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Canisius Game & Other Dribbles ...

Like I said, he may be perfectly happy at Pitt.

OTOH, he doesn't owe anyone anything. After a year at Pitt, perhaps he might want to play a year of college ball for a blue blood that has a legit chance at cutting down the nets in March. Who could blame him if he did?

it takes more than two guys but if he's as good as he's made out to be, Pitt should have no issue making a run this year. His running mate is a top 10 guy in the country.
 
Pitt? Make a deep run in March this year?

"if he's as good as he's made out to be" .. lottery projected PG that can shoot paired with the best shooter in the nation .. a top 10 player in the nation .. surrounded by decent pieces .. yeah, a team like that can win on any given day. They don't have the floor like last year's team .. at least not yet .. but their ceiling is higher. You have a kid that can win a game by himself .. even when the defense is draping him. Not very many teams have that.

I'm not saying Pitt making a tourney run is likely .. but they have the makeup of a team that can. Especially if their Frosh PG gets more consistent as the year goes on.
 
"if he's as good as he's made out to be" .. lottery projected PG that can shoot paired with the best shooter in the nation .. a top 10 player in the nation .. surrounded by decent pieces .. yeah, a team like that can win on any given day. They don't have the floor like last year's team .. at least not yet .. but their ceiling is higher. You have a kid that can win a game by himself .. even when the defense is draping him. Not very many teams have that.

I'm not saying Pitt making a tourney run is likely .. but they have the makeup of a team that can. Especially if their Frosh PG gets more consistent as the year goes on.
Blake is a streak shooter. He isn't anywhere close to being one of the top 10 players overall.

Agree that Pitt should get better as the year goes on.
 
"if he's as good as he's made out to be" .. lottery projected PG that can shoot paired with the best shooter in the nation .. a top 10 player in the nation .. surrounded by decent pieces .. yeah, a team like that can win on any given day. They don't have the floor like last year's team .. at least not yet .. but their ceiling is higher. You have a kid that can win a game by himself .. even when the defense is draping him. Not very many teams have that.

I'm not saying Pitt making a tourney run is likely .. but they have the makeup of a team that can. Especially if their Frosh PG gets more consistent as the year goes on.
lol cmon. This team does not have a higher ceiling than last year’s. It has 3 guys who can score points and zero depth. If any of those 3 guys don’t score they can’t win.
 
Blake is a streak shooter. He isn't anywhere close to being one of the top 10 players overall.

Agree that Pitt should get better as the year goes on.

isn't anywhere close to being top 10? lol what?
 
lol cmon. This team does not have a higher ceiling than last year’s. It has 3 guys who can score points and zero depth. If any of those 3 guys don’t score they can’t win.

we're still in December. You wrote off last year's team at this exact time last year.
 
Blake is a streak shooter. He isn't anywhere close to being one of the top 10 players overall.

Agree that Pitt should get better as the year goes on.
With the streak he’s on, he’s definitely within All American consideration at the point in time. We can only see how much he can sustain it though.
 
lol Hugley hardly played last year. Even after he left, you weren't bought in at all. You know you weren't.
Ok. And they were the 67th team in the tournament. Their entire offensive system changed and they finally were able to allow players to have space. Kudos for making the tournament and winning 2 games. If you want to make a bet right now I’d easily take the under of winning 2 games in the tournament.

The possibility for this team to be better relies in the development of a 4th scorer and one twin and Lowe are the only ones on the team with the ability right now to do it on a consistent basis.

I feel like this year’s team is better than last years. Pretty easily actually.
At what? They haven’t beaten one good team yet. They are a bit better defensively with Jeffress (we’ll see how that plays out against team that have more than 2 weapons like WVU) and they’re not better at scoring the ball because they don’t have enough weapons.

Fede’s deficiencies could be masked last year. They are out in the open this year because we don’t have guys who can score and rebound the ball and we have no bench.
 
Ok. And they were the 67th team in the tournament. Their entire offensive system changed and they finally were able to allow players to have space. Kudos for making the tournament and winning 2 games. If you want to make a bet right now I’d easily take the under of winning 2 games in the tournament.

The possibility for this team to be better relies in the development of a 4th scorer and one twin and Lowe are the only ones on the team with the ability right now to do it on a consistent basis.


