Just back home from a tough night at the Pete. Think Niagara followed a blueprint similar to one that we’ll probably see other teams try quite a bit vs Pitt.
Defensively when they were M2M they didn’t extend or chase beyond the 3 line. That cut down on the area they had to guard and helped them to take away driving lanes and gave them better angles to cut off penetration. They also played zone and kept it packed in pretty well. Pitt didn’t execute as well vs the zone tonight as they had in some previous games. Those things seemed to frustrate Pitt quite a bit. Pitt attempted 25 3-pointers. Only had 4 FT attempts in the 1H. Both pretty uncharacteristic for this year’s team so far.
Offensively Niagara outscored Pitt 14-3 on second chance points. Out rebounded Pitt by 7. Pitt struggled to secure rebounds that the Panthers had their hands on, on numerous occasions. Niagara also managed to knock down shots when they had open looks. According to post game radio this was their highest shooting percentage game of the year. Part of that was attributable to a pretty lackluster effort on D by Pitt, at least until the final moments. But it proved to be too little, too late.
Pitt just didn’t play well fundamentally on either end consistently. It was a lesson learned the hard way. Hopefully it won’t have to be re-learned too often. Getting beaten by superior teams and talent is going to happen. But this loss tonight looked to be as much about what Pitt wasn’t able to - or didn’t - do, than anything.
First real stumble for a young team with not a lot of quality depth. The bigs also really struggled tonight for whatever reasons. Hope they all can gather themselves and come back with a strong response in Morgantown and play a solid 40 minutes of sound basketball, win or lose.
Defensively when they were M2M they didn’t extend or chase beyond the 3 line. That cut down on the area they had to guard and helped them to take away driving lanes and gave them better angles to cut off penetration. They also played zone and kept it packed in pretty well. Pitt didn’t execute as well vs the zone tonight as they had in some previous games. Those things seemed to frustrate Pitt quite a bit. Pitt attempted 25 3-pointers. Only had 4 FT attempts in the 1H. Both pretty uncharacteristic for this year’s team so far.
Offensively Niagara outscored Pitt 14-3 on second chance points. Out rebounded Pitt by 7. Pitt struggled to secure rebounds that the Panthers had their hands on, on numerous occasions. Niagara also managed to knock down shots when they had open looks. According to post game radio this was their highest shooting percentage game of the year. Part of that was attributable to a pretty lackluster effort on D by Pitt, at least until the final moments. But it proved to be too little, too late.
Pitt just didn’t play well fundamentally on either end consistently. It was a lesson learned the hard way. Hopefully it won’t have to be re-learned too often. Getting beaten by superior teams and talent is going to happen. But this loss tonight looked to be as much about what Pitt wasn’t able to - or didn’t - do, than anything.
First real stumble for a young team with not a lot of quality depth. The bigs also really struggled tonight for whatever reasons. Hope they all can gather themselves and come back with a strong response in Morgantown and play a solid 40 minutes of sound basketball, win or lose.
