Really, it was just the first half that was that bad. Pitt couldn’t handle the ball and WVU couldn’t shoot. The second half was better for Pitt. They were about average on turnovers (6) and shot fine. WVU shot better, except when it came to shooting 3s, but for them turned the ball over a lot (6 times in the second half).
Ronald Ramon was huge in the game. With WVU looking to stop Krauser, try and clog the middle to make things hard to get the ball to Gray and prevent drives to the hoop, Ramon was hitting his jumpers. 16 points on 5-9 shooting (4-6 from 3-pt). That created space for Pitt on the floor to start getting the ball inside more.
Gray also had 16 points and 8 rebounds, but I wouldn’t call it a particularly good game for him on offense. He missed way too many easy baskets he should have thrown down. He was also responsible for 7 of Pitt’s 19 turnovers. He did not handle WVU’s defense very well in the first half. The last couple of games he has looked frustrated as teams are doubling down on him more frequently.
At the same time, I wonder if part of it was because of amount of energy he expended, effectively hounding Pittsnogle all over the court. Gray showed more energy and played an excellent defense against Pittsnogle, that I didn’t think he could do. He was able to come out on Pittsnogle but still moved back to the basket quickly. His rebounding numbers were limited more because of WVU shooting 3s, creating longer rebounds, than anything else.
The big story for Pitt, was the way they defended WVU.
“I can’t remember [Pittsnogle] getting an open look,” Pitt coach Jamie Dixon said. “Every shot he took was contested. We battled and battled and battled. Our defense was good for 40 minutes, and that’s hard to do.”
Pitt did a superb job of defending West Virginia in general. The Mountaineers had one of their worst shooting nights this season. They shot 34 percent and made just 6 of 27 3-point attempts. In West Virginia’s two victories against Pitt last season, the Mountaineers made 24 3-pointers.
“Pitt played tremendous defense on us,” West Virginia coach John Beilein said. “We did our best to open looks. It was hard to get them. They frustrate you.”
Mike Gansey, who averages 18 points a game, was held to six below his season average. He was 3 for 7 from the field. Ramon and freshman Levance Fields stuck to him like glue.
“[Ramon] hounded me everywhere I went,” Gansey said. “He’s a great defender.”
Despite Pitt’s defense and the way they got WVU totally out of their game — especially by getting contact and forcing WVU to foul much more than they usually do, Pitt could never quite get a comfortable lead. Part of that is simply what happens when you play a team that lives by shooting 3s. It tends to always keep the game within reach. Just one little burst and suddenly everything has changed.
Of course, with WVU the higher ranked team and the national spotlight more on them going into the game the questions are more about what the heck happened to their vaunted motion offense and precision.
“I don’t like the way we handled a lot of things, but we’re going to learn from this game,” coach John Beilein said of the Mountaineers’ first loss in nine Big East Conference games.
What some opponents might have learned was a game plan for shutting down Pittsnogle
What? Get a well-conditioned 7-footer to contest all of his shots? Play WVU while Pittsnogle is sleep-deprived. Sorry, don’t mean to harp on the issue of whether Pittsnogle is getting any sleep or not, but his wife just had a kid. And assuming they are sharing the same trailer apartment, he hasn’t gotten much sleep the last few days. I don’t care if you’re 22 or 32, that sleep deprivation the first few weeks after a kid is born takes its toll. Even if he isn’t actually getting up to change and feed Kwyn-ctzlplx, the noise and his wife doing it messes with the sleep.
Not that Pittsnogle used that as an excuse. Well, maybe he did. Who knows. He refused to talk to the media after the game.
Did it prove just how bad the Mountaineers can be, or how good?
Really, look at the numbers. In a game in which Kevin Pittsnogle would have contributed more by staying home, in which the Mountaineers shot a season-low 34 percent and missed 21-of-27 3-point tries, could it get any worse? Could this team play any more poorly?
Yet on the other hand, even with a performance like that– a game which the Mountaineers played the last 41/2 minutes without a center — the score was 51-48 with 40 seconds to play against the No. 13 team in the country.
Sure, it ended up a 57-53 Pitt win, handing the No. 9 Mountaineers (17-5, 8-1) their first Big East loss but keeping them in a three-way tie for first place with Connecticut and Villanova. But a performance like that should have resulted in the same kind of 82-46 pounding the Panthers put on West Virginia three years ago.
Another WV columnist decried the quality of the play on national TV. Look, unlike BE football, a less than pretty basketball game in the Big East is not going to cause a lot of national handwringing and complaints.
Pittsburgh was ranked No. 14? The team that committed 13 turnovers in the first half?
WVU was ranked, what, ninth? Aren’t they known for dissecting the opponent and hitting the 3 ball?
At one point in the first half, West Virginia was 2-of-18 from the floor. That’s 10 percent shooting. Ten. From Trey Land, the Mountaineers were 1-of-11. That’s 9.1 percent. Ouch.
Uh, 2-18 is 11.1%. If you are going to be using a decimal percentage in one part, it helps to use it in the other. Especially in the same paragraph (insert your own math and dumb West Virginian joke here).
“We lost our focus,” said WVU guard Patrick Beilein. “We didn’t execute our plays and we kind of got rattled. I haven’t seen us do that for a long time. We just were in kind of a funk offensively. We just couldn’t get Kevin going.”
Kevin, as in Pittsnogle, the Mountaineers’ brand. The senior center couldn’t have played worse intentionally. (See what happens when you don’t plan well and have babies in the middle of hoops season?) Oh-for-12 with four turnovers.
The foul troubles, lack of production and lack of depth for WVU suddenly has questions about how deep in the NCAA Tournament the Hoopies can actually go.
Let me be honest here. What? It was a bad game. WVU got incredibly stifled by a tough defense and their star player had a lousy night. It was one game. Yes, they lack depth. They still kept it close and could have easily stolen a win if a couple of their shots went down. It was their first loss in the Big East. They are 8-1 in the conference. This is kind of silly.