At what? They haven’t beaten one good team yet. They are a bit better defensively with Jeffress (we’ll see how that plays out against team that have more than 2 weapons like WVU) and they’re not better at scoring the ball because they don’t have enough weapons.

Fede’s deficiencies could be masked last year. They are out in the open this year because we don’t have guys who can score and rebound the ball and we have no bench.

you still owe 100$ from last year ..
 
you still owe 100$ from last year ..
I donate (and paid more than that) to alliance 412, hence why I am at their events.

No one has given me a solid reason of WHY we’re better this year when we are missing a Nike, Elliot etc piece off the bench to back up our old guards. And my point remains that we haven’t really beaten a good team.

Obviously all of that has a chance to develop, but it needs to develop quickly. Losing to Mizzou at home despite being predictable might end up not being a good loss although I think they’re better than people thought on here pregame when I said take Mizzou and the points based on Gates’ coaching ability.
 
No one has given me a solid reason of WHY we’re better this year when we are missing a Nike, Elliot etc piece off the bench to back up our old guards. And my point remains that we haven’t really beaten a good team.
No one is coming up with a "solid reason" because there
is no solid reason why we're better this yr than last yr. We
have a glaring weakness inside. We have the same three
bigs who are still physically weak, haven't improved all
that much, and get "manhandled" in the blocks on both
ends of the floor by more physical bigs from even mid
major programs, ex. FGCU, Canisius. Last yr our same
bigs had four players on the floor with them who could
all get it done. They even had a fifth off the bench (Nike)
who was only the ACC 6 man player of the year.

What I metioned above are the tangible things that were
obvious last year. Just as imprtant IMO, were the intangibles
like age, maturation, experience, know how, chemistry,
leadership etc. I do think Hinson is showing leadership, and
he obviously has the maturation and other intangibles. Last
year we had four starters with all this plus a fifth who had it
as well.

This doesn't mean I don't like our team, I do. However they're
young, and inexperienced. Even though it's been mentioned
before, Bub came in here at 18, same with Lowe. Playing with
and against 21, 22, and 23 yr olds ain't easy. Last yr's team
had those 21, 22, and 23 yr old players as the core of our team.
The Clemson game was a perfect example. To our credit, we
competed, stayed relatively close, but the difference was obvious.
 
No one is coming up with a "solid reason" because there
is no solid reason why we're better this yr than last yr. We
have a glaring weakness inside. We have the same three
bigs who are still physically weak, haven't improved all
that much, and get "manhandled" in the blocks on both
ends of the floor by more physical bigs from even mid
major programs, ex. FGCU, Canisius. Last yr our same
bigs had four players on the floor who could all get it
done. They even had a fifth off the bench (Nike) who was
only the ACC 6 man player of the year.

What I metioned above are the tangible things that were
obvious last year. Just as imprtant IMO, were the intangibles
like age, maturation, experience, know how, chemistry,
leadership etc. I do think Hinson is showing leadership, and
he obviously has the maturation and other intangibles. Last
year we had four starters with all this plus a fifth who had it
as well.

This doesn't mean I don't like our team, I do. However they're
young, and inexperienced. Even though it's been mentioned
before, Bub came in here at 18, same with Lowe. Playing with
and against 21, 22, and 23 yr olds ain't easy. Last yr's team
had those 21, 22, and 23 yr old players as the core of the team.
The Clmson game was a perfect example. To our credit, we
competed, stayed relatively close, but the difference was obvious.
Correct. You can like this team, yet acknowledge having 4 24 year old guards who were crafty and all came together to win made last year’s team better.

Had Hugley ate his fat ass off the team before the season they could’ve probably gotten a 5-6 seed.
 
I mean... he's 10th in the nation in PPG and 16th in 3pt %. He's closer to being a top 10 player in the nation than he's not.
He's a 6'8" streak shooter with freaky range who is really dangerous when he's on. But he doesn't do anything else exceptionally well. And for such a good 3 pt shooter, he's only a 66% shooter from the line.
 
Ok. And they were the 67th team in the tournament. Their entire offensive system changed and they finally were able to allow players to have space. Kudos for making the tournament and winning 2 games. If you want to make a bet right now I’d easily take the under of winning 2 games in the tournament.

