I don’t mean to beat into the ground, the Pitt-Syracuse game. Just one other thing. Sportsline has a shot chart. Check the shooting — where they took the shots — of individual players. Very interesting. You can even compare the shooting from the previous meeting of the two teams. I find it very interesting for some reason.
You look at how Hakim Warrick spent a lot less time in the second game under the basket. In the first game, he attempted 4 layups (made 3) and had a dunk. In the second game, he only attempted 2 layups (made 1) and added another dunk. His jump shots in the first game were overwhelmingly taken in the paint. In the game yesterday, all of his shots were outside of the paint. He just did not want to be in there banging.
A couple things to mention from Greg Doyel. His “10 for Tuesday” are disappointments in the season.
7a. Chris Taft: Taft hasn’t deteriorated to the Crosswhite level, but he broke dangerous ground Saturday against Notre Dame when he was benched for the final 11 minutes, 40 seconds of Pittsburgh’s narrow victory. The 6-10 center’s scoring is up from his freshman season — from 10.9 to 13.5 ppg — but his rebounding and blocked shots are roughly static, and his assist-turnover figures have plummeted from 45-and-45 as a freshman to 14-and-34 as a sophomore. “Disappointing” is a relative term, but you can bet Pittsburgh is disappointed with Taft’s sophomore season. NBA scouts must be, too.
No one on the team openly admits. The fans, though, are disappointed.
The other thing is from his blog entry for Feb 15 (he doesn’t have permalinks):
The NCAA is investigating St. John’s because of allegations that a former player received a monthly stipend from the previous coaching staff. As far as accusations go, this one is pretty solid; it was lodged by the ex-player himself, Abe Keita.
The previous coaching staff isn’t a big group. There was Jarvis the elder and Jarvis the younger. There was assistant Kevin Clark, now at Rhode Island. And there was assistant Dermon Player, now an NBA scout.
Jarvis the elder is in fat city, commentating on college hoops for ESPN. Jarvis the younger also is in fat city, working on Mike Krzyzewski’s staff at Duke. For some reason they have gotten a free pass. Both men sit in their plum jobs, while everyone around them pretends to be apathetic to the stink.
We’ll just say this: All of the entities involved — including Rhode Island, come to think of it — had better hope their guy wasn’t St. John’s ethical sleaze. Unless Keita has been lying, someone at St. John’s was dirty.
What he said.
I really don’t get ESPN hiring Jarvis. It even goes back to losing his job last year. He immediately (along with his son) landed at ESPN’s “Cold Pizza” show as a weekly college basketball analyst — his main qualifications I’m guessing were that he was cheap and in NYC. He doesn’t say much that is interesting, never mind insightful. His only qualities for the job seems to be that he comes of as a genial, easygoing guy; and that he is the only African-American in ESPN’s entire college basketball studio crew. Heck, aside from Len Elmore does ESPN have any other African-Americans providing color or play-by-play?
This is Pitt’s remaining schedule.
Feb 20 — @ Villanova
Feb 23 — WVU
Feb 26 — UConn
Feb 28 — @ BC
Mar 5 — @ ND
It’s brutal, but earned. This is the reward for being one of the best teams in the Big East the last couple of years. The TV interests will want the good games at the end of the season, when the ratings will be better because there is no NFL to compete. If you look at the conference schedules for Duke, UConn, Kansas and Kentucky. You will see that they are similarly backloaded with the expected best of the conference opponents.
