Pitt Preparing for Cincinnati, UConn

Since losing to Villanova on January 28, not only has Pitt won four straight; they haven’t won by less than 11 points during that stretch.  It helps that following a talented but struggling (until their route of Louisville last night) Notre Dame team, the Panthers got to play home town rival/lightweight Robert Morris and Big East perennial bottom feeder DePaul.  Not surprisingly, Pitt won those two games by 20 and 23 respectively.

The last in the four game win streak came against a WVU team that has either failed to live up to its potential, or just isn’t as good as the sum of its parts.  Pitt completed the regular season sweep, and their recent rivalry dominance (6-1 in their last seven meetings) with an 11 point win in which the score doesn’t do anything to describe the game.

The real story of the game was fouls.  The officiating crew found it necessary to call 38 personal fouls and one technical foul.  The officiating was inconsistent in all but one fact: it was consistently horrible.  Players for either team were left to guess whether or not anything they did would be called as a foul because it wasn’t clear what constituted a foul and what didn’t from whistle to whistle.

Given the number of fouls called, it shouldn’t be a surprise that DeJuan Blair had to spend the bulk of the game on the bench.  He only played 16 minutes, and only five of those in the first half.

Blair did a better job controlling the fouls in the second half, enough so that I considered praising him on this site for the growth he had shown, until he got a little touch foul (a terrible call) that led him to get so angry that he got a technical foul and spent the rest of the game on the bench.

Pitt played most of the game without their best player (Blair), and most of the first half without point guard Levance Fields.  WVU played most of the game without Da’Sean Butler and Alex Ruof, their two best players. 

All of this added up to the fans being robbed of seeing two hated rivals do battle with their best players.  Pitt won and was the better team.  But it would be nice to see a game where Blair gets some minutes.  I am sure the WVU fans felt the same about their players.

Even in only getting 16 minutes Blair did manage to get himself eight points and nine rebounds, further showing that he really is the best player on this team.  His biggest weakness, as we all know, is his tendency to get into foul trouble due to taking "bad" fouls. 

When he is on the floor, he has been virtually unstoppable.  Both of our losses came when he was positioned squarely on the bench.

Blair is averaging 15.3 and 12.6 rebounds per game and he is shooting a solid 59.4% from the field.  He has shown extended range and better offensive play outside of five feet from the basket.  And if it is even possible, he has improved his rebounding ability, particularly on the offensive side, considerably since last season.

In 14 less games he has only five less offensive rebounds than last year.  Blair has shown himself to be one of the best rebounders in the country, and has established himself clearly as the best offensive rebounder.

This is improvement by Blair is just what they need going into the UConn game Monday.  Not that we should look past a dangerous Cincinnati team tomorrow, however.  At this point in the season, it doesn’t matter who you are or what conference you are in, this is the time of year when teams take losses. 

We are a few weeks from selection Sunday and teams are trying to play themselves onto the bubble or trying to get off the bubble and into “safe” status in regards to the NCAA tournament.

For the most part, Pitt has played very well and been very focused this season.  They haven’t looked past any teams (like they seemed to with Dayton last year).  I expect them to come to play against the Bearcats, and that the Bearcats will need to play their best game to beat a hot Pitt team at the Pete. 

Cincinnati is a hot and cold team who has a deceptive Big East record at 7-5.  They haven’t beaten any ranked teams in the league, and the only wins against talented Big East teams came against Notre Dame and Georgetown, both in the midst of their own significant struggles.

Cincinnati is, however, on a three game winning streak, which will give them confidence coming into the Pete.  As long as Pitt doens’t take them lightly, they should extend their own win streak to five games heading into the big matchup with UConn on Monday.

Monday’s game against top-ranked UConn is easily the game of the year so far in the Big East.  Not surprisingly, this game will go a long way in determining who will be in first place in the conference standings.  It will also make a statement to the rest of the country about just how good these two teams are.

Pitt can’t afford to have Blair, Fields, or Sam Young get into any foul trouble in this game.  Pitt has to have its best players on the floor, and they have to be ready for the defensive presence of Hasheem Thabeet of UConn.  Thabeet has an uncanny ability to alter shots or just make people not even enter the paint.

Blair plays his best games against his best competition.  It will be fun to see how he does against the 7′2″ shot blocking specialist.  Despite his size and shot blocking, however, Thabeet isn’t a particularly dominant force on offense or on the boards.  Blair averages more points and rebounds, and is more multi-faceted than Thabeet.

UConn has more than just Thabeet inside, so Young and Biggs will have their work cut out for them as well.  Pitt can really set themselves apart from UConn with their guard play.  Fields is a much better distributor of the ball than Jerome Dyson or AJ Price.  In fact, Fields averages more assists than both of them combined. 

Add to that the way Brad Wanamaker has played off the bench and the 50% three-point shooting of Ashton Gibbs off the bench, and you can see how Pitt can win this game.  They need to hold their own on the inside, use their great passing to find good shots, and get the ball into the hands of our hot guards.

And Sam Young has to show up.  Young has been streaky this season.  At times he looks to be in a slump and at times he looks like the best player in the league.  We need the latter in a game of this magnitude.  Forcing shots, or not taking any shots at all isn’t going to get it done.

It should be an exciting week of basketball.  Assuming UConn holds up against Seton hall, they will be on a 13 game win streak coming into Monday’s game.  If anyone has what it takes to end that streak, it is the Panthers.

Hail to Pitt!