A disappointing game and Pitt definitely should have played better. But I don't think what Mike Young said is much different than what you hear from many players on whatever team and sport to explain away a loss. Not saying I necessarily agree with the comment, just that you hear similar comments all the time, i.e., we lost because we didn't play our best more so than because the other team played better.
I didn't see/hear the actual presser, but here's what was quoted in the paper so I'm assuming this is what was in the presser:
“We had our highest of highs, and we had our lowest of lows,” said Young, who led the Panthers with 16 points and nine rebounds. “I told my team after the game, the first 37 minutes we looked like one team. The last three minutes we looked like a team that actually wanted to win.”
I don't think there's anything really inaccurate or particularly damning in what he said other than you sure would hope they'd take on a sense of urgency a lot sooner than with just 3 mins left in the game. But he's also just using that time point because it wasn't til then that they were able to start dwindling down that 9-12 pt lead the VTech maintained for most of the 2nd half.
Why weren't they on the top of the game from the get go? First half was hard to figure out because both teams looked terrible. Pitt wasn't just missing shots, they were throwing up some pretty ugly misses, shots you could tell were way off the mark as soon as they were leaving the guys finger tips. 2nd half, once VTech got the double digit lead, all of a sudden we couldn't get any stops at all. The tight foul calling, all the blocking calls instead of some charges, didn't help. But then we got a similar gift as well when they called blocking instead of a charge on Luther late in the game.
We should have been more focused from the start of the game, but I think it was plain and simple just a case of us not executing as to why we lost.
