** Oh, how good it feels to feel this way again.
** With great plays I was shouting and with bad plays I was screaming.
** My Son said to me “I don’t like when you are like this … I feel like you are mad.” I replied that I couldn’t be happier to be this intensely and emotionally involved in the Pitt Basketball game again.
** The Panthers did so many things right in the first half that it was magnificent, and they did so many wrong things in the second half that it was maddening. But its own way, it was a wonderful sense of maddening, wasn’t it?
** Still, the plain and simple truth to this tremendous effort by the Panthers is that Iowa won because they are just a little bit better than us.
** And that alone is a pretty extraordinary, even glorious, statement seven games into this year. Never for a moment four weeks ago would I have thought such a thing would be true.
** One could easily have said that the Panthers actually should have won this game. But they clearly lost their composure on offense at so many important moments throughout the second stanza.
** But to me it’s perfectly reasonable to say that the Panthers basically don’t know how to make these plays in the second half. They are young and new with a new coach, and they whole darn crew is still figuring so many things out.
** For too many possessions, they either rushed into turnovers or they just didn’t know where to go with the ball.
** They didn’t know how to find JWF for shots.
** They forced drives that weren’t there.
** The wrong guys took shots they shouldn’t.
** But with seconds to go in this game on the road, despite all the things they didn’t do right in the second half, we still had the ball to shoot to win the game.
** That last ten seconds was pretty much like the whole second half for the whole team. Trey tried to win it all himself. Just like X had tried to do too much himself, as did Terrell and Malik.
** These are all things these Panthers will learn as this season goes on.
** But the real reason we were only just a shot short of an incredible win was some pretty intense defense and some strong rebounding.
** Before the game I got a little word from one in the know that the worry inside the Pitt camp would be whether or not we could stop a very strong inside team who was scoring 88 points a game.
** After what I saw in the first half, I figured we could keep scoring the ball well enough, but wasn’t sure if the Hawkeyes could be stopped.
** But of course, it was quite the opposite. Surprising, but ultimately understandable, and even in its own way, encouraging.
** There will likely be times, and teams, when the Panthers won’t be able make stops this season. We just lack too many pieces. But these young guys made a bunch of tough and critical stops when it really mattered in the game’s homestretch. We just didn’t know what play to make on the other end.
** Let’s also take note of the fact that we even outrebounded the much bigger Iowa by one.
** As for as the Panther MVP’s … three guys must be called out for highest marks.
** First Trey was good, not perfect, but strong enough to continue to tell us his future is bright, and that this could even come fairly quickly is he can learn from his tougher moments tonight.
** Second, Kene was more than good – he was downright remarkable. Might he have been the game’s best big man on this day? He’s becoming a craftier finisher, and battled like a madman against his formidable foes. Congrats Kene.
** I defended Kene against many fans who didn’t want him to stick around, saying that I believed that he was better last year than most Panther fans thought he was. But I didn’t think he was good. Instead, maybe just someone who could help a little more than he did last year.
** I never expected anything near what he brought tonight.
** And then there was Xavier. He was somewhat beyond extraordinary in the first half, and of course had a much tougher go of it in the second.
** But he was still every bit the exceptional player we have come to believe we have going for us this year. The test now for Xavier, and his Head Coach, is how quickly all the lessons he learned in tonight’s second half will soak into his psyche. This could be the difference between a pretty darn good freshman year and something much more than that.
** Or the difference between getting paid six, or seven figures to play basketball as a professional in a few years.
** I’m not going to end by offering my “congrats” to the Panthers and Head Coach Jeff Capel for an excellent effort tonight. I believe that would be disrespectful to the team as it appears they have already moved beyond this, well ahead of schedule.
** Instead I’ll just offer my thanks. Thank you for making a loss -- even a tremendously encouraging loss like this one – hurt once again.
** With great plays I was shouting and with bad plays I was screaming.
** My Son said to me “I don’t like when you are like this … I feel like you are mad.” I replied that I couldn’t be happier to be this intensely and emotionally involved in the Pitt Basketball game again.
** The Panthers did so many things right in the first half that it was magnificent, and they did so many wrong things in the second half that it was maddening. But its own way, it was a wonderful sense of maddening, wasn’t it?
** Still, the plain and simple truth to this tremendous effort by the Panthers is that Iowa won because they are just a little bit better than us.
** And that alone is a pretty extraordinary, even glorious, statement seven games into this year. Never for a moment four weeks ago would I have thought such a thing would be true.
** One could easily have said that the Panthers actually should have won this game. But they clearly lost their composure on offense at so many important moments throughout the second stanza.
** But to me it’s perfectly reasonable to say that the Panthers basically don’t know how to make these plays in the second half. They are young and new with a new coach, and they whole darn crew is still figuring so many things out.
** For too many possessions, they either rushed into turnovers or they just didn’t know where to go with the ball.
** They didn’t know how to find JWF for shots.
** They forced drives that weren’t there.
** The wrong guys took shots they shouldn’t.
** But with seconds to go in this game on the road, despite all the things they didn’t do right in the second half, we still had the ball to shoot to win the game.
** That last ten seconds was pretty much like the whole second half for the whole team. Trey tried to win it all himself. Just like X had tried to do too much himself, as did Terrell and Malik.
** These are all things these Panthers will learn as this season goes on.
** But the real reason we were only just a shot short of an incredible win was some pretty intense defense and some strong rebounding.
** Before the game I got a little word from one in the know that the worry inside the Pitt camp would be whether or not we could stop a very strong inside team who was scoring 88 points a game.
** After what I saw in the first half, I figured we could keep scoring the ball well enough, but wasn’t sure if the Hawkeyes could be stopped.
** But of course, it was quite the opposite. Surprising, but ultimately understandable, and even in its own way, encouraging.
** There will likely be times, and teams, when the Panthers won’t be able make stops this season. We just lack too many pieces. But these young guys made a bunch of tough and critical stops when it really mattered in the game’s homestretch. We just didn’t know what play to make on the other end.
** Let’s also take note of the fact that we even outrebounded the much bigger Iowa by one.
** As for as the Panther MVP’s … three guys must be called out for highest marks.
** First Trey was good, not perfect, but strong enough to continue to tell us his future is bright, and that this could even come fairly quickly is he can learn from his tougher moments tonight.
** Second, Kene was more than good – he was downright remarkable. Might he have been the game’s best big man on this day? He’s becoming a craftier finisher, and battled like a madman against his formidable foes. Congrats Kene.
** I defended Kene against many fans who didn’t want him to stick around, saying that I believed that he was better last year than most Panther fans thought he was. But I didn’t think he was good. Instead, maybe just someone who could help a little more than he did last year.
** I never expected anything near what he brought tonight.
** And then there was Xavier. He was somewhat beyond extraordinary in the first half, and of course had a much tougher go of it in the second.
** But he was still every bit the exceptional player we have come to believe we have going for us this year. The test now for Xavier, and his Head Coach, is how quickly all the lessons he learned in tonight’s second half will soak into his psyche. This could be the difference between a pretty darn good freshman year and something much more than that.
** Or the difference between getting paid six, or seven figures to play basketball as a professional in a few years.
** I’m not going to end by offering my “congrats” to the Panthers and Head Coach Jeff Capel for an excellent effort tonight. I believe that would be disrespectful to the team as it appears they have already moved beyond this, well ahead of schedule.
** Instead I’ll just offer my thanks. Thank you for making a loss -- even a tremendously encouraging loss like this one – hurt once again.
