Cincinnati News, Pittsburgh News, Ray Mernagh, Syracuse News

PITT RECONSIDERED?

by RAY MERNAGH

“They’re going to get beat by 50.”

So said my anonymous sportswriter friend as we talked on the phone prior to Pittsburgh visiting Syracuse this past Saturday at noon.

We all know by now that didn’t happen. Pitt beat Syracuse — #5 ranked Syracuse — at the Carrier Dome. Did it pretty convincingly. It was the 12th win in the last 15 games for Pitt against the Orange. It was also a lesson in ball movement, toughness, defense and how basketball is still a group activity. There’s a great photo from the AP this morning that I thought summed up the game.

AP picture courtesy of Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

That’s a happy group.

A together group.

Most importantly, that’s a satisfied group. They aren’t shocked, just having a lot of fun watching what they and their coach believed could happen — and almost nobody else did — actually happen.

Not a bad start, or a mid-second-half lull, could keep the Panthers from this crucial victory. Oh it’s not too early to call this win what it was — absolutely positively gargantuan. A road win over a top-5 team? It doesn’t get any bigger than that for a team that is the Big East’s least experienced group in terms of game minutes played.

The 2009-10 Pitt Panthers have found their identity. They’re a defensive team that gang-rebounds, shares the ball, and when their shot isn’t falling they attack the rim (see Brad Wanamaker’s 10 makes from the stripe). Chase Adams is in the photo above. He’s a senior transfer who played three minutes. It might have been the hardest, most competitively played three minutes in Pitt history. Even the way he sprinted to the scorers table was impressive. He grabbed a rebound, handed out an assist, shot an open look with confidence (though it didn’t go down) and turned it over in those three minutes.

Jamie Dixon has been telling everybody that this team gets better every day. That he’s confident this is a good team. A lot of us are so used to his positive spin on things that we kind of roll our eyes a little when he breaks into it. But the truth is that this team has made tremendous strides defensively, strides that were apparent to me in the Ohio game.

Don’t get it twisted either. I’m not a part of the false group-think that thought the last two Pitt teams before this one were that great defensively. They were just really talented on the offensive end and capable of getting stops if they really needed them (which wasn’t often because they scored so well). This group has a real chance to be a defensive juggernaut based on how well they defended Syracuse as a collective unit. Wes Johnson noted that Pitt was the first team to really “come after us” defensively.

Tonight they have another chance at a road win against Cincinnati, a team that should mirror Pitt’s aggressiveness on the defensive end. It will be another big challenge stopping Lance Stephenson, Deonta Vaughn and Yancy Gates. I suspect the biggest challenge might be finding ways to score against the Bearcat’s in-your-shorts D. Maybe Dixon will attack Gates really early with Gary McGhee. Gates has a tendency to take plays off and McGhee is the kind of player he might take lightly and end up fouling a few times. Win or lose I think the perception of this team has changed given the win at Syracuse.

Maybe it was “just our night” as Jermaine Dixon coyly said afterwards.

Then again, Jamie Dixon has been trying to tell us this is a good team.

After 175 wins as a head coach… maybe it’s time we start listening.

*********Follow NBE Sports on Twitter: http://twitter.com/NBESports*****

Be Sociable, Share!

•