UNC Game & Other Dribbles ...

[Protes]

What is there to say at this point? The simple fact is we have mediocre overall talent with a big hole at center and a sub-par backcourt. On top of that we don't play well as a team. In the past we always kinda took pride in saying our teams were "greater than the sum of our parts." Somehow things have deteriorated to the point that we are just a bunch of parts. There's not enough teamwork, and not enough players good enough at both ends of the floor, to make things work. Our supposed 2 best players--Mike and Jamel--embody this. They like to score but don't have the dedication to defend and do all of the little things to win.

JD had better start bringing better, grittier talent in, and fast. Hopefully Kithcart and Manigault are a start. Otherwise, we are on the path to becoming one of the bottom feeders in this league.

 

[DT_PITT]

Problem is where will the minutes come from. Manigault is going to have to get minutes away from Young, Nix, Jeter, and Luther. I don't know how good Kithcart is yet but he would have to get minutes away from Wilson, Milligan, Jones, and Cam Johnson. Plus we don't know what grad transfers will come in. I don't see much opportunity for new guys coming in. And even if they are better than what we have, will Dixon okay then over upperclassman or guys that have already been in the program?

Dixon has demonstrated many times that he will play the best player regardless if that player is a freshman or upperclassman. Kithcart will play if he's that good. But the case is almost always clear that the more experienced player is the better player.

Damon Wilson is a good example. Dixon is trying to play him more, and he would be playing more if he was playing better. He's going to get better, but he's not that good now.

 

[drunkinoakland]

Dixon has demonstrated many times that he will play the best player regardless if that player is a freshman or upperclassman. Kithcart will play if he's that good. But the case is almost always clear that the more experienced player is the better player.

Damon Wilson is a good example. Dixon is trying to play him more, and he would be playing more if he was playing better. He's going to get better, but he's not that good now.

And the new guys can't be better than the veterans because by and large they aren't big time recruits. Sad state of affairs. I weep for our Panthers.

 

[thebadby2]

This happened to Izzo when Draymond a Green played as a sophomore at MSU. The upperclassman had tuned him out and we're getting into drugs and other things. Basically they stopped respecting him and took basketball for granted. Then Izzo went back to looking for competitive hard nosed players after he got rid of the problem players.

The problem here is I believe isn't that the players are all of a sudden lazy with a few exceptions on defense but I believe they are a fragile emotional team to begin with. That is their makeup. They are not naturally fighters. With that being said, I don't believe they are capable of the constant in your face intense style of Dixon. I believe that has contributed to the issues of Artis as much as anything. He is playing with zero confidence.

I also don't think we have a team with a high IQ which leads to Dixon over coaching even more. I think a lot of the issues are Dixon is bring unpredictable with them and their playing time and is burning them out with his over coaching. And again leading to lower confidence and too much hesitancy with decision making.

Huh? MSU played in the NC game Green's freshman year and lost in the FF his soph year. Izzo kicked Chris Allen off the team after the 2009-10 season for repeatedly getting caught smoking pot, if that's what you're referring to, but Izzo didn't have to change anything about his recruiting. He continued to recruit and get top notch players.

 

[thebadby2]

I think people are overrating this game a little bit, mainly because of the lopsided score, but if you had told me this score before the season started, it wouldn't have shocked me. This road trip still could have been a pretty massive success had we beaten Miami, in a game that was right there. This game I'll forget about quickly, but the Miami loss still stings.

I guess my other point is that even if things were better today, if pitt played better, we still might get run off the court by UNC. When UNC defends, they are one of the 2-3 best teams in the country today. So, the "falling apart" posts are hard to judge when you are playing UNC. We lose to wake, then go ahead, post "falling apart" posts till your fingers are sore.

So, we come back to the Pete, in desperate need of a win. Similar to the va tech game, we cannot afford a loss to wake. We responded in the va tech game. I'm hopeful we will again, or the wheels will truly fall off.

There clearly are structural problems though if Jamie for the second year in a row clearly does not like his team. You could tell at the end of last season Jamie really disliked that group's effort. I don't think we are there yet with this team, but as Artis and young continue to "float", drift, sulk, pout, point...we will continue to lose.

