The Upside- Pitt II

[SWC75]

- Another valiant effort. The team certainly never gives up. I wonder how much consideration the committee gives to valiant efforts.

- The two grad transfers each scored 20 points. Maybe it’s not such a bad idea after all.

- John Gillon was only 1 for 6 from the arc and had only 4 assists to 3 turnovers but he carried the team on his back in the second half, driving into the teeth of the defense to get to the basket like Larry Csonka going for the goal line. He went 6 for 9 on those drives and another 5 for 5 from the line, ext4ending his free throw streak to 34 straight, which ties the school record. He also made three steals.

- JB stuck with the press much longer than in other games. Maybe he had to because we had more trouble closing the gap than in those games but the press isn’t designed to be perfect or over-whelming. It’s designed to produce more positives than negatives. (More upside than downside.) You don’t stop using it because they broke it and scored. You use it to speed them up and wear them down. Sometimes it can be not working and suddenly start to work in a big way.

- Frank Howard had his best game of the conference season with 12 points, a couple of assists, a rebound, a steal and no turnovers in 25 minutes. , being pressed into service for Tyus battle who was ill. It wasn’t a perfect performance: 3 for 9 from the field and committing three fouls including a gift with 0.4 on the clock in the first half that got them two made free throws. But it was a productive performance, which more than we had been getting.

- Tyler Roberson made two free throws after missing 11 in a row. The first one bounced off both the back and front rims but the second one ripped the net. 50% the rest of the way. That’s all I’m asking Tyler. If you can’t be automatic in one direction, don’t be automatic in the other.

- Playing sick In a game where we batted the ball around like we were playing with tennis rackets, got out-rebounded by 16 and our leading scorer didn’t score for almost 28 minutes, we still almost won.

16-10 (8-5) with 5+ to go


LET’S GO ORANGE!

 

[tbonezone]

the somewhat maligned grad transfers managed to keep this game close to the whistle . perhaps their immune systems are more advanced than the youngsters. also agree frank played well in his rare minutes.

 

[pfister1]

Two things from yesterday.

- Gillon drove and for the first time (at least first time to my recollection) finished on a couple of those tough drives. It felt like the next step in a progression to me.

Many games ago he started driving throwing up wild shots and getting nothing but a turnover. More recently he started kicking out to open teammates. He then started picking up fouls on his drives and getting to the line. Now he has added actually finishing on some of those drives. I don't think he'll be remembered as one of our all time great point guards, but he is improving in leaps and bounds as the season goes on.

- I thought the press was really good yesterday!! It may not be a Louisville, 80s Georgetown or 90s Arkansas type of press, but it caused a surprising number of turnovers and led to hurried/missed shots. If you just look at it just from the perspective that it sped up the game it was a success, but it also led to a fair number of empty possessions by Pitt. Unfortunately we didn't capitalize on enough of them to close the gap entirely.

 

[OrangeTarheel]

I thought Howard's performance was a step forward. I also thought we had a surprising number of bad luck things happen - including Lydon failing to catch a ball at his hip on offense late in the game and several first half shots rimming out of the basket.

 

[Dave85]

They never gave up. There was one sequence when they were down by 5 with 2 minutes left and there were 2 blatant no-calls that sealed the game in my opinion. The refs were not calling the game the same on both ends. It was like a Louisville or Duke away game.

 

[SWC75]

They never gave up. There was one sequence when they were down by 5 with 2 minutes left and there were 2 blatant no-calls that sealed the game in my opinion. The refs were not calling the game the same on both ends. It was like a Louisville or Duke away game.

It's a good this we don't any of have those coming up...oh, wait...

 

[TheGov3304]

They never gave up. There was one sequence when they were down by 5 with 2 minutes left and there were 2 blatant no-calls that sealed the game in my opinion. The refs were not calling the game the same on both ends. It was like a Louisville or Duke away game.

Agreed. We did get a good call on that White 3 though. Didn't look like much contact and he converted all three free throws.