Team basketball is good for the soul. 27 assists on 32 baskets.
We could stop there.
Or we could go on and on.
Take a guess.
On we go.
But, first, here are a few names that come to mind:
Jalen Hood-Schifino
Judah Mintz
Xavier Johnson
John Hugley
Dior Johnson
All of them could be on this Pitt team. Not to mention Justin Champagnie and Au’Diese Toney. Talented as these players are, they are not here.
Pitt has something better. A team. In the pure words of one of the great coaches, albeit one who did not actually exist, Norman Dale: My team is on the court.
It would be fitting if this Pitt team had a coach who did not actually exist, for we have entered the surreal:
Pitt 14-4
Miami 14-5
Virginia 13-5
Clemson 13-5
Duke 12-6
NC State 12-7
North Carolina 10-8
Wake Forest 10-8
Syracuse 9-9
A real world note to the computers and the Net and the selection committee. Pitt’s record against these eight teams, which have won eight national championships since the last time a Big Ten team won one of them, is 8-2.
There will plenty of time for that. This is a night to celebrate the greatest game in the world played the way it was meant to be played.
Sometimes statistics are misleading. But sometimes they aren’t. Nelly Cummings: 14 points, 13 assists, 1 turnover. After the game, Nellie Cummings was asked about the three great performances he has had against Syracuse the past two years, two in the Carrier Dome and tonight’s masterpiece, three wins in which he had 54 points, 26 assists and 4 turnovers. His answer, without hesitation--two great coaching staffs that had me prepared to go out there and do what I do—says a lot about Nelly Cummings, especially the respect he paid his former coaching staff at Colgate.
Nelly had plenty of company tonight. Jamarious Burton played a game that was almost as brilliant and even more complete. On offense, Burton had 14 points, 4 of his 9 rebounds, 8 assists and 1 turnover. On defense, he made the talented Mintz look like the freshman he is in the first half, and slowed Joe Girard, who played like a senior, in the second.
In a game where Pitt had six players in double figures, it is hard to decide where to go next. Form would suggest a senior, it being Senior Day, and there are many worthy choices. We’ll get there, but not until we check in on the center position. Federico Federico is simply becoming a force, a pure athlete, unflappable, instinctive, intelligent and indefatigable, and seemingly growing before our eyes. One thing that comes through is that he must be exceptionally coachable. You could not learn the things he has learned as quickly as he has learned them without being very coachable. I cannot recall a Pitt big man coming out of nowhere like this since Jaime Peterson on Ralph Willard’s brave first team.
Meantime, Pitt also has a real back-up center. Guillermo Diaz-Graham already is a very good athlete and a very good basketball player. Pitt had a dramatic edge at back-up center tonight. If you were inclined to dream on a promising player filling out and becoming a great player, and I am, Guillermo Diaz-Graham is a player you could dream on. He could do worse than follow the path of Syracuse’s European center, Jesse Edwards, who has come a long way, physically and as a player.
Returning to Senior Day, I once again underestimated Greg Elliott tonight. Earlier in the season, I thought he wasn’t good enough, that his game would not hold up. I was wrong. Tonight, I thought he was hurt, and he certainly appeared to be, several times in fact, but after an 0-5 first half, he just went off in the second, 5 for 6, most of them bombs from the left corner right below where we were sitting. This explosion will be a lasting memory, as will Nike Sibande’s monster slam on a perfect in-bounds play for a team that often struggles on in-bounds plays. This was part of Nike’s eight points in less than two minutes, an eruption that occurred just seconds after I alerted my friend that Nike looked uncomfortable and out of synch. Just think if I didn’t know so much about basketball…
One subject to which I Was able to apply my armchair expertise was keeping track of Blake Hinson’s shots. Entering the game several minutes in, Hinson nevertheless contrived to launch 13 of them in the opening half, landing 3. Undeterred, he let fly with 4 more in the first 135 seconds of half number two. To me, though, except for a few “are you joking” head-scratchers, I thought the overall effort was worthwhile. One of the things I have felt about this team is that I don’t want to reach a point where I expect more of them than they have to give. My sense of what that might be has expanded, but there still are some athletic limitations. Whatever their ceiling is, though, I fervently hope that when they do go out, they go out playing their game, which is, as Milo Hamilton once said, “Bombs away in Pittsburgh, Pa.” As long as Blake Hinson is around, that will not be a problem.
So that about covers this evening’s first-place festivities. Except that it doesn’t. Because tonight ended on a moment of pure joy, perhaps the moment of the season, a moment that says a lot about this team, when manager, turned walk-on, turned respected team leader Aidan Fisch ended the game with the second and very possibly last basket of his career, an event that precipitated a wild celebration followed by a wilder post-game mob scene followed by an emotional locker room presentation of the game ball.
I am not certain of much, and as my in-game analysis proved yet again, on many things about which I am certain I often am wrong. But I am certain that Aidan Fisch will remember tonight for as long as he lives.
