Pitt proves Superiority Over UConn
March 8, 2009 8:45 am by Coach OSome thoughts on the 2nd meeting between UConn and Pitt yesterday.
1) Pitt is the better team. Hands down. Pitt beat UConn in every aspect of the game each time. Pitt is more athletic (Sam Young), more talented (Young and Blair), and much much tougher than the Huskies. In each of their meetings this year the final score was much closer than the game itself.
2) Pitt has two POY candidates, UConn none. Young and Blair are bona fide candidates for the best player honor. Calhoun has to stop making excuses for why Thabeet didn’t dominate a game. He’s just not as good as those Pitt players.
3) Dixon has outcoached Calhoun both games. C’mon…. Jim really doesn’t think that Jeff Adrien can cover Sam Young, does he? The matchups here favor Pitt at almost every position, but the only Husky with enough athletic ability to guard Young is Robinson.
4) If Levance Fields was really hurt, he has to be related to Superman. A player who supposedly was on crutches the day before the game is not physically able to play 37 minutes as he did yesterday. Pitt doesn’t need this type of trickery to beat UConn. This is the only negative I saw in yesterday’s game.
Now…. about UConn….. Please bring back the hard nosed Husky player that Calhoun developed during his early stay in Storrs. Teams, and players tend to mirror their coach. As Calhoun has become a celebrity he has gone soft. Players are now recruited with the promise of an NBA career. And as Calhoun has grown too important to watch over his players academic progress and behavior during free time, his players have shown the lack of desire to get their uniform messed by hard work.
We watched Rudy Gay choose to protect his draft status rather than carry his team to success in the NCAA tourney. Now we have the coach spending more time promoting his center for post-UConn accolades than demanding hard work out of team. Oh, yeah, they have some awesome talent. But Pitt showed yesterday that hard work and team concept will beat a group of all-stars intent on getting a big contract.
Rewatch yesterday’s game. Watch each team in half court offense. Watch each team in half court defense. I rest my case.
Categories: Coach O, Commentary, Connecticut, Pittsburgh
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3 Responses to “Pitt proves Superiority Over UConn”
Agree with you on all accounts, but I think you’re being too tough on UConn. I think UConn could still beat Pitt. Each of these games Pitt has clearly shown it is the superior team, but somehow UConn is in it towards the end of the game.
By the way, I am in love with Sam Young’s shot fake. Single greatest fake in college basketball.
I also love Kemba Walker. He comes out of the Taliek Brown, Ricky Moore model, and I’m glad they have someone to run the team next year.
Keep in mind, this UConn team went 15-3 in what some are calling one of the toughest conferences in the history of college basketball.
Along the way they lost one of their best players to a season ending injury. Take Rashad Anderson off the 2004 team or Kevin Freeman off the 1999 team and I imagine those teams may have fallen even farther than this team did.
I think UConn made some significant, subtle adjustments after the first match. Their work on the glass was much better at both ends; UConn ended up outrebounding (note: their rebound count was 37-37, but UConn had less defensive rebound opportunities) the Panthers.
In fact, the stats are nearly all equal except the most important one: shooting percentage. And that delta came from one guy: Sam Young. UConn shot 37.7% for the game. All Panthers but Young shot 37.7% for the game and a hideous 1 for 15 from the arc. Without Young’s great game, everything about the team’s performances are equal.
Donald nailed it: Sam Young was the key. If Calhoun finds a defensive adjustment to handle him (a huge if), the Huskies will have a chance in MSG. Would it be ridiculous to put a guy like Kemba Walker on Young and take away penetration? That sounds crazy (giving up open looks on the perimeter), but how many times, when it’s the other way around, do fans criticize their own teams for “settling for jumpers?”