General20
Basketball Maven
- Joined
- Aug 28, 2011
- Messages
- 1,702
- Like
- 11,418
Pitt History:
The Big East brought major college basketball to the northeast, and took the college basketball world by storm with their tough style of play. While kids down south were playing football, and kids out west were surfing, kids in New York, Philly, and D.C. were out on the streets playing basketball, and for the most part, street ball, was the prevalent Big East style. Growing up, I loved it, because it looked like the kind of basketball my friends and I were playing in the driveway. Then the Big East took it too far.
There was a time when it took six fouls to be disqualified from Big East conference games, while the rest of the country still used five. Those were bad times. The Big East always had the best programs, but they went through a long championship drought because their teams needed to adjust the way they played in March because the rest of the country certainly would not allow the kind of physical play the Big East did. Not to mention Big East teams were worn out by March, because the conference allowed its players to beat on each other.
It took me a while to realize what was going on, but as soon as I did, I started to regret the way the Big East officiated. There is no point in playing by your own rules when you know its going to cost you championships.
The Big East slowly came around to they way the rest of the country played basketball (although never embracing it fully) but even small concessions got them winning championships again.
Pittsburgh's story has to be viewed along this backdrop to make sense.
For a long time Pitt was a laughing stock. Then Ben Howland came around and instilled that old-school Big East toughness. Though he never recruited at an elite level, his kids stayed four or five years, developed their bodies and learned how to tough out a lot of wins. Being a fan of tough basketball I respected him, until I learned that his willingness to push the rules was exactly what the Big East needed to avoid to get back to NCAA tournament success.
Pitt's current coach, Jamie Dixon, is a Howland disciple, who coaches, schedules, and uses the same underlying philosophies Howland did. In my opinion Dixon is a better teacher of the game than Howland is, which makes him a better coach.
Still, I have not had a lot of respect for what Dixon has done. In my mind, he traded the good name of the Big East and any chance at an NCAA championship for a few cheap regular season wins.
Weak OOC schedules, a knowledge of how to work Big East officiating, and post-season failures, have became Pittsburgh's calling cards.
But I am starting to change my tune.
Dixon obviously realized that what got him wins in the Big East would not translate to the ACC, so he made changes. He has always been an excellent teacher of the game, and now it seems he's starting to teach the right things. I have seen Pitt play a couple of times this year, and I have not seen any of the dirty play, or the clutching and grabbing that had been hallmarks of their program. Their nearly flawless record in a year where fouls have been called more tightly is a testament to the fact that they have been doing things the right way (and also the fact that they play a weak schedule).
The best advice I can give for this game is, forget most of what you know about Pitt's defense. Defensively they are a different animal. Offensively, they are pretty much the same.
How Pitt is going to attack Syracuse:
Two words: Interior passing. Pitt has been an exceptional interior passing team throughout Dixon's tenure and this team is no exception. Like most Pitt teams you remember, this version is lead by two well developed seniors in Lamar Patterson (a 6'5 wing) and Talib Zanna (a muscular 6'9 big). They are going to want those two guys to take the majority of their shots, but they are not going to feed them the ball directly. First they are going to get the ball into the high post. It can get there by being passed to someone like Young, but I think they would prefer their point guard James Robinson to get there through penetration.
You probably associate Pitt with moving screens (and with good reason). Though they have eliminated most of their dirty play, expect to see just as many moving screens as always. I have seen Robinson play a lot in both college and high school (he was teammates with Jerami Grant), and I can tell you that he is built in the Tyler Ennis mode. He's not an exceptional athlete, but he can get to the rim on occasion, and he can hit a three on occasion. What he's best at though (like Ennis) is controlling the tempo of the game, not turning the ball over, and getting the ball to his teammates in the right positions. He's actually more Ennis than Ennis, if you get what I mean. He scores a little less than Ennis, and assists a little less, but he averages almost half the turnovers Ennis does – an incredible 0.8 a game!
Robinson is not the type that is going to devastate you with dribble penetration, but when coming of a trademark Pitt screen (set by a big muscle bound player not afraid to bump you) he certainly can get into the lane, and when he does, good things will happen for Pitt. Namely, Robinson will drive until the defense collapses on him then feed to the open player - who will either be Zanna down low, Patterson for a jump shot, or another player who will then wait for the defense to collapse on them, and find either Zanna or Patterson.
They are patient, and they have multiple players capable of making the perfect pass and not turning the ball over.
I expect Syracuse to go under screens to prevent penetration rather than fighting through them to prevent jump shots. If Robinson, and their other guard Wright (who are both low percentage shooters), can make Syracuse pay by hitting a few early threes it is going to open tings up for them, and probably be bad news for Syracuse.