Our two best players are our two worst leaders. Thats a major problem. We also have 33% of our roster as marginally talented DI transfers. You can get away with that if young and Artis are competing, but frankly, they are not.

Tuesday looms large for this team and this coach...

What's really bad is when your 4 year starting PG isn't a strong team leader.

 

[Fredact]

Not surprising to see all the doom and gloom here, but I don't think today's game was really meaningful in any way. No one thought Pitt would win. The blowout, was a combination of a bunch of missed short range shots, as well as the two biggest scorers getting into foul trouble, primarily on back-to-back offensive foul calls that only get called on the road. So I'm not sure why anyone feels differently today about the team than they did before the game.

 

[ThatPittGuy]

Exactly. Dixon is locked in under contract until '23. What does he have to worry about? No way Pitt buys him out for the next 4 years. Purge the roster and start over.

Didn't we just purge an entire recruiting class over the past few years? Aren't we constantly pushing people to transfer out over the past decade?

Enough of the perma-purge. What good is all this purging if we don't replenish with better quality?

Everybody says Pittsburgh doesn't produce basketball talent. Why the heck is a third of the roster local then?

Why do we expect top 15-20 teams when our recruiting is only top 40 in a good year?

 

[Jeffburgh]

I am just getting feeling that this team will be improved by the old addition by subtraction method.

Up until the last few games, I would have prefered to have young and artis back, but while the team would be severely undermanned, I cant see how the team does much with them next year, either.

 

[KiwiJeff]

Up until the last few games, I would have prefered to have young and artis back, but while the team would be severely undermanned, I cant see how the team does much with them next year, either.

Outside of a few teams, every successful team plays some modicum of defense. Not sure why this does not apply to these guys in their mind, if that's what they are thinking. Most teams play very physical defense at the next level. Not sure what their aspirations are, but if it had been the NBA, they likely won even get a sniff playing bad defense and a low motor. Throw in a possible attitude and only ok talent, and say hello Portugal!

Artis especially, should look to start working. I was in the work force 3 years already by his age. Unless he is working on his PhD thesis.

 

[Jeffburgh]

Outside of a few teams, every successful team plays some modicum of defense. Not sure why this does not apply to these guys in their mind, if that's what they are thinking. Most teams play very physical defense at the next level. Not sure what their aspirations are, but if it had been the NBA, they likely won even get a sniff playing bad defense and a low motor. Throw in a possible attitude and only ok talent, and say hello Portugal!

Artis especially, should look to start working. I was in the work force 3 years already by his age. Unless he is working on his PhD thesis.

Yeah, off to europe for sure.

If they are as miserable as they appear to be, why would they want to do it again?

Scrape through another college season losing and feeling miserable?

 

[Delpanther]

--Pitt has gone from taking a high percentage of good shots earlier in the year, to taking a low percentage of good shots. I'm wondering if all the emphasis on defense has taken away from the good offense that the team is capable of playing...

--Young took a lot of difficult, contested shots today.

--The turn-overs are maddening.

--Dixon can't win right now with respect to James Robinson. Play him and the warts are all plain to see; take him out and there's no rhyme or reason to the offense.

--What I briefly found encouraging today -- in a bizarro kind of way - is that Pitt couldn't have played much worse, yet they still had the game down to 7 points a couple of times. I was astounded that they were that close given all the turnovers and bad shots and the thought briefly occur to me that if they would just start passing the ball better and getting some better shots.... Oh well.

Go Pitt.

North Carolina didn't play that well. If we play any kind of BB yesterday, the game would have been close.

 

[recruitsreadtheseboards]

We remind me of a.................Mark Gottfried coached team. That is not a compliment.

 

[Delpanther]

I think people are overrating this game a little bit, mainly because of the lopsided score, but if you had told me this score before the season started, it wouldn't have shocked me. This road trip still could have been a pretty massive success had we beaten Miami, in a game that was right there. This game I'll forget about quickly, but the Miami loss still stings.

