Some more onsite reports from the open practice. Rush the Court, has some photos and observations.
Let’s get one thing out of the way. The East Region open practice might have been the most boring 5 hours of my life (not counting lectures). There’s a reason the NCAA makes this event free (outside of the fact that they more than make up for it through the $8 programs, $5 Cokes, and $23 baseball caps). The crowd was 95% white males in their mid-30s or above along with a handful of kids chasing autographs from players who they were looking up during the practices checking to see which ones had the best stats. My favorites were the old guys sitting behind me who kept on commenting on how good Gary McGhee and Brian Zoubek were (the tallest guys on the court) and what outstanding pros they were going to be.
Bill Raftery and Verne Lundquist were on hand to talk to each of the head coaches ahead of the games. No surprise that it was noted that they barely spoke with Coach Jamie Dixon. They just saw and spoke with him the prior weekend in Dayton (to say nothing of the fact that Raftery has called probably a half-dozen or so of Pitt’s games this year). Little has changed. The other 3 coaches played in other locations.
The Panthers seemed to be the loosest of the 4 teams. Despite being in drills, they were constantly playing around with DeJuan Blair, Sam Young, and Levance Fields being the ring leaders.
Only Duke seemed to be going hard in the 50 minute practice sessions. So, it doesn’t seem like much can be read into these.
Nice article with Mike Rice (Robert Morris HC, ex-Pitt assistant) and Ron Everhart (Duquesne HC, A-10 member) talking about tonight’s game with Xavier and Pitt.
Both give the clear match-up advantage at point guard to Pitt, and at least imply that will be the difference. Rice also notes that there isn’t a significant talent differential. Pitt may have the stars, but the Xavier players are pretty damn good.
The Pitt players swear they are focusing on the game at hand.
Said Blair: “We’re not looking ahead. I’m not letting anybody look ahead.”
They know the dangers. Some of the Pitt players admitted they got caught peeking at top-seed Memphis last season.
“Not this year,” Panthers sophomore Gilbert Brown said.
The Pitt players are saying the right thing about facing their opponent.
Pitt seniors Tyrell Biggs and Levance Fields have been impressed with the Musketeers’ ability to rebound when they have watched their games in recent days.
“They’re really tall at every position,” Fields said. “So we’ve got to do a great job of boxing them out and not giving them second-chance opportunities.”
“They’re very athletic,” Biggs said. “That’s the one thing that jumps out at me. They have a bunch of guys who can really jump.”
Xavier is confident and one of the thing they stress, is their depth.
“That’s part of our success this year,” said junior forward Derrick Brown. “It’s not just sticking with five or six players. We’re a very deep team. That’s why on any given night different players step up. It’s not always one player averaging 25 points or anything like that because this is a team. We’ve got young players and different players in different roles and I think that’s why our program continues to be successful, because the experienced people get used in all different situations.”
Xavier comes into the game with a 27-7 record and solid wins over Portland State and Wisconsin in first- and second-round games last weekend in Boise, Idaho.
Brown has been a key factor, averaging 13.7 points and 6.0 rebounds a game. The core group includes senior forward C.J. Anderson (10.0 ppg, 5.4 rpg), junior center Jason Love (6.9 ppg), and guard B.J. Raymond, who leads the team with a 14.1-point average.
Miller, who is coaching against his alma mater, says the overall depth wears people down. “It is a big factor for us,” he said. “We have nine players. We try to have different players step up on different nights. We really are a team in every sense of the word and have a lot of different players who can beat you.”
Here’s the one thing about their depth. It is there, but it isn’t used right now. It’s the Tournament. Rotations shrink. While they didn’t have a hard time with Portland State, to allow them to play four bench players 11 minutes or more. The Wisconsin game was a bit different. While they had 3 bench players with 18 minutes, he major reason was that starting center-forward Jason Love could only play 16 minutes with major foul problems.
You play your best players. Period. So will they throw some more players inside to absorb fouls against Blair? Certainly. But if they are getting burned at both ends, that won’t last. The multiple bodies weren’t enough to keep Love out of trouble.