Patterson has been the ACC POY so far in my opinion, but I am curious to see how he plays against Syracuse's defense – which is the first decent defense Pitt has gone up against all year. Patterson wasn't too good against Syracuse last year, going 3-7 in one game and 5-12 in the other, but he has improved a lot from last year. So far he's having Rick Jackson like exceptional senior success. Again, it will be interesting to see if he can keep it up against Syracuse. My guess is, if his teammates perform, Syracuse will be forced to give him some openings and he will make Syracuse pay, but if his teammates under-perform Syracuse will stay on Patterson tight and shut him down.
How Pitt will defend Syracuse:
You might be surprised to hear that Pitt has played tons of zone now. In the (admittedly few) games I have watched, they played about 65% man and about 35% zone.
Their zone isn't very good, and seems more like a security blanket to keep opponents from getting to the basket when they don't have a shot blocker in the game. I suspect that we will see 90 to 100% man defense from Pitt, because Cooney is capable of absolutely destroying a zone like theirs.
Pitt is a solid but unspectacular defensive team (especially given their competition). They are going to play a solid man to man that wont give up anything easy, but they are not going to suffocate you by any means. I expect them to get in Fair's face and force him to put the ball on the floor, and back off of Grant, and beg him to shoot jumpers. It will be interesting to me to see if our forwards can get their big guys into foul trouble, because that would really hurt Pitt.
Last years match ups:
Syracuse played Pitt twice and as has become standard operating procedure, they lost to Pitt at the Peterson Events Center but beat them in the Big East tournament. Of course, Syracuse was missing Southerland for the game at in Pittsburgh, and in the Big East tournament Southerland pretty much singlehandedly buried Pitt by hitting six threes and scoring twenty points (if Cooney can do anything similar, I expect a similar Syracuse victory).
The big thing to realize is, in both games Pitt dominated Syracuse on the boards and got a lot more shots than Syracuse did. I don't see that happening this year. Grant and Christmas are all grown up, and while Pitt is still an exceptional rebounding team, Syracuse is actually slightly better.
I actually don't see rebounding playing a huge factor in this game, as these two great rebounding teams should pretty much cancel each other out – which will be an advantage for Syracuse relative to previous Pitt-Syracuse games.
Keys to the game:
Shooting!: I put an exclamation point on this one. You are looking at a game where both teams play at the same pace, both teams rebound at the same rate, and both teams turn the ball over the same amount. Shooting is always the big unknown that can swing any game, but it becomes especially important when everything else is even. Pay special attention to Robinson for Pitt and Cooney for Syracuse.
Syracuse's defensive structure: Pitt is a very good passing team, and they are going to pull Syracuse's zone in all kinds of different ways. Does Syracuse have the discipline to eliminate easy shots? The key here is Christmas. We are going to need his muscle down low against Zanna and Young (another big strong guy who was teammates with Ennis in High School) but it wont do us any good if he cannot get himself in a good position to defend. We know Keita is always going to be in the right position, but we also know that Zanna is going to be able to bully him down low, and rebound over him. If at the end of the game, Christmas played 30 minutes, that will be a very good sign.
Fouls: Pitt's center Zanna, can do damage down low, but Pitt becomes a lot more ordinary when he leaves. I've already mentioned how Syracuse is going to need Chrismas's muscle. If either one gets into foul trouble the other team has an advantage.
Injuries: Durand Johnson is a 6'6 forward who was Pitt's best three point shooter behind Patteron. He is out for the year now with a torn ACL, and he would have played a lot against Syracuse (and been a lot more effective than his replacement Young is likely to be offensively).
Predictions:
This game is big because its for first place in the ACC, but I'm not sure how big it is in the grand scheme of things. If not for the fact that this is Pitt's only tough road game (they don't have to play at Duke, at Virginia, or at Florida State which are the only other tough road games the ACC offers) then I wouldn't say it was a very big game at all.
The reason I don't think its big, is because Syracuse is a more talented team than Pitt, and will show it in the ACC tournament. Beyond that, I expect Syracuse to put up a very good record whether they win or lose this game.
That said, Syracuse is going through a typical mid-season lull, shooting wise, and Pitt is not. So Pitt has a great chance to win this game.
Pitt is the kind of team that finds a way to score fairly consistently. They won't blow your doors off and open up huge leads, but (unlike every ACC team we have played so far) they wont go for long stretches without scoring either.
Syracuse is more explosive offensively, but (at this particular time) more prone to offensive slumps. If Syracuse goes into a long offensive slump, they are going to lose. If they don't they are going to win.
