Pittsburgh News, Ray Mernagh

BYE BYE ALL-AMERICAN PIE

By RAY MERNAGH

Pitt led last night’s basketball abomination with New Hampshire 15-to-7 at the half.

Scores like that used to be the norm back before a lot of us were born, hence the need for this thing called the shot clock. Former Yale and Oregon coach Howard Hobson is credited with the idea. It was implemented into the NBA in 1954 to make the game more exciting. Teams were stalling too much and it was driving fans away from an already struggling league. Two infamous results took place weeks apart in 1950: a 19-18 final involving the Pistons and Lakers and a six-overtime contest that saw both teams attempt only one shot in each extra session.

So when New Hampshire coach Bill Herrion said the following after last night’s game: “Offensively, we turned the game back a few years tonight,” he was being kind. The NCAA instituted a shot clock in 1985 and last night’s score was the lowest combined score in a half since then. So, with apologies to Herrion, it was really more than a few years.

Think about that score for a minute,15-7 at the half.

What do you do with that heading in at the half if you’re Pitt coach Jamie Dixon, how did he process it with his team and staff?

Oh to be a fly on the wall. It would have certainly been a wonderful opportunity to study the mind of one of the country’s best coaches. Did he go in the locker room breathing fire and start whipping balls around the joint like Nuke Laloosh, sending coaches and players scattering everywhere only to stop abruptly and scream, “see, I can throw crap around all night and not hit anything too!”

Or did he meet with his staff outside the locker room and discuss how to present a positive and united front to the players. Maybe talked about what they could do differently in the second half, about the fact that they had four assists on five baskets, how they’d really locked up defensively and held New Hampshire to two baskets in twenty minutes… only to be met by the glassy-eyed stares of assistants Tom Herrion, Pat Sandle, and Brandin Knight, all still trying to comprehend what they just witnessed.

15-7 halftime score. 5 baskets for Pitt in the first half and 2 for New Hampshire. In 20 minutes of non-action. I don’t know what’s more astounding, the fact that I’m writing these numbers or the fact that I actually saw them happen with my own eyes — that the numbers are a true account of what took place!

I joke about it because it was so disturbing that it almost had to be funny. That old adage about laughing to keep from crying holds true here. The final was 47-32 Pitt. The truth is that teams have seen Pitt on tape enough to know what they want to try and take away from them. Teams have realized that Pitt is, a lot of the time, offensively challenged. Last night they were just downright offensive to the eyes.

The most important number for Pitt fans (besides the 7-1 record) must now be two, as in the number of players the Panthers will soon add to their mix. The hope has to be that Jermaine Dixon and Gilbert Brown can bring some athleticism, size, and easy buckets to the table.

Because if they can’t, it could get really ugly in Big East play. If wins are there to be had, Dixon — the coach — will find a way to put his team in position to get them. The process could be fascinating to watch.

Fascinating…or as painful as a root canal.