As expected, the Sean Miller faces the team where he played is a popular theme. He acknowledges, but keeps trying to bring it back to Xavier.
“Yeah, I’ve watched them with a lot of pride over the last 8 years, as much as from a coach’s perspective, from the fact I once went there, and even the amazing job they’ve done, from Ben Howland and transforming their program from Fitzgerald Field House to the new arena,” Miller said.
“And watching Jamie Dixon take over and just the consistent success that they’ve had in the Big East Conference speaks for itself. And a lot of the things their program has become known for we, too, try to take great pride in what we do at Xavier.”
Pitt’s longtime trainer, Tony Salesi, is still close to Miller. As, apparently, are many of his old teammates who seem to feel they can root for their school and their friend/teammate.
“It is emotional,” Martin said. “It’s our alma mater. We had a lot of wins there. I love Pitt, but my heart is with Sean. That’s my man. I’m going to have my Xavier shirt on.”
Porter, who also has close ties to Pitt center DeJuan Blair, said he will be happy one way or the other tonight.
“I’ve spent a lot of years with Sean,” Porter said. “We were roommates and close friends. You always want your friends to do well. I’m in a no-lose situation. It’s either going to be Sean or DeJuan playing in the Elite Eight for the right to go to the Final Four.”
Andy Katz at ESPN.com says the pressure in this game is all on Pitt.
“We’ve just got to get back to the basics and it starts with defense,” Fields said. “The offense will come but we’ve got to outrebound teams and cut down on turnovers and we did that in the second round.”
The Panthers know they’re close. The three seniors — Fields, Sam Young and Tyrell Biggs — know this team is built for a six-game run to the title. This is easily Jamie Dixon’s best shot to win a national title in his six-year tenure at Pitt.
“It’s right there,” Fields said of getting to the Final Four. “But we’ve got to take care of phase three first.”
That’s Xavier. The Musketeers are in their second straight Sweet 16. They don’t have the pressure to win. Reaching the Elite Eight for the third time since 2004 would be quite remarkable. Xavier lost to UCLA in the West regional a year ago in the regional final. But like last season, and now this one, the X can play freely. Pitt cannot.
Oh, hey, now we have a Sam Young story. All three get at least some attention.
Stories of Young’s devotion to his craft are legendary around Pitt. People talk about the nights he slept on an air mattress in the gym after hours of shooting alone, or how he would blow off social gatherings on weekends to find a pickup game on campus. That tunnel vision didn’t just begin in college, either.
“This is a guy who’d be at school at 6:30 in the morning working out or at the gym,” said close friend Chris Howard, Young’s teammate at Friendly High School and now a guard at South Florida. “When he was at Hargrave [Military Academy], there’d be times we’d call each other and be on speakerphone while we were doing push-ups.
“He’s not one of those guys you’re going to see in the club. Sometimes he’ll call me and say he’s going to movies, and I’ll joke around and say, ‘Who are you going with? Who’s the girl?’ And he’ll say, ‘I’m going by myself.’ That’s the kind of focus you’ve got to have until you get to the place you want to be.”
The aim of his focus wasn’t always clear to others. Pitt keeps rebounding statistics in practice, and Lombardi said Young easily could have led the team in that stat every single day with his leaping ability and strength. But whole practices would go by when he wouldn’t even try to grab a rebound, so intent was he on proving he was not just a post player.
Then there’s the head fake. Few college players are associated with a signature move as Young is. He’ll rise up almost halfway into his shooting motion, often even lifting one foot off the ground. Defenders will fly out to contest the outside shot, only to watch Young glide by for a short jumper or a dunk.
Big East opponents have bitten on this deception for years. Oklahoma State’s players, who had to have “stay home Young’s head fake” highlighted and underlined at the top line of their scouting report, still fell for it repeatedly Sunday.
And according to the story, Coach Dixon tried to break his head fake in favor of a more conservative manner. Interesting. Otherwise, it’s mostly a review of a lot of his background/history we’ve read before.
