Pittsburgh News, Ray Mernagh

PITT’S MCGHEE NEEDS MORE RESPECT

by RAY MERNAGH

Put the paper in front of any Pitt fan, player or coach (except maybe Jamie Dixon) on November 1st and they’d all sign off on it. The paper, make that a contract, would read the following: On February 1st you will be coming off a loss at South Florida and heading into a road game with the West Virginia Mountaineers who will be 17-3 overall and 6-2 in the Big East.

This is where all the Pitt folks — again, probably except for Jamie Dixon — take a big breath.

Now back to the contract.

You, the Pitt Panthers, will be 16-5 overall and 6-3 in the Big East. You have exactly 30 seconds to sign this paper for it to come true, otherwise the season will play out as it normally would.

Anyone brave enough to try and keep the pen away from a potential endorser of said contract would most definitely get shanked to death like a disposable character on the set of the next big prison film Hollywood puts out. The shock for most of the Pittsburgh contingent would only be enhanced when they got closer to February and started wondering “where’s this five losses crap coming from?”

So yes, Pitt’s hit a bit of a slide (losing three of their last four games) but still remain in great shape for an NCAA Tournament bid.

But one thing seems evident over the last two games: Pitt has a better chance of winning games if they get Gary McGhee the ball in the deep post. McGhee was every one’s favorite target the last few years because, really, there wasn’t a lot to criticize about Pitt. McGhee, like Aaron Gray before him, came to Oakland as a project. He was an airport guy or a getting off the bus guy, as in, that guy really looks like a player getting off the bus or walking through the airport.

That’s no longer even remotely the case with McGhee.

He has two reliable moves, a little baby jump hook and semi-drop step that leads, more often than not, to a dunk and/or a foul on his man. He defends as well as any Pitt big man in ten years. He runs hard transitioning from offense to defense and vice versa. He still at times struggles to squeeze rebounds against like-sized opponents but he’s even getting better at that. He gets out to contest shots when teammates lose their man, recovers to box out and chases down rebounds out of his area. He blocks shots. He crashes the offensive glass for put backs.

He did everything in the above paragraph against South Florida on Sunday except get the call when he was bumped on the dunk he missed with about 5 minutes left. McGhee ignited a Pitt run with back-to-back blocks. The refs didn’t call the foul on the dunk attempt (it happens) but they did call a foul a little earlier when Nas Robinson did what no other Panther besides Gil Brown did all day — contemplated throwing the ball inside to the 6’10″ 270 pound monster on the block.

What happened next was fitting. McGhee hit his first foul shot, took a step over the line with both fists extended for the congratulatory bump from his teammates, and both walked to the bench for the timeout leaving him hanging.

I counted over twenty offensive possessions for Pitt in the first half when McGhee was on the floor. On those twenty plus possessions the big man got the ball in the post twice resulting in him going 1-2 from the line and hitting a jump hook to tie things at 22-22 all. The rest of his points came on offensive rebounds. McGhee finished with 8 points, 11 rebounds and 3 blocks.

McGhee shot 3-5 (but as I mentioned only with two legitimate chances on the block, plus the foul that wasn’t called). McGhee was a match-up nightmare for South Florida’s Famous and Fitzpatrick yet Pitt rarely exploited it. It could’ve been a 16/18 point night for the big guy and resulted in better looks for the other Panthers. He was playing his rear end off in all other phases, even guarded USF’s Chris Howard off the bounce and forced a miss on one possession.

There aren’t a lot of bigs with McGhee’s size in the Big East. For a team that struggles to score, for a team that’s trying to get by without a ton of depth, maybe it’s best case scenario for all if the kid from Anderson, Indiana touches the ball a little bit more than three times going forward.

It will make things much easier for Gibbs, Wanamaker, Brown and others to get better looks.

All they’ve got to do is throw it down there every now and again.

Just respect the former project a little bit…and the results might surprise them.

Sort of like the whole 16-5 thing has surprised everybody else.

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