Lots of thoughts all over the board, so I thought I would mention a few things that stood out to me from last night's game:
- Pitt scored consecutive points on just three occasions: a 7-0 run in the first half that gave the Panthers their only lead; a Lowe three and a Corhen put-back in the second half; and Cummings' back-to-back transition layups. That's it. Duke scored consecutive points six times - and that's before the final 8 minutes, when the Blue Devils scored all of the points.
- Pitt only attempted 6 three-pointers in the first half. Attempted - not made. That's not this team's game. It's not how they typically play, and it's certainly not how they win. I think the shooters were open, but they were getting passes. Duke collapsed on the guards driving, but Pitt was never able to make the Blue Devils pay for it.
- That said, I was kind of surprised to see that Lowe and Leggett had three assists each in the first half.
- I was less surprised to see that those two combined for one assist in the second half.
- The final 8 minutes were a blowout that kind of rendered a lot of earlier events moot, but there were several segments where Pitt missed some big opportunities. In the first half, Duke was up 30-21 when Corhen got a steal and threw ahead to Austin. But Austin traveled on the fast break. Then, over the next 90 seconds, Corhen and Leggett both missed the front end of one-and-one's; that's six wasted points in a nine-point game on the road against a top-five opponent.
- Lowe and Leggett are Pitt's best players because they're able to put the team on their backs, and that's what they tried to do last night. Oftentimes, it works. Last night, it didn't. But they never seemed to adjust to Duke collapsing in the paint.
That said, I think it's pretty remarkable that those two combined to shoot just one free throw in the entire game. One. And that wasn't even a shooting foul. Lowe and Leggett combined to attempt 11 layups officially (they made 3) and while seemingly every one of those layup attempts involved them driving into a wall of Duke players, they didn't get a single call.
Ultimately, it doesn't matter when you give up an 18-0 run and lose by 29. But it's still pretty remarkable that they didn't get one shooting foul.
- Really, though, layups weren't the best approach against Duke's defense anyway. As a team, Pitt was 7-of-19 on layups (and two of those makes were in transition, although the fact that Pitt only got two transition layups is notable, too). It's just tough to attack like that against the size and length that Duke has. The ball needed to be kicked out, but for whatever reason, that wasn't the game plan.
- We also saw the rotation shorten considerably last night. No Papa Amadou Kante or Amsal Delalic at all, and Jorge Diaz Graham played 7 minutes - 5 in the first half and 2 in the second half when Zack Austin got hurt.
- Of course, none of this changes what happened last night, what happened in the previous 14 games or what needs to happen on Saturday and beyond. Pitt is still a really good team. Lowe and Leggett will be better. The shooters are still dangerous. Dunn's return is a big boost. And Corhen keeps improving (he might have been the only thing approaching a bright spot last night).
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