We could stop there.
Or we could go on and on.
Take a guess.
On we go.
But, first, here are a few names that come to mind:
Jalen Hood-Schifino
Judah Mintz
Xavier Johnson
John Hugley
Dior Johnson
All of them could be on this Pitt team. Not to mention Justin Champagnie and Au’Diese Toney. Talented as these players are, they are not here.
Pitt has something better. A team. In the pure words of one of the great coaches, albeit one who did not actually exist, Norman Dale: My team is on the court.
It would be fitting if this Pitt team had a coach who did not actually exist, for we have entered the surreal:
Pitt 14-4
Miami 14-5
Virginia 13-5
Clemson 13-5
Duke 12-6
NC State 12-7
North Carolina 10-8
Wake Forest 10-8
Syracuse 9-9
A real world note to the computers and the Net and the selection committee. Pitt’s record against these eight teams, which have won eight national championships since the last time a Big Ten team won one of them, is 8-2.
There will plenty of time for that. This is a night to celebrate the greatest game in the world played the way it was meant to be played.
Sometimes statistics are misleading. But sometimes they aren’t. Nelly Cummings: 14 points, 13 assists, 1 turnover. After the game, Nellie Cummings was asked about the three great performances he has had against Syracuse the past two years, two in the Carrier Dome and tonight’s masterpiece, three wins in which he had 54 points, 26 assists and 4 turnovers. His answer, without hesitation--two great coaching staffs that had me prepared to go out there and do what I do—says a lot about Nelly Cummings, especially the respect he paid his former coaching staff at Colgate.
Nelly had plenty of company tonight. Jamarious Burton played a game that was almost as brilliant and even more complete. On offense, Burton had 14 points, 4 of his 9 rebounds, 8 assists and 1 turnover. On defense, he made the talented Mintz look like the freshman he is in the first half, and slowed Joe Girard, who played like a senior, in the second.
In a game where Pitt had six players in double figures, it is hard to decide where to go next. Form would suggest a senior, it being Senior Day, and there are many worthy choices. We’ll get there, but not until we check in on the center position. Federico Federico is simply becoming a force, a pure athlete, unflappable, instinctive, intelligent and indefatigable, and seemingly growing before our eyes. One thing that comes through is that he must be exceptionally coachable. You could not learn the things he has learned as quickly as he has learned them without being very coachable. I cannot recall a Pitt big man coming out of nowhere like this since Jaime Peterson on Ralph Willard’s brave first team.
Meantime, Pitt also has a real back-up center. Guillermo Diaz-Graham already is a very good athlete and a very good basketball player. Pitt had a dramatic edge at back-up center tonight. If you were inclined to dream on a promising player filling out and becoming a great player, and I am, Guillermo Diaz-Graham is a player you could dream on. He could do worse than follow the path of Syracuse’s European center, Jesse Edwards, who has come a long way, physically and as a player.
Returning to Senior Day, I once again underestimated Greg Elliott tonight. Earlier in the season, I thought he wasn’t good enough, that his game would not hold up. I was wrong. Tonight, I thought he was hurt, and he certainly appeared to be, several times in fact, but after an 0-5 first half, he just went off in the second, 5 for 6, most of them bombs from the left corner right below where we were sitting. This explosion will be a lasting memory, as will Nike Sibande’s monster slam on a perfect in-bounds play for a team that often struggles on in-bounds plays. This was part of Nike’s eight points in less than two minutes, an eruption that occurred just seconds after I alerted my friend that Nike looked uncomfortable and out of synch. Just think if I didn’t know so much about basketball…
One subject to which I Was able to apply my armchair expertise was keeping track of Blake Hinson’s shots. Entering the game several minutes in, Hinson nevertheless contrived to launch 13 of them in the opening half, landing 3. Undeterred, he let fly with 4 more in the first 135 seconds of half number two. To me, though, except for a few “are you joking” head-scratchers, I thought the overall effort was worthwhile. One of the things I have felt about this team is that I don’t want to reach a point where I expect more of them than they have to give. My sense of what that might be has expanded, but there still are some athletic limitations. Whatever their ceiling is, though, I fervently hope that when they do go out, they go out playing their game, which is, as Milo Hamilton once said, “Bombs away in Pittsburgh, Pa.” As long as Blake Hinson is around, that will not be a problem.
So that about covers this evening’s first-place festivities. Except that it doesn’t. Because tonight ended on a moment of pure joy, perhaps the moment of the season, a moment that says a lot about this team, when manager, turned walk-on, turned respected team leader Aidan Fisch ended the game with the second and very possibly last basket of his career, an event that precipitated a wild celebration followed by a wilder post-game mob scene followed by an emotional locker room presentation of the game ball.
I am not certain of much, and as my in-game analysis proved yet again, on many things about which I am certain I often am wrong. But I am certain that Aidan Fisch will remember tonight for as long as he lives.