I guess my other point is that even if things were better today, if pitt played better, we still might get run off the court by UNC. When UNC defends, they are one of the 2-3 best teams in the country today. So, the "falling apart" posts are hard to judge when you are playing UNC. We lose to wake, then go ahead, post "falling apart" posts till your fingers are sore.

So, we come back to the Pete, in desperate need of a win. Similar to the va tech game, we cannot afford a loss to wake. We responded in the va tech game. I'm hopeful we will again, or the wheels will truly fall off.

There clearly are structural problems though if Jamie for the second year in a row clearly does not like his team. You could tell at the end of last season Jamie really disliked that group's effort. I don't think we are there yet with this team, but as Artis and young continue to "float", drift, sulk, pout, point...we will continue to lose.

Our two best players are our two worst leaders. Thats a major problem. We also have 33% of our roster as marginally talented DI transfers. You can get away with that if young and Artis are competing, but frankly, they are not.

Tuesday looms large for this team and this coach...

You way overestimate NC, particularly given how they've played recently. If Pitt plays any kind of BB yesterday it's a close game. Pitt's complete ineptitude made them look better than they are. Their defense is ok, nothing special.

 

[SoufOaklin4Life]

You way overestimate NC, particularly given how they've played recently. If Pitt plays any kind of BB yesterday it's a close game. Pitt's complete ineptitude made them look better than they are. Their defense is ok, nothing special.

I don't think it's overestimating the preseason #1 ranked and Top 10 ranked team. They are 2 deep with more talent at every position than Pitt.

We also played a dog-shit game which made them look awesome.

For all the discussion about James and his faults.....he at least competes every single game.

There is a FAILURE to COMPETE in the DNA of Young, Artis, and Jeter in particular.

 

[NTOP]

Didn't we just purge an entire recruiting class over the past few years? Aren't we constantly pushing people to transfer out over the past decade?

Enough of the perma-purge. What good is all this purging if we don't replenish with better quality?

Everybody says Pittsburgh doesn't produce basketball talent. Why the heck is a third of the roster local then?

Why do we expect top 15-20 teams when our recruiting is only top 40 in a good year?

We haven't pushed out many at all. Did more of that when we were #1 seeds. Just haven't hit on the big name recruits....or any of the "finds" that turned into 4-year contributors. Too many attempts to get "athletic" guys, when we could have done much better with a few of our once-typical hardass fighters.

 

[NTOP]

You way overestimate NC, particularly given how they've played recently. If Pitt plays any kind of BB yesterday it's a close game. Pitt's complete ineptitude made them look better than they are. Their defense is ok, nothing special.

Del.....they were significantly better at all 5 positions. They might win it all. 3 or more NBA guys. Best talent we've seen all year.

 

[bobfree]

What's really bad is when your 4 year starting PG isn't a strong team leader.

How do you know he isn't?

 

[SoufOaklin4Life]

How do you know he isn't?

Because he's not yelling and screaming at players, or pounding the floor on defense, clearly.

He goes out and competes EVERY single game. That's leadership. We could use more of that lunch-pail approach from others.

 

[Delpanther]

Del.....they were significantly better at all 5 positions. They might win it all. 3 or more NBA guys. Best talent we've seen all year.

NTOP, I whole heartedly agree they're better at every positon. They're a bit soft underneath which is why we had so many offensive rebounds. The only point I was making is that I do not believe that they are so much better than Pitt that the game should have been a rout. As poorly as we played, we almost got back in the game twice. I would only add to that there was a time when you could accurately have made the same statement about the other team's talent and we would still beat them

 

[SoufOaklin4Life]

NTOP, I whole heartedly agree they're better at every positon. They're a bit soft underneath which is why we had so many offensive rebounds. The only point I was making is that I do not believe that they are so much better than Pitt that the game should have been a rout. As poorly as we played, we almost got back in the game twice.

Which is UNC's flaw...is they don't bring it on both ends consistently.

They DID bring a great deal of energy to their defensive end yesterday- far more than they have lately...which was enough to disrupt us completely.
They DID shoot 60% from the field and 57% from 3....granted not with much resistance from us... but they made those shots.