The possibility for this team to be better relies in the development of a 4th scorer and one twin and Lowe are the only ones on the team with the ability right now to do it on a consistent basis.


At what? They haven’t beaten one good team yet. They are a bit better defensively with Jeffress (we’ll see how that plays out against team that have more than 2 weapons like WVU) and they’re not better at scoring the ball because they don’t have enough weapons.

Fede’s deficiencies could be masked last year. They are out in the open this year because we don’t have guys who can score and rebound the ball and we have no bench.

They were #44 (ahead of ASU and Nevada). Or 66 if you want to put all the auto bids ahead of them.
 
I donate (and paid more than that) to alliance 412, hence why I am at their events.

No one has given me a solid reason of WHY we’re better this year when we are missing a Nike, Elliot etc piece off the bench to back up our old guards. And my point remains that we haven’t really beaten a good team.

Obviously all of that has a chance to develop, but it needs to develop quickly. Losing to Mizzou at home despite being predictable might end up not being a good loss although I think they’re better than people thought on here pregame when I said take Mizzou and the points based on Gates’ coaching ability.

I thought we'd be better this season but I agree we were better last season:

PG: Carrington vs Nelly - Carrington but not really by a ton.

SG: Leggett vs Burton - Burton

SF: Austin/Jeffress/Jorge vs Elliott/Sibande - last year by a mile

PF: Hinson is better this year

C: Fede was way better last year

Last year's team was better but not by a lot. We got pretty lucky last year that we got Q1 games Miami and UVa at home and won them and then also had that good week in December winning at NW and NC St. Those 4 games are why we made the tournament. We only have 1 more Q1 home game and its vs Duke.
 
I donate (and paid more than that) to alliance 412, hence why I am at their events.

No one has given me a solid reason of WHY we’re better this year when we are missing a Nike, Elliot etc piece off the bench to back up our old guards. And my point remains that we haven’t really beaten a good team.

Obviously all of that has a chance to develop, but it needs to develop quickly. Losing to Mizzou at home despite being predictable might end up not being a good loss although I think they’re better than people thought on here pregame when I said take Mizzou and the points based on Gates’ coaching ability.

I think we’re more talented this year but we definitely had the intangible “experience” factor last year with our guards where it seemed like they always made the right play down the stretch in close games.

Which does worry me as we head into league play.
 
I think we’re more talented this year but we definitely had the intangible “experience” factor last year with our guards where it seemed like they always made the right play down the stretch in close games.

Which does worry me as we head into league play.
I mean, are we? Carrington is very good but he hasn’t been great against any of the good teams. Burton is way better (for the college game) than any guard we have this year. Hinson is better than last year. If you put Burton against Ish like SMF did, we were better at 3 positions last year and bench. I don’t see how it’s particularly close either.
 
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He's a 6'8" streak shooter with freaky range who is really dangerous when he's on. But he doesn't do anything else exceptionally well. And for such a good 3 pt shooter, he's only a 66% shooter from the line.

I'm not really sure what you're arguing here. What does being 6'8" have to do with anything? I'm not saying Hinson is a lottery pick.
 
I donate (and paid more than that) to alliance 412, hence why I am at their events.

No one has given me a solid reason of WHY we’re better this year when we are missing a Nike, Elliot etc piece off the bench to back up our old guards. And my point remains that we haven’t really beaten a good team.

Obviously all of that has a chance to develop, but it needs to develop quickly. Losing to Mizzou at home despite being predictable might end up not being a good loss although I think they’re better than people thought on here pregame when I said take Mizzou and the points based on Gates’ coaching ability.

lol I'm glad you donate but that's not how a bet works
 

I'm telling you: If Pitt played Canisius every game, he would easily be the top pick overall. And then if the NBA team he went to played Canisius every game...

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I wasn't trying to dunk on anyone.

But his recent play emphasizes exactly why he's nowhere close to an elite college player. His solution to an extended defense trying to either deny him the ball, or force him to take a bad shot, is to oblige his opponent and force up a bad shot.

Tbh, that's something Pitt should be able to scheme off of, but the end result seems to be either a barrage of forced shots or just allow him to be taken out of the game on the offensive end.
 
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