I think the game pretty much comes down to that.
The Big East brought major college basketball to the northeast, and took the college basketball world by storm with their tough style of play. While kids down south were playing football, and kids out west were surfing, kids in New York, Philly, and D.C. were out on the streets playing basketball, and for the most part, street ball, was the prevalent Big East style. Growing up, I loved it, because it looked like the kind of basketball my friends and I were playing in the driveway. Then the Big East took it too far.
There was a time when it took six fouls to be disqualified from Big East conference games, while the rest of the country still used five. Those were bad times. The Big East always had the best programs, but they went through a long championship drought because their teams needed to adjust the way they played in March because the rest of the country certainly would not allow the kind of physical play the Big East did. Not to mention Big East teams were worn out by March, because the conference allowed its players to beat on each other.
It took me a while to realize what was going on, but as soon as I did, I started to regret the way the Big East officiated. There is no point in playing by your own rules when you know its going to cost you championships.
The Big East slowly came around to they way the rest of the country played basketball (although never embracing it fully) but even small concessions got them winning championships again.
Pittsburgh's story has to be viewed along this backdrop to make sense.
For a long time Pitt was a laughing stock. Then Ben Howland came around and instilled that old-school Big East toughness. Though he never recruited at an elite level, his kids stayed four or five years, developed their bodies and learned how to tough out a lot of wins. Being a fan of tough basketball I respected him, until I learned that his willingness to push the rules was exactly what the Big East needed to avoid to get back to NCAA tournament success.
Pitt's current coach, Jamie Dixon, is a Howland disciple, who coaches, schedules, and uses the same underlying philosophies Howland did. In my opinion Dixon is a better teacher of the game than Howland is, which makes him a better coach.
Still, I have not had a lot of respect for what Dixon has done. In my mind, he traded the good name of the Big East and any chance at an NCAA championship for a few cheap regular season wins.
Weak OOC schedules, a knowledge of how to work Big East officiating, and post-season failures, have became Pittsburgh's calling cards.
But I am starting to change my tune.
Dixon obviously realized that what got him wins in the Big East would not translate to the ACC, so he made changes. He has always been an excellent teacher of the game, and now it seems he's starting to teach the right things. I have seen Pitt play a couple of times this year, and I have not seen any of the dirty play, or the clutching and grabbing that had been hallmarks of their program. Their nearly flawless record in a year where fouls have been called more tightly is a testament to the fact that they have been doing things the right way (and also the fact that they play a weak schedule).
The best advice I can give for this game is, forget most of what you know about Pitt's defense. Defensively they are a different animal. Offensively, they are pretty much the same.
How Pitt is going to attack Syracuse:
Two words: Interior passing. Pitt has been an exceptional interior passing team throughout Dixon's tenure and this team is no exception. Like most Pitt teams you remember, this version is lead by two well developed seniors in Lamar Patterson (a 6'5 wing) and Talib Zanna (a muscular 6'9 big). They are going to want those two guys to take the majority of their shots, but they are not going to feed them the ball directly. First they are going to get the ball into the high post. It can get there by being passed to someone like Young, but I think they would prefer their point guard James Robinson to get there through penetration.
You probably associate Pitt with moving screens (and with good reason). Though they have eliminated most of their dirty play, expect to see just as many moving screens as always. I have seen Robinson play a lot in both college and high school (he was teammates with Jerami Grant), and I can tell you that he is built in the Tyler Ennis mode. He's not an exceptional athlete, but he can get to the rim on occasion, and he can hit a three on occasion. What he's best at though (like Ennis) is controlling the tempo of the game, not turning the ball over, and getting the ball to his teammates in the right positions. He's actually more Ennis than Ennis, if you get what I mean. He scores a little less than Ennis, and assists a little less, but he averages almost half the turnovers Ennis does – an incredible 0.8 a game!
Robinson is not the type that is going to devastate you with dribble penetration, but when coming of a trademark Pitt screen (set by a big muscle bound player not afraid to bump you) he certainly can get into the lane, and when he does, good things will happen for Pitt. Namely, Robinson will drive until the defense collapses on him then feed to the open player - who will either be Zanna down low, Patterson for a jump shot, or another player who will then wait for the defense to collapse on them, and find either Zanna or Patterson.
They are patient, and they have multiple players capable of making the perfect pass and not turning the ball over.
I expect Syracuse to go under screens to prevent penetration rather than fighting through them to prevent jump shots. If Robinson, and their other guard Wright (who are both low percentage shooters), can make Syracuse pay by hitting a few early threes it is going to open tings up for them, and probably be bad news for Syracuse.