As soon as I saw they trailed BC on the road, and Roy passed out....I knew we were in trouble.

 

[Delpanther]

I don't think it's overestimating the preseason #1 ranked and Top 10 ranked team. They are 2 deep with more talent at every position than Pitt.

We also played a dog-shit game which made them look awesome.

For all the discussion about James and his faults.....he at least competes every single game.

There is a FAILURE to COMPETE in the DNA of Young, Artis, and Jeter in particular.

The only point I was countering was the suggestion that no one should be surprised we got our head handed to us. NC is good but they're soft underneath. Add to that they haven't been playing well recently as evidenced by eking past a pathetic BC team less than a week ago. I'm not surprised we lost; I'm just disappointed that we didn't show up. I do believe that had we played up to our capability that the game yesterday would have been highly competitive.

 

[SoufOaklin4Life]

The only point I was countering was the suggestion that no one should be surprised we got our head handed to us. NC is good but they're soft underneath. Add to that they haven't been playing well recently as evidenced by eking past a pathetic BC team less than a week ago. I'm not surprised we lost; I'm just disappointed that we didn't show up. I do believe that had we played up to our capability that the game yesterday would have been highly competitive.

I don't disagree...it would have taken double digit scoring from Artis and Jeter, and a hell of a lot more efficiency on offense.

 

[whirlybird optio]

You way overestimate NC, particularly given how they've played recently. If Pitt plays any kind of BB yesterday it's a close game. Pitt's complete ineptitude made them look better than they are. Their defense is ok, nothing special.

Even though Pitt cut the lead and made some runs, I thought UNC was just toying with us yesterday. When they defend, and they did defend and played hard for most of the game on defense, I think they are right there with Kansas and Oklahoma for best team in the country.

When UNC plays "ok" defense, they just have too much size and weapons for us to compete. When UNC decides to play NO defense, like last year, we can beat them.

 

[whirlybird optio]

Well in all truth I don't think we beat Wake. I really see us losing all the rest of the games. Mainly because now it seems like Jamie has lost the team. Again, the team is in chaos.

Again, even better. I wish I was as despondent as you, because I still expect them to beat Wake, and will be really disappointed if they do not. If I thought they were gonna lose the rest of the games, any win is a bonus.

 

[9nationalchampionships]

When is the last time we had a PG that can cross over dribble? No penetration so you have to rely on the outside shot and that is never going to work once the opposition realizes this!

 

[Hero of the Oppressed]

WE ARE OFFICIALLY A FOOTBALL SCHOOL AGAIN

 

[IamHeisenberg]

H

I am just getting feeling that this team will be improved by the old addition by subtraction method.

Haven't we been saying that for a couple of years now?

 

[NTOP]

NTOP, I whole heartedly agree they're better at every positon. They're a bit soft underneath which is why we had so many offensive rebounds. The only point I was making is that I do not believe that they are so much better than Pitt that the game should have been a rout. As poorly as we played, we almost got back in the game twice. I would only add to that there was a time when you could accurately have made the same statement about the other team's talent and we would still beat them

Totally agree with that last statement. Said exactly that to my wife. This team only hopes to win. Previously, our guys expected to win....and backed it up. Even little guys like Fields & Woodall had that edge to their games. Totally missing that these days.

 

[Harve74]

There isn't any villains.

Mike Young like James Robinson is a fine young man that frankly doesn't deserve all the vitriol.

He was the leading scorer and rebounder today.

He didn't pout on the sidelines. He made some poor plays like everyone did today.

He shot 7-13. The rest of the team shot 18-54 which is 33%.

If you look hard and are being honest this team probably only has more talent than only 4 teams in the acc. The coaches picked them to finish 10th. If anyone feels the need to blame someone blame the guy that assembled this team. The guy paid millions to win basketball games.

A big reason this offense was so productive in the first half of the season, whether playing soft OOC teams or top 100 teams like Gonzaga, Purdue, ND, Cuse, Davidson etc was ball movement. Ball movement and indeed, movement at all has virtually stopped. The PG, whether JRob or Wilson , pounds the ball at the top of the key and the other 4 guys stand around.

