Lots of openings

[pittfan57]

So now we have at least 3 openings for next year, quite possible 4. Basically have gaps at every position. Wow

 

[thebadby2]

Well we sure as hell don't have any "gaps" at the 3. Outside of Robinson, Newk and maybe Young, everyone we have is a 3 or stretch 3. That's a big part of our problem.

 

[Harve74]

Unfortunately, Artis and Jeter are "tweeners", stretch 4's who are a little short for PF and not very good at 3, particularly defensively.

 

[thebadby2]

I guess that;s my definition of a stretch 3--those are finesse players, not interior bangers. They aren't good enough with the ball to be true 3s, they aren't big enough and physical enough for the 4. IMO, Young is a true 4 playing out of his comfort zone at the 5.

To me, Artis is pretty close to a legit 3. Jeter is a total tweener. Artis has a lot of potential. He;s a good shooter, a good passer, and a good scorer. His deficiencies are his D and rebounding. I'd say if we had a Thorne in the post and Young at the 4, Artis might look pretty damned good at the 3.

 

[Harve74]

I thought Artis had peaked before his GLF. I hope you're right.

His passing is OK, sometimes pretty good. Handle is just OK for a 3 but he loses the ball too frequently when he tries to drive. He needs to be faster . Or, really, quicker. Hard to believe he was once supposed to be a power PG.

If he can get his shot off against faster 3's he may be OK, but that will be harder than taking just 4's outside. Right now, he needed to score about 20 to be ahead on plus-minus. He was a real liability defensively guarding 4's. And even worse guarding 3's. Unless we replace his scoring, he HAS to play, but he got abused by everyone he tried to guard last year.

Jeter has more athleticism, but his overall game is a puzzle. He can run and finish and despite a funky shooting form, he hits open shots, at least at a high enough overall percentage if streaky. He doesn't seem to have much confidence in his handle for a kid who called himself a guard in his recruiting video. He will hit the boards with gusto but is still frequently lost on D. Too bad he's not really 6-8.

I'm not sure EITHER of these guys ever rotated properly on defense. When Young stepped up to stop dribble penetration, both seemed to just like to watch opponents stroll to the hoop for dunks and lay-ups. Talib looked much better on Defense than Young, mainly because Young rotated.

I think the forwards in the ACC are just longer and better than the BE. Either kid might have been fine at 4 in the BE, but are tweeners in the ACC.

But, they are going to be playing 20-30 minutes at least at 4. So, one of them has to step up. Obviously Durand won't be playing at 3, so somebody has to play a lot of minutes there too.

Either way, it will be tough to be better unless the light comes on defensively for both of them.

 

[thebadby2]

I'm not sure EITHER of these guys ever rotated properly
on defense. When Young stepped up to stop dribble penetration, both
seemed to just like to watch opponents stroll to the hoop for dunks and
lay-ups.

So true. The interior D all year was Young by himself. The rotation from everyone was terrible this year. I have crtiticized Young's D as well, but in fairness to him his teammates made him look bad. It's hard anyone to guard the whole painted area by himself. We have up more dunks this year than in the previous 10 yesars of Pitt hoops combined. Makes me wonder if Jamie is either not hard enough on these guys, or is too hard on them in practice.

i really feel like if Young could get most of his minutes at the 4, with say a Thorne in the post, he could do some real damage offensively and on the boards. Keeping my fingers crossed for Thorne, because as we have discussed before, I don;t expect anything from Nix. Thorne is no world beater but he fits the bill of a 30 minute post man, and we really need that. If we can add Thorne and someone who can score in the backcourt for next season, we could be OK.

 

[Harve74]

Originally posted by thebadby2:
I'm not sure EITHER of these guys ever rotated properly
on defense. When Young stepped up to stop dribble penetration, both
seemed to just like to watch opponents stroll to the hoop for dunks and
lay-ups.

So true. The interior D all year was Young by himself. The rotation from everyone was terrible this year. I have crtiticized Young's D as well, but in fairness to him his teammates made him look bad. It's hard anyone to guard the whole painted area by himself. We have up more dunks this year than in the previous 10 yesars of Pitt hoops combined. Makes me wonder if Jamie is either not hard enough on these guys, or is too hard on them in practice.

i really feel like if Young could get most of his minutes at the 4, with say a Thorne in the post, he could do some real damage offensively and on the boards. Keeping my fingers crossed for Thorne, because as we have discussed before, I don;t expect anything from Nix. Thorne is no world beater but he fits the bill of a 30 minute post man, and we really need that. If we can add Thorne and someone who can score in the backcourt for next season, we could be OK.

Young was clearly our best defender in the paint. But, what worries me even about him was the comments from Dino Gaudio. Every time Gaudio did one of our games, he seemed to constantly critique Young for going on the wrong side of most screens or picks.

I freely admit I'm not the X's and O's guy many are and I'm not always sure Gaudio was right. Maybe Jamie's defesive technique is different from the way Gaudio taught. But Dino was a pretty good coach. I think he probably has a good idea of whether a kid should go over or under a screen and he blamed Young frequently.

It looked to me like we almost never defended a screen correctly all year. That's a big part of why I posted in February that with this current roster, I just can't see our defense getting that much better.

I'm not sure Thorne is that much of a difference maker. He's a CUSA journeyman. At 275 he's not particularly quick or mobile. His stats are fairly simular to Mike Young, with a little less scoring, but against lesser competition. My thought is he's an upgrade on Ranall and Uchebo, but probably not a whole lot more than Derrick Randall was in that one game out of three that Derrick came to play.

I would be extremely surprised if he played 30 mpg. In Charlotte's CUSA games, he only played 24 mpg.

It's likely moot anyway. Unless everything breaks right for us with KY and Kansas recruiting 5-star bigs, he'll probably ebd up at one of those wchools.

 

[Hailpitt]

Harve,
You have built up a lot of credibility with me. But your comment--"Dino Gaudio was a good coach" may cost you some points. However, if Dino made those comments about Young's post defense then it was one of the few times he displayed some ball IQ. I will give you a pass on this one--don't let it happen again!