The Downside- Pittsburgh

[SWC75]

- It was a good effort, a better game for SDU than I expected against this team and in their arena. But it was still a loss. There really just wins and losses at this point, not encouraging or discouraging performances. JB said we play the seven best teams on the conference on the road, something nobody else has to do. Tonight was a chance to steal a win in one of those games. We let it slip away.

- And we let it slip away primarily due to fatigue. Pitt plays 11 guys 10+ minutes per game. We are about a 6 ½ man team. We played very well for 36 ½ minutes but ended the game on a 2-14 run. Some back-door passes that were closed off the whole game suddenly were open.

- It’s harder to rebound vs. a zone. But you aren’t going to win many games when you are out-rebounded by 18. JB want sot make up the difference in turnovers but we had one more than they did, 10-9.

- So much for shooting better in a smaller arena. We were 5 for 15 from the arc and 16 for 25 from the line. (You can do the percentages in your head.) The sad thing was, our leader, Michael Gbinije, was our biggest liability at the free throw line. Missing half his 10 attempts. He was also 4 for 12 from the field and 1 for 4 from outside.

- We were 15 for 31 inside the arc. About 10 of those misses were makeable shots that rolled off or couldn’t find the iron. We missed a lot of opportunities, especially early.

- DaJuan Coleman wasn’t given much of a chance due to foul trouble. He had 2 points and 0 rebounds. Much of the game we were going with almost a four guard line-up.

- Tyler Lydon, in Jim Satalin’s words, “has to learn to play with the intensity necessary for an ACC game”. Another way to put it is that he got shoved around and didn’t play with his normal aggression or confidence.

- I looked at the high post the whole game. Nobody home.

 

[Jack Hall]

You seem to maintain recently that this team has talent equivalent w bottom of acc and to win just about any game will have to overacheive. While you may very well be correct, i just didnt see that tonite. I saw a team with mid level acc talent (even considering very poor rebounding) that was up 8 on the road w ~12 mins to go against a decent team. I saw a team get beat in the end that had almost no bench. So if you mean this team has very little talent because it has very little bench, i guess i might agree w you. But i am not convinced the best thing to do (not from a talent perspective but from a coaching perspective) throughout this acc season is to play 3-4 guys the entire second half w no rest....

 

[STEVEHOLT]

Id rather play the 7 best teams on the road. You aren't beating them anyway. Better to have the winnable games at home.

 

[SWC75]

You seem to maintain recently that this team has talent equivalent w bottom of acc and to win just about any game will have to overacheive. While you may very well be correct, i just didnt see that tonite. I saw a team with mid level acc talent (even considering very poor rebounding) that was up 8 on the road w ~12 mins to go against a decent team. I saw a team get beat in the end that had almost no bench. So if you mean this team has very little talent because it has very little bench, i guess i might agree w you. But i am not convinced the best thing to do (not from a talent perspective but from a coaching perspective) throughout this acc season is to play 3-4 guys the entire second half w no rest...

I agree that we are a middle-of-the pack ACC team. I think any win over one of the contenders will be an upset. . The rest of the games will be "winnable" but also loseable if we don't play well. I look at it one goal at a time so I want the team to get to 7 ACC wins and secure the continuation of "the streak" of winning seasons. Then we'll aim for something higher.

 

[Cusefan0307]

I agree that we are a middle-of-the pack ACC team. I think any win over one of the contenders will be an upset. . The rest of the games will be "winnable" but also loseable if we don't play well. I look at it one goal at a time so I want the team to get to 7 ACC wins and secure the continuation of "the streak" of winning seasons. Then we'll aim for something higher.

The good part about the ACC is even if you are average you have tons of opportunities to build your resume. Now we just need to take advantage of that.