Eventually, the PG passes to Young or Artis and they either go one on 5 or throw up a long jumper. When the PG tries to drive into the lane and dish, which despite all of Robinson's doubters, happens several times per game, the other 4 guys become spectators. They might as well have taken seats on the bench. They do not move to the hoop to become targets for dishes. They don't even open up their stances and present themselves as targets for kick-outs. They just stand and watch.

Mike Young didn't pass the ball in the offensive half of the court until about 1:40 PM yesterday, I think. He had played double figure minutes by then. I believe he passed twice more in the first half and not a whole lot more often in the second. I get that he is our best scoring threat but when he is consistently just trying to dribble through or around double teams, the offense simply doesn't work. The play when he got his 4th foul, he came down court 3 on 2 and selfishly tried to power through the 2 defenders. For that play, yeah, he deserves some vitriol.

Talent-wise, our teams were mostly about middle of the pack in the BE. This is a staff that has consistently had offenses ranked in the top 25-50 in efficiency with that level kids. They didn't forget how to coach. The players are not All-Americans but they are D-1 players. Yeah, we'd always like to see better talent, but these guys are not playing anywhere near their potential. They've reverted to playing like they're in a pick-up game at Greentree.

Talent needs to improve but I'm not sure how the players can look in a mirror.

 

[whirlybird optio]

A big reason this offense was so productive in the first half of the season, whether playing soft OOC teams or top 100 teams like Gonzaga, Purdue, ND, Cuse, Davidson etc was ball movement. Ball movement and indeed, movement at all has virtually stopped. The PG, whether JRob or Wilson , pounds the ball at the top of the key and the other 4 guys stand around.

Eventually, the PG passes to Young or Artis and they either go one on 5 or throw up a long jumper. When the PG tries to drive into the lane and dish, which despite all of Robinson's doubters, happens several times per game, the other 4 guys become spectators. They might as well have taken seats on the bench. They do not move to the hoop to become targets for dishes. They don't even open up their stances and present themselves as targets for kick-outs. They just stand and watch.

Mike Young didn't pass the ball in the offensive half of the court until about 1:40 PM yesterday, I think. He had played double figure minutes by then. I believe he passed twice more in the first half and not a whole lot more often in the second. I get that he is our best scoring threat but when he is consistently just trying to dribble through or around double teams, the offense simply doesn't work. The play when he got his 4th foul, he came down court 3 on 2 and selfishly tried to power through the 2 defenders. For that play, yeah, he deserves some vitriol.

Talent-wise, our teams were mostly about middle of the pack in the BE. This is a staff that has consistently had offenses ranked in the top 25-50 in efficiency with that level kids. They didn't forget how to coach. The players are not All-Americans but they are D-1 players. Yeah, we'd always like to see better talent, but these guys are not playing anywhere near their potential. They've reverted to playing like they're in a pick-up game at Greentree.

Talent needs to improve but I'm not sure how the players can look in a mirror.

I was talking with someone about this very issue yesterday. Pitt in the UNC game was more or less one isolation play after another. Chris Jones driving to the hoop, young or Artis getting the ball up top and trying to create. I've never seen us run offense like that, it was unrecognizeable.

and to do that to UNC, who is better at every position on the court than we are, maks even less sense.

 

[bobfree]

I agree that no one presents themselves to Robinson when he drives I've been saying that for weeks.

And yes the fast break and how young handled it was appalling.

We had a lot more talent on those early teams that people realize. 2009 had 10 top 100 players on the roster this team has 1. The players can look in the mirror for sure but so can Dixon and his staff.

 

[HailToPitt1985]

Basically, this is what I heard as well

I also heard him say that the UNC game was the worst performance of any Pitt team that he has been coaching, assistant or head coaching, since he's been here. That shocked me to hear him say that and he's also right. The NCState game was bad, but the performance against UNC was just lazy and no one seemed to care other than Dixon. That includes all of his assistants. If any of the players cared, I wish they'd show it sometime.