Patterson has been the ACC POY so far in my opinion, but I am curious to see how he plays against Syracuse's defense – which is the first decent defense Pitt has gone up against all year. Patterson wasn't too good against Syracuse last year, going 3-7 in one game and 5-12 in the other, but he has improved a lot from last year. So far he's having Rick Jackson like exceptional senior success. Again, it will be interesting to see if he can keep it up against Syracuse. My guess is, if his teammates perform, Syracuse will be forced to give him some openings and he will make Syracuse pay, but if his teammates under-perform Syracuse will stay on Patterson tight and shut him down.
How Pitt will defend Syracuse:
You might be surprised to hear that Pitt has played tons of zone now. In the (admittedly few) games I have watched, they played about 65% man and about 35% zone.
Their zone isn't very good, and seems more like a security blanket to keep opponents from getting to the basket when they don't have a shot blocker in the game. I suspect that we will see 90 to 100% man defense from Pitt, because Cooney is capable of absolutely destroying a zone like theirs.
Pitt is a solid but unspectacular defensive team (especially given their competition). They are going to play a solid man to man that wont give up anything easy, but they are not going to suffocate you by any means. I expect them to get in Fair's face and force him to put the ball on the floor, and back off of Grant, and beg him to shoot jumpers. It will be interesting to me to see if our forwards can get their big guys into foul trouble, because that would really hurt Pitt.
Last years match ups:
Syracuse played Pitt twice and as has become standard operating procedure, they lost to Pitt at the Peterson Events Center but beat them in the Big East tournament. Of course, Syracuse was missing Southerland for the game at in Pittsburgh, and in the Big East tournament Southerland pretty much singlehandedly buried Pitt by hitting six threes and scoring twenty points (if Cooney can do anything similar, I expect a similar Syracuse victory).
The big thing to realize is, in both games Pitt dominated Syracuse on the boards and got a lot more shots than Syracuse did. I don't see that happening this year. Grant and Christmas are all grown up, and while Pitt is still an exceptional rebounding team, Syracuse is actually slightly better.
I actually don't see rebounding playing a huge factor in this game, as these two great rebounding teams should pretty much cancel each other out – which will be an advantage for Syracuse relative to previous Pitt-Syracuse games.
Keys to the game:
Shooting!: I put an exclamation point on this one. You are looking at a game where both teams play at the same pace, both teams rebound at the same rate, and both teams turn the ball over the same amount. Shooting is always the big unknown that can swing any game, but it becomes especially important when everything else is even. Pay special attention to Robinson for Pitt and Cooney for Syracuse.
Syracuse's defensive structure: Pitt is a very good passing team, and they are going to pull Syracuse's zone in all kinds of different ways. Does Syracuse have the discipline to eliminate easy shots? The key here is Christmas. We are going to need his muscle down low against Zanna and Young (another big strong guy who was teammates with Ennis in High School) but it wont do us any good if he cannot get himself in a good position to defend. We know Keita is always going to be in the right position, but we also know that Zanna is going to be able to bully him down low, and rebound over him. If at the end of the game, Christmas played 30 minutes, that will be a very good sign.
Fouls: Pitt's center Zanna, can do damage down low, but Pitt becomes a lot more ordinary when he leaves. I've already mentioned how Syracuse is going to need Chrismas's muscle. If either one gets into foul trouble the other team has an advantage.
Injuries: Durand Johnson is a 6'6 forward who was Pitt's best three point shooter behind Patteron. He is out for the year now with a torn ACL, and he would have played a lot against Syracuse (and been a lot more effective than his replacement Young is likely to be offensively).
Predictions:
This game is big because its for first place in the ACC, but I'm not sure how big it is in the grand scheme of things. If not for the fact that this is Pitt's only tough road game (they don't have to play at Duke, at Virginia, or at Florida State which are the only other tough road games the ACC offers) then I wouldn't say it was a very big game at all.
The reason I don't think its big, is because Syracuse is a more talented team than Pitt, and will show it in the ACC tournament. Beyond that, I expect Syracuse to put up a very good record whether they win or lose this game.
That said, Syracuse is going through a typical mid-season lull, shooting wise, and Pitt is not. So Pitt has a great chance to win this game.
Pitt is the kind of team that finds a way to score fairly consistently. They won't blow your doors off and open up huge leads, but (unlike every ACC team we have played so far) they wont go for long stretches without scoring either.
Syracuse is more explosive offensively, but (at this particular time) more prone to offensive slumps. If Syracuse goes into a long offensive slump, they are going to lose. If they don't they are going to win.
I think the game pretty much comes down to that.
