Game 18: Pitt 57 Marquette 62

Another game, another loss.  What is encouraging is that Pitt actually played well in the first half.  They even had a five point lead.  I'm not much for recapping all of what happened so this will be brief.  Point is that Pitt had another second half  meltdown and they're 0-5 in the Big East.  In my four years as a Pitt undergrad, Gameday never came to Pitt.  They didn't come when they were #1 for 3 weeks and had a first team all american (Blair) and another guy who was honorable mention on some aa lists (Young).  They didn't come when Pitt won a conference outright that got 11 ncaa bids.  Yet it is becoming increasingly likely that this year, Gameday will come to Pitt to feature a Panther team that is 0-6 in the Big East and losers of 7 straight.  They play @ #1 Syracuse tomorrow night.  They seem to have the cuse's number but with the way both team's are playing, I don't have high hopes for this one.  As strange as it sounds, this game may be Pitt's last chance to salvage an NCAA tourney bid.  I know there are 11 BE games after this but 0-7 is damn difficult to come back from seeing as how I think around 10-11 conference wins will be needed to get a madness invite.  A win over the #1 team could be just the kickstart the panthers need to salvage a 9-9 record in conference.  And it would certainly help the RPI when the Panthers end up on Bubble watch in March.  A loss here and they're done for real.
For the first time in I'd say 10 years Pitt will go into a game as massive underdogs. Even when they were facing teams with a higher ranking than them, you were never incredibly surprised when Pitt pulled off upsets.  Pitt was always a tough game, especially at the Pete, but everywhere really.  It's because Pitt really hasn't been overmatched in a game since the 2001 Big East Tourney Final.  That would have been the year before Pitt started their Madness run.  They won 3 straight (remember at the time no one had won 4 straight to take it).  They beat Miami, then shocked an ND team with Troy Murphy on it, and then a decent Cuse team before getting obliterated by Troy Bell and Boston College on Saturday night.  Pitt had no chance.  They lost by about 30.  Another game might have been the Regional Semi in 2007 against UCLA.  It was a #3 vs #2 matchup but did anyone really think a team led by Aaron Gray was gong to have any chance against a UCLA team in the midst of a 3 straight final four run that featured idk maybe like 6 players who got drafted.  No chance.  Anyway, that's the type of matchup pitt faces tomorrow.  But quickly, let's go over Marquette since that's the point of this post.

Marquette coach Buzz Williams has beaten every BE team, except Pitt.  Until now.

I'm not giving everyone grades but there are a few things I'd like to highlight.

Gibbs put the team on his back.  If Pitt is going to be successful this will have to be the norm the rest of the way.  He put up a career high 29.  Something that is unfortunate is that Gibbs having a huge game is usually a sign that Pitt loses.

Robinson and Patterson flat-out sucked.  Every time I think, "Hey the Panthers should give Nas the ball more, he's like their only low post presence,"  he finds a way to turn the ball over 7 friggin times from the forward position.  Unforgivable.  Patterson had his fair share of turnover problems as well.

Epps started and he actually played well.  He still hasn't made a shot all season (like 0-12 from the field now) but this game had to be a huge confidence builder.  He ran the point well, he was driving into the lane then dishing off.  And most importantly he took the ball out of Gibbs' hands and moved him to the 2.  It's a shame that Johnson and Epps are two players because we could combine Flipp's shooting with the way Epps ran the point today we'd be in business.

Lastly, concerning Dante Taylor, I'll let a quote from the comments on PittBlather take it from here.
From some guy named Keith:

"I think Taylor became a McD’s all american by eating 67 McNuggets in 90 seconds,because it surely couldnt have been for basketball"


Well said my friend,
JO

Game 17: Harlem Globetrotters 62 Washington Generals 39

On Wednesday evening, the Petersen Events Center hosted the world famous Harlem
Globetrotters basketball team in an exhibition against the walking punchline of a team, the Washington Generals.  The loss is the fifth in a row for the Generals and they remain winless in the Big East this season.  Meanwhile, the Globetrotters raise their record to 9-7 on the season.

Five minutes before the opening tip with the outcome already well at hand, the Globetrotters turned to entertaining the crowd with their legendary antics.  While attempting to check Trotter Dane Miller at the free throw line, Talib Zanna had his pants pulled down by jokester guard Eli Carter, resulting in two of Carter's 14 points on the night and giving the ladies in the crowd the biggest highlight.

At halftime, several Generals, most notably Ashton Gibbs, attempted to transfer to UNLV to join Khem Birch, but it turns out nobody wanted them.

Onto the grades:

Guy who gave me my wristband - Not a good performance from him, the wristband was very tight and not lined up right so i had the pain of the stickiness ripping off some arm hair.  Grade C-

Ticket Scanner Guy - Scanned my ticket on the first try.  Solid night.  Grade A

Ushers - Very kind and courteous all night.  Helped maintain a loose atmosphere among the crowd by joking with them and encouraging them to come again to see the team.  Grade A

Dance Team - A good night for the DT, they were in rhythm all night and maintained smiles despite the performance on the court.  They also continue to lead the Cheerleaders in the highly contested "most members I would like to take out to dinner" category.  Grade A+

Employee who gave me a bag of a chips after leaving the Zoo - My MVP of the night.  I hadn't eaten dinner yet so I was very hungry and the potato chips hit the spot as I was walking to my car.  Grade A

-JO

Game 16: Pitt loses to Depaul

Pitt's Season

Games 13-15: Crap, Crap, Mega Crap. Pitt loses to Wagner, ND and Cincy

Let's see three losses to talk about.

