The Pitt basketball team is in Hawaii. They play the University of Hawaii at Midnight tonight/tomorrow morning.
If you watched the Samford game, then you saw Pitt go small for large portions of the game. The front court of Mike Young, Jamel Artis and Sheldon Jeter. It’s surprising only insofar as Coach Jamie Dixon has always played a true center. This year, however, the options at center are far less than optimal.
Both Joseph Uchebo and Derrick Randall are extremely limited in their skill sets. They can rebound. Play a bit of defense. But that is about it. When it comes to the offensive side of the ball, they are amazingly deficient.
Instead, Jamie Dixon is opting to play the best frontcourt players regardless of their official position or size.
“Everybody wants to be bigger, stronger, and it looks great on paper, but, often times, it is not your best group,” Dixon said. “So, I think this smaller group, once we have all of our guys back, would be effective for us.
“I think we have always been the team that gets our best guys on the floor and puts them in position to succeed and that is what has helped us.”
This lineup has been used increasingly each time out — the Panthers have played two exhibitions and two regular-season games — and each time it seems to be more effective while creating matchup issues for opponents and playing to some of its offensive strengths.
“It is a team that I had envisioned [the smaller lineup],” Dixon said. “We are almost are forced to play a little bigger actually than we want to [until Cam Wright is back from a foot injury], and that is not a good thing. But Mike has been very effective. He was our best post defender last year and, right now, he is our best post defender again.
“So … our best team may be our smaller team. [Young] obviously gives us more offensively. But if he gives us more defensively, that speaks to it.”
Uchebo and Randall played a combined 14 minutes in the Samford game, and Dixon is tacitly saying that they would/will be playing even less when Cam Wright returns to add some depth the backcourt.
The tradeoff may come in rebounding opportunities. Particularly the offensive varietal. Pitt was outrebounded on Sunday, but it was all on the offensive glass where Pitt only got 7 OReb to Samford’s 13. Some of that is explained by Pitt shooting over 50% while Samford was at 32% — will produce more chances on the offensive rebound front — but Pitt wasn’t that impressive with the defensive rebounds.
So, while rebounding margin is regarded as a useless stat — and I’m sure Dixon knows that — it is something he uses as shorthand after games to indicate the kind of effort the team put forth and mistakes made.
Jamel Artis, who had 12 points and five rebounds, added, “Not at all [happy with Pitt’s rebounding], we have to do a better job of rebounding, we preach that at practice. But the guards have to box out and get rebounds as well, it is not always just on the big men. We all have to do better.”
Pitt coach Jamie Dixon agreed with Artis and said a lot of the Samford rebounding came off long rebounds. Missed outside shots is a sign that the Panthers guards need to do a better job of helping in that area.
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Dixon said he knew the Bulldogs would come out to play hard after being embarrassed by the Boilermakers, but he wished his players understood that as well.
“They played hard, they were out to prove they were better than they were the other night,” Dixon said. “I have unbelievable respect for how [Samford] responded from their loss. They battled and they competed. You guys and our players looked at their score from the other night, but they competed at a high level.
“And rebounding is our calling card, it is who we are, we don’t win many games when we get outrebounded.”
Wright being out hurt the team a bit against Samford as the other perimeter players struggled defensively. Constantly leaving a hot 3-point shooter a chance to square up and shoot when he got the ball. Too often you would see the defender take a step to try and help or bite on penetration and let Tyler Hood have the space to take a shot.
In other basketball things, the observation that this team is heavy on the sophomores. And that starts with Mike Young.
A good deal of that has something to do with the lack of the 2011 recruiting class on the court. The guys who would be seniors (or redshirt juniors): Khem Birch, Malcolm Gilbert, John Johnson and Durand Johnson. Every program has a class like that periodically, where it seems no one works out. Still, when you look at it, it catches you off guard
and is there any feed that anyone knows of? i dont see that its televised anywhere even on espn3..
I find it interesting that Dixon actually wants to play smaller than current lineup. Maybe that means he is planning on starting Young at the 5 when Cam is healthy. A starting lineup of Robinson, Wright, Jones, Artis, Young would create a bunch of offensive mismatches.
I really want the Pitt-Zona showdown. Hopefully, the team can find get past San Diego St./BYU to get there.
But aggressive board play can still spell good stats when you’re playing small, with the right guys up front. Personally, I’d lean in that direction if it resulted in a better shooting percentage, since of course less put backs happen when your % is high in the first place.
Right now those are the shooters we have on the roster.
Which means stay up Friday night and listen to the hoops game, get a little sleep and then get to Heinz. Juice the Orange!
Glad to hear I’m not the only one massively confused about the Hawaii game tip time.
I believe that this may be our biggest liability this year … and not our scoring as previously thought.
I also think if Uchebo stays healthy he will contribute more than people think. But everyone needs to rebound, Robinson and Wright are pretty good rebounders. Obviously Artis needs to do more as does the Jeter. Young will get his share, but won’t be as effective as Zanna at rebounding.
