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Message: [QUOTE="sutomcat, post: 1310126, member: 27"] I thought the size of the crowd was good given the relatively unattractive opponent, the struggles we have been going through and the recent weather (it has been really cold, really snowy or both). Disappointed with the size of the student section, but I already touched on that. A local woman sang the NA, did a fine job and got a big, warm reception. Nice start. Pitt is a tough team to play. They play extremely physical on defense and make it hard to run your normal offense. Don't think they have a lot of size, skill or athletic ability but they do a nice job at running their zone offense, exercise great patience and really showed a knack for getting a good shot in the last 5 seconds of a given possession. They also hit a lot of mid range jumpers near the foul line that hurt us. Jones looked like their only decent outside shooter and unfortunately, we didn't do a great job covering him. Pitt did't have a real big guy who could cover Rakeem but they doubled him most of the game, just ignoring Patterson or Joseph. Looked like they covered Silent G with a guard, usually #3, and assigned the forward who would normally cover Mike to Buss or KJ, essentially giving him the job of doubling Rak. Buss was able to hurt them by flashing down low, and even hit a 3 at one point. But the Panthers lacked the athletes to cover SU and they eventually got into bad foul trouble. So they ended up playing a lot of 2-3 zone. With TC barely capable of running up and down the court, he was not capable of hitting any 3s, so that, coupled with the injury TR sustained, meant a lot of PT for BJ. To his credit, he stepped up when the team needed him the most and played a fine game. That was a great comeback...thought the team played really well down the stretch to almost win being down 10 with a little more than 2 minutes to play. Buss really played well and Rak stepped up with some clutch plays on offense and defense. I haven't seen the replay on The Call where RC was called for the illegal pick far away from the basket or the ball on the possession where SU could have taken the lead. Thought it was a bizarre call to make at crunch time, when it usually takes a really hard foul on the ball to get a whistle. But in this most bizarre of seasons, it was most appropriate. Thank God we didn't need this win to get an NCAA bid. I feel bad for the fans, I feel bad for the students, I feel bad for the players. But more than anyone, I feel bad for Rakeem Christmas. He deserved much much better than this. [/QUOTE]

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