1. Pitt 54 Wagner 59

Why we lost - 

Gibbs and Patterson combine to shoot 6-26.  Yikes.  That'll make you lose.

2. Pitt 59 ND 72

Why we lost -

Notre Dame in the second half = this

Which brings us to

3. Cincinnati 66 Pitt 63

Get used to it, because these are how the majority of Pitt's games are going to go the rest of the year.  Press, press, and more press.  Grade time because I don't feel like talking about this game any more.

Wright - There was a really nice 3 or 4 possession sequence where Wright did everything he would do in the game.  He made a free throw, had a really nice block, had a driving layup and a nice offensive rebound.  There I just described everything Wright did in his 18 minutes of pt.  Grade C-

Taylor - Let's see 0-4 from the field with 2 points.  3 turnovers vs 0 assists.  Might as well have not gotten dressed this morning, because he was awful.  Cincy's small lineup attacked Taylor and Zanna like piranhas.  Grade D

Robinson - Will someone please give Nas some help.  It's really sad that Pitt's only legitimate low post presence is a 6'5" forward.  Steven Adams came all the way from New Zealand to watch this game.  Bet he's really glad about this decision because he could have played in his street clothes and been Pitt's best post presence.

We interrupt this recap to drool over Steven Adams and his awesomeness

Adams dunking on people

Adams making #1 Center Prospect in 2012 class his bitch

Back to Nas.  19 and 10 from him.   What a beast.  Grade A

Patterson - He had 13 points and made 3 three's but his three pointer to tie it at the buzzer was a brick.  Nothing from his game really blew me away.  Grade B

Gibbs - My new nickname for Mr. Gibbs is 1-d as he is one dimensional as a player.  He can't do anything but catch and shoot.  He can't pass, he doesn't rebound.  He gets abused on defense.  You can make an NBA career from knocking down open 3's (Kyle Korver anyone?)  but see the problem with that is you actually need to be able to shoot over people for that to work.  Korver is 6'7"  Gibbs is 6 1 maybe.  That's not gonna work.  The entire nation has figured out how to defend Gibbs and it's only going to get more and more difficult for him.  He had 18 points somehow, but he also got blocked at least thrice.  Grade B-

Moore - He had a dunk off a great pass from Flipp.  That's about it.  Grade C-

Epps - Haaaaa.  Grade n/a

Zanna - He had 4 rebounds in 9 minutes.  Then he fell on his face and had no idea where he was.  He didn't return.  Grade:  Incomplete

Johnson - He couldn't knock down any three's, but his playmaking on a few fast breaks was a pleasant surprise.  He fed both Taylor and Zanna their only two buckets of the game with slick passes.  He had 5 assists in total.  Unfortunately, his charging call late in the game with Pitt down 3 was a killer.  He had the right idea just have to learn to avoid the charge in that situation.  Pitt eventually got another chance (actually several) but Gibbs and Patterson clanked a bunch of threes.

Grade B

So what am I taking away from this game?

1. Pitt can't break a press.  Pitt's plan to break a press is as follows:

Have two guards in the backcourt, slowly exchange bounce passes back and forth until one guard realizes that they have 2-3 seconds left to get the ball across midcourt, making them spring across the half court line and pick up their dribble, which is totally fantastic because then the other team can double you force a backcourt violation or an easy turnover.  Pitt likes to have two forwards lined up right inside the half court line for a pass from the guards to get it over.  This is just setting them up to get trapped on the sideline and halfcourt line.  Zanna with the ball in his hands 40 feet from the basket is a recipe for disaster.  The downside to a press is sometimes you give up easy layups because once a team breaks it it leads to some odd-man breaks.  The way Pitt tries to break it doesn't ever allow this.  I'll probably make a whole post about the press sometime later.

2. Cincy got away with a lot of reach-in fouls that should've been called.  Oh well. You have to adjust.

3. Woodall needs to come back healthy and Steven Adams needs to just stay here and play and not go back to New Zealand.

Pitt plays Depaul on Thursday.  If they lose, I'm handing in my fan card.

Meh,
JO

Game 12: Pitt 71 St Francis 47 "I felt fired up on the layup line"

Okay this is going to be a rather short recap.  I had a lady friend with me so let's just say I was distracted, so the grades won't feature as much detail as they normally would.

St. Francis (the Pennsylvania version) stinks.  They have 3 wins.

After tip-off the scoreboard turned off (sounds familiar) so the PA guy had to announce the score after every basket (hilarious I might add).

Pitt played a high school team in the early going, pretty sure it was 27-4 (as announced by the pa guy) or something at one point.  It reminded me of one game I went to in my pre-Zoo days against Auburn where Pitt jumped out to a huge lead (like yesterday) and the Zoo started shouting "You have 4 points" with about 3 minutes to go in the first half.  Pitt eventually won that 70-40 or something like that.