They reminded me a lot of the Cincy teams we would see in the bigeast. Long, athletic players that play great defense but are a limited offensively.
they beat number 25 ranked UTAH team 53-49 by the way
I understand that missed 3-pointers tend to bounce out aways from the hoop, but Pitt should never be outrebounded on the defensive boards by a Samford.
If we play that way against Chaminade. we may never see Zona
I really hope Uchebo/Randall/Haughton(if he ever sees the floor) can become an effective center combo.
I hate the fact that Michael Young is being forced to play there. This kid is a real talent and has shown the ability to shoot outside as well score down low. Much easier to get outside shots playing the 4 than the 5.
Not only may it hurt his chances at getting to the next level, him not playing his natural position hurts this team.
Before the injuries Uchebo was a 4 star recruit. He will never be the player he was or could have been, but hopefully can be effective enough that Young can play where he is supposed to.
Pitt’s greatest strength this year is the versatility of Young/Artis/Jeter. All three of them can knock down open shots out to twenty feet — this should open up the lane for the perimeter players.
If the rebounding issues we saw against Samford become chronic — I’m not certain they will be — then it will be crucial for Pitt to force more turnovers.
I’m just saying there are some underlying reasons for the numbers in this case. On the face, the offensive rebound numbers look bad, but if you look at the numbers it kind of makes sense. They both rebounded about the same percentage of their own misses. Not that Jamie is ever going to make or give the team excuses, nor should he.
Their non-con games:
Temple
Sdsu
Army
Buffalo
Either way, game on 12-2 in Bloomington after the Maui Invitational will be tough. Glad to see a bit better of a non conference schedule this year. Samford game has me concerned, looking forward to next couple weeks to get a gauge of where this team is at.
Durand Johnson really let himself and his team down. Big time…
The Samford game was a special situation. Samford played the full court press as its normal defense, so Dixon practiced Pitt’s end-of-game offense against the full-court press where Young plays center, partly because he is an excellent free throw shooter.
The winning percentage and the grades are most impressive. The whining about the poor performance in the “Dance” will continue however.
This team has more guys that can make threes than we have ever had. When they are hot they will be hard to beat, but when they are not, games will be close and rebounds more important. This is a whole new skill set for Pitt. Think about it, Young, Jeter, Artis, and Johnson can all hit threes. Newkirk, the best of the guard, Jones has a nice stroke and Robinson and Wright get hot once in a while.
Rebounding and defense still the key to consistency, but this team has skills like no other Pitt team of the past.
This makes them a whole lot more fun to watch.
lostinthesouth, NBA prospects of who? That’s not how the NBA works. If you have talent and skills, you will be drafted and you will be in the NBA regardless of what positions you played in college. For example, Russell Westbrook played 2 guard in college under Howland, yet he was drafted in the lottery to be a PG. He wasn’t hurt by playing out of position.
On the positive side, on offense, having Young at center opens up a lot of other options.
1). Young has shown Huge improvement in his post scoring. He has a couple post moves. The best way to improve three point shooting is to switch the ball going from inside to out. It lets the shooter square up and step into the shot.
2). Really helps against the press. He can handle the ball. And more importantly he can finish after Pitt breaks halfcourt.
3). Free throws, Young is the best free throw shooter on the team. That will help at end of games and if he can figure out how to draw fouls.
4). Pick n pop, Young sets a ball screen and immediately fades to the three point line. He’s been open a lot, but hasn’t gotten the pass. He can hit threes.
I am slowly coming around to liking the smaller lineup. Uchebo and Randall just don’t give Pitt enough offense. They’ll be used to spell Young, to grab some boards and to give fouls.
I’m not implying that he was misused, just that his offensive talents should not surprise anyone. I just hope some agents don’t get into his head about the NBA — he certainly isn’t at that stage.
You give up dribble penetration – you better have a shot blocker back there. Either that or its time for Dixon to embrace junk defenses to shut down the one hot guy that always kills them.
Be there or be spare.
7 pm – at the Pete to watch 12th ranked Pitt wrestle 5th ranked PSU
9:30 pm – go doen the hill to Peter’s or Fuel & Fuddle (pick your posion)
11;30 – head to to the Strand to watch closed circuit Pitt vs Hawaii BB
2:30 – go home and sleep until 11
Noon – head to Heinz tailgate
3;30 – Cuse v Pitt FB
6:23 – Sweet Caroline
6:26 – head home (or to Peter’s or F&F)
#12 PITT (3-1, 0-0 ACC) vs. #5 PENN STATE (1-0, 0-0 BIG TEN)
Date Friday, November 21 at 7:00 p.m. (ET)
Location Petersen Events Center / Pittsburgh, Pa.
Television ESPN3
So my choice tomorrow is to go to the Pitt Game and honor the seniors who have been thru Pederson Pitt hell. That and my sister in law is staying with us for 2 weeks while she gets a new bathroom installed ! See yuns tomorrow!