 

[HailToPitt1985]

How many turnovers did we have yesterday? 19?? 6 of them were on Mike Young alone. He committed them. That is a crime to allow him to continue playing when he can't play defense and turns the ball over consistently. Maybe he can score. But if we calculated the net of his scoring, I'll bet it would be negative. So he actually took points away from Pitt and didn't add any.

 

[HailToPitt1985]

DT, I can only imagine how tough it is for you, not only to write the Dribbles (especially after a home game) but also to remain positive about this team and program.

I'm not going to jump onto the "Fire Dixon" bandwagon just yet. Any coach who's won as many games as he, and with a better than .700 win percentage, deserves a few sub-par seasons. But something positive needs to happen SOON. Better assistants? Better recruits? Better team chemistry? A winning streak?!

I'm with you, Chairman. I'm more concerned right now with the attitude of the team in general and with certain players, specifically. Yes, they are losing some games. It's HOW they're losing them that is concerning. If Dixon can't change the culture of this program, and that's what it will take, I'm sure people a lot more influential that me will be asking him to step down.

 

[lunzhegu]

I also noticed what Harve and Whirly are mentioning. It was really strange to see us playing offense like that, and to that extent. Looking at our lack of off-the-ball movement during the game, I had to credit UNC's defense with shutting us down. They really took us out of our game. As Robinson noted in the P-G, attempting to explain why we tried to drive so much and why he took so many shots, they were denying effectively. Robinson noted that they left open lanes but I also thought they reacted quickly and effectively to our drives. Their ball denial, though, was really awesome. Our guys were running around trying to get open, but UNC kept with them for the most part. Eventually, we didn't even know which way to go. Even the TV commentators were saying that it was the best defense they have seen UNC play all year. Couple that defense with their ability to hit shots, as they were, and they looked every bit a contender for a championship. A team that is playing that well will make any oopnent's internal chemistry look dyspeptic. I don't really fault our guys too much for that embarrassing loss. Let's see what happens Tuesday.

 

[thebadby2]

How do you know he isn't?

I have eyes. If he's leading, nobody is following--for the second year in a row.

Souf is right, James always plays hard and competes. That isn't leadership, that's just playing hard and competing. Leadership is getting those around you to play just as hard as you do at both ends. If you, Souf or anyone else sees that out of this team, or last year's team, you're the only ones that do. Leadership left the Pitt program with Lamar Patterson.

You can make excuses all day for JROB, but the bottom line is he has had a disappointing career at Pitt, particularly as a junior and senior.

 

[thebadby2]

Because he's not yelling and screaming at players, or pounding the floor on defense, clearly.

He goes out and competes EVERY single game. That's leadership. We could use more of that lunch-pail approach from others.

Because he's not yelling and screaming at players, or pounding the floor on defense, clearly.

Typical comment from you.

If James was a leader, we would be seeing that "lunch-pail approach" from his teammates. That's what leadership is.

 

[bobfree]

Jason Witten is considered an outstanding leader. But dez Bryant and Greg hardy were the same this year as every year. Some guys don't want to follow. When you have 13 guys on a roster and 2 of your best can't be reached that's on James Robinson? Where does Dixon fall in there?

 

[thebadby2]

Which is UNC's flaw...is they don't bring it on both ends consistently.

They DID bring a great deal of energy to their defensive end yesterday- far more than they have lately...which was enough to disrupt us completely.
They DID shoot 60% from the field and 57% from 3....granted not with much resistance from us... but they made those shots.

As soon as I saw they trailed BC on the road, and Roy passed out....I knew we were in trouble.

60% from the field by getting 80% of their points from uncontested dunks and layups. Moving the ball with ease, getting whatever they wanted out of their sets. They would have shot a similar percentage had they been running offense drills around stationary cones.

 

[KiwiJeff]

Jason Witten is considered an outstanding leader. But dez Bryant and Greg hardy were the same this year as every year. Some guys don't want to follow. When you have 13 guys on a roster and 2 of your best can't be reached that's on James Robinson? Where does Dixon fall in there?

Or Mike and Jamel? Those guys are at an age they need to have some personal pride in their effort. If I hired someone Jamel's age, I wouldn't expect to have to hold their hand all the time to make sure they were working.