There is an old adage in baseball,

[Chairman Moe]

whose quote was credited to none other than Casey Stengel, the manager of the NY Yankees back when I was a "fledgling" baseball fan, that says: "Good pitching will always stop good hitting and vice-versa."

I think in college basketball you could substitute the word "pitching" for "defense", and "hitting" for "offense", and be spot on. But "vice versa" is the key phrase. If you don't have a hot offense one night, you'd better bring a tough defense. The Yankees of the '50's were a great example of a team who on one day could beat you soundly with great hitting, and the next day win a game 1-0 with an ace pitcher and solid defense.

If you look back on the teams who've won the NCAAT, most if not all possessed both. And while I don't know if they will be this year's NCAAT champion, a team that has shown both attributes this year is Louisville. They locked down our team on defense when we played them (while they were scoring only 59 points), and last night, the Cards were able to go toe-to-toe with a tough VT team (road win) and scored over 90 points to secure the win.

Pitt has shown, at times, the ability to score in bunches, and strange fact that it is, has won each and every game where they've scored over 70 points. But playing defense has not been much of a factor for this team, and without trying to analyze why, it may never be. And in each loss so far, the factor has been not being able to defend as well as the other team when they were clearly in a defensive battle.

I can't predict how we are going to fare in the next 1/2 of the ACC Regular Season. But if I am a team looking to devise a game plan against us it appears that we've shown our hand on how to be beat. JD and his staff are going to have to be magicians over this next stretch of games.

#PlayDefense
#MakingtheNCAATisnolock
#LearnhowtodothefirstandthesecondWILLbealock

Sorry, I'm not very good at this "hashtag" stuff . . . !!

 

[UPitt '89]

whose quote was credited to none other than Casey Stengel, the manager of the NY Yankees back when I was a "fledgling" baseball fan, that says: "Good pitching will always stop good hitting and vice-versa."

I think in college basketball you could substitute the word "pitching" for "defense", and "hitting" for "offense", and be spot on. But "vice versa" is the key phrase. If you don't have a hot offense one night, you'd better bring a tough defense. The Yankees of the '50's were a great example of a team who on one day could beat you soundly with great hitting, and the next day win a game 1-0 with an ace pitcher and solid defense.

If you look back on the teams who've won the NCAAT, most if not all possessed both. And while I don't know if they will be this year's NCAAT champion, a team that has shown both attributes this year is Louisville. They locked down our team on defense when we played them (while they were scoring only 59 points), and last night, the Cards were able to go toe-to-toe with a tough VT team (road win) and scored over 90 points to secure the win.

Pitt has shown, at times, the ability to score in bunches, and strange fact that it is, has won each and every game where they've scored over 70 points. But playing defense has not been much of a factor for this team, and without trying to analyze why, it may never be. And in each loss so far, the factor has been not being able to defend as well as the other team when they were clearly in a defensive battle.

I can't predict how we are going to fare in the next 1/2 of the ACC Regular Season. But if I am a team looking to devise a game plan against us it appears that we've shown our hand on how to be beat. JD and his staff are going to have to be magicians over this next stretch of games.

#PlayDefense
#MakingtheNCAATisnolock
#LearnhowtodothefirstandthesecondWILLbealock

Sorry, I'm not very good at this "hashtag" stuff . . . !!

All good points.

We're an offensive team... that will look very very very bad on the days when the shots aren't falling, because we simply don't defend anyone.

 

[King Of All Message Boards]

All good points.

We're an offensive team... that will look very very very bad on the days when the shots aren't falling, because we simply don't defend anyone.

Yep. I said the same thing in another thread. This is a finesse team that can win when a lot of the shots are dropping. Unless there's a miracle on the defensive end that's about their only chance of winning.

 

[Pitt69]

whose quote was credited to none other than Casey Stengel, the manager of the NY Yankees back when I was a "fledgling" baseball fan, that says: "Good pitching will always stop good hitting and vice-versa."

I think in college basketball you could substitute the word "pitching" for "defense", and "hitting" for "offense", and be spot on. But "vice versa" is the key phrase. If you don't have a hot offense one night, you'd better bring a tough defense. The Yankees of the '50's were a great example of a team who on one day could beat you soundly with great hitting, and the next day win a game 1-0 with an ace pitcher and solid defense.

If you look back on the teams who've won the NCAAT, most if not all possessed both. And while I don't know if they will be this year's NCAAT champion, a team that has shown both attributes this year is Louisville. They locked down our team on defense when we played them (while they were scoring only 59 points), and last night, the Cards were able to go toe-to-toe with a tough VT team (road win) and scored over 90 points to secure the win.

Pitt has shown, at times, the ability to score in bunches, and strange fact that it is, has won each and every game where they've scored over 70 points. But playing defense has not been much of a factor for this team, and without trying to analyze why, it may never be. And in each loss so far, the factor has been not being able to defend as well as the other team when they were clearly in a defensive battle.

I can't predict how we are going to fare in the next 1/2 of the ACC Regular Season. But if I am a team looking to devise a game plan against us it appears that we've shown our hand on how to be beat. JD and his staff are going to have to be magicians over this next stretch of games.

#PlayDefense
#MakingtheNCAATisnolock
#LearnhowtodothefirstandthesecondWILLbealock

Sorry, I'm not very good at this "hashtag" stuff . . . !!

From the Cheap Seats; You are right on the money with Ole Casey's quote. That is our team's problem this year. Some nites we got and some nites we don't.

H2P

 

[JS School]

This team is lousy defensively anyway, but when they at least put a little effort into it they seem to play better on offense. When they play lazy defense they stand around on offense, too.