sustaining that high level is proving to be a little bit of an issue. It’s hard to sustain that same level of intensity for 34-35 minutes a game. My job is to keep pressing for more and more and more and get it as close to 40 minutes as I can get it.”

…

“With all the minutes our guys log in games, is there a natural drop-off in their level of intensity?” Stallings said. “We have a lead, their mind drifts and they lose focus. I don’t know if I’m going to get that fixed. I try and it’s maddening to me.

“I see progress and sometimes I don’t. That’s OK. They’re not perfect. They’re 20 years old.”

…

“These guys have been a certain way for a long time.”

Young kids, but already stuck in their ways.

In ten games, Pitt has led at halftime in all but one game — Marquette. With the exception of Marquette and against Yale, Pitt has been outscored by their opponent in the second half.

It isn’t all doom-and-gloom with these numbers. Yes Pitt has been outscored in the second half, but surprisingly, only by 40 points overall (423-383). Not great, but when you are scoring as much as Pitt has in the first half, and playing better defense (398-306) it can be survivable.

It does lend some credence to the theory that the load is too much for this squad. Four players at over 30 minutes per game.

At the same time, I just have trouble buying that considering how many teams don’t go much deeper than 7 or 8. Plus, this is only 10 games in to the season. Any real wear from the minutes logged would be an issue partway through the conference schedule. Not a trend of the entire season.