Auburn sucks.

So does St. Francis.  Pitt was picking their pockets left and right.  After Pitt built the huge lead, St Francis got hot for a few minutes to cut it to 15 but that's really as close as they got.  Very balanced attack from Pitt.  Grades city:

Robinson - Quiet game from Robinson.  I only remember him missing 2 free throws at one point (second one was almost an air ball).  He only took 4 shots in 25 minutes.  Pretty sure he also hurt his knee at some point because he was grimacing and limping for a little bit.  He walked it off though, like a boss.
Grade B

Wright - Cam actually scored for once.  He hit a couple jumpers and made all 4 of his free throws.  A few times he could've dumped it down to the post, but oh well.
Grade B

Gibbs - Not a lot of shots taken tonight (only 3-9 from the field, 1-3 from 3).  He had a nice drive and finish in the first half, when Pitt was scoring at will early on.  He got some much needed rest (only 25 minutes), but still this was his first game this season in single digits.
Grade B-

Patterson - With Woodall out, he's clearly the best passer on the team.  He played a lot at the 2 tonight, which is something I'd love to see more of from Dixon.  Your typical Patterson stat line, 11 pt 4 ast 5 reb 3 steals and a block in 20 productive minutes.
Grade A

Taylor - Taylor was grabbing every offensive board tonight (6 total) on his way to a 14 point night.  Nice touch around the basket.
Grade A

J. Johnson - He's in a bit of a slump right now.  He missed all three of his shots and had 2 turnovers while not contributing in any positive stat line.  Could it be teams are figuring his game out, or is this just a minor bump in the up and down first season of major college basketball for him?  I vote the latter.  He'll get hot again.  Kid is too talented.
Grade C

Nwankwo, Rivers - They both got some time.  Rivers had a turnover and Nwankwo grabbed an offensive board and missed a putback then got a foul.  Grade:  Walkon

JJ Moore - My game ball goes to him.  He was explosive tonight.  In the first half he dunked over some 6'8" joke and it was #7 on sportscenter's top ten this morning.  Something may have clicked with him.  He played a little with Patterson tonight.  My boys over at Pitt Blather mentioned that Moore made a dumb foul at one point, and Dixon motioned to put Patterson in.  Moore walked over to the bench until he realized that Patterson was going in for someone else.  He spun around and had a huge smile on his face.  Unlimited confidence from him.
Quote City from Moore

"I felt fired up on the layup line"

Grade: A+

Epps - Played 13 minutes, had a couple nice passes and missed his only shot.  Meh.
Grade B-

Zanna - 6 points and 5 rebounds from Talib-Town.  I think he knocked down a baseline jumper in the first half, that was pretty nice.  He's got range to about 12 feet.  Nice touch.
Grade B

Gilbert - Without a doubt, he IS the new Gary McGhee.  Not in that he's a turnover and foul machine as a freshman.  No, Gilbert is already now in 2 games what Gary took 3 years to figure out.  Pitt doesn't ever pass it to him when he's in there, but man is he a stud on defense.  He doesn't have the highlight blocks that Birch did (though he had one tonight from behind) but his tree length just gives opponents fits.  They can't shoot over him.  He's just huge.  He's also one of the few players that visually gets pumped up by the Zoo.  He looked over us once and smiled because we were shouting for him.  Very likable guy.  In tonight's game he had another dunk.  (He's still shooting 100% for his Pitt career btw).  He had 2 blocks as well as 3 rebounds.
Grade B+

-Other things of note.  I caught a t-shirt from Roc.  Took me more than 70 games to finally snag a shirt, but I did.  It's about bloody time.

Pitt plays again against Wagner on Friday.  You may remember Wagner from their matchup in the 2003 first round as the #15 seed.  Pitt then smoked Indiana (don't think anyone wants to play them right now, Cody Zeller is a beast) before falling to T-Mobile spokesman Dwyane Wade and the pre-big east marquette golden eagles in the Sweet 16.

Khem update - This will probably provide unlimited motivation for Pitt this season.  I'm gonna let Chas over at Pitt Blather provide you with some analysis.
He Khem and went

It's a good read and he has some other links in the story as well.

Also, apparently Zanna would make Khem his bitch everyday in practice, and Khem wanted no part of the contact.
Zanna's a beast.

In my opinion, right now Pitt is a better team right now without him.  Gilbert is providing just as much of a defensive presence.  I really want to avoid using a cliche, but Khem could've been an x-factor later on in the year if he developed and got stronger.  Again, playing the potential card, but the talent will be missed.  Unfortunately the attitude won't be.  Khem was a loner, and Pitt bball is a very close-knit group, that's why you rarely get people here complaining about playing time.  They all come to Pitt realizing that they're going to have to work to get PT and pay their dues.  I don't know the full story, whether Khem himself believed he was being wronged by Dixon or whether some asshole "advisors" are telling him this, who knows.
Good luck kid.

Peace,
JO

Game 11: Enter Malcolm Gilbert. Pitt 69 South Carolina State 55

Khem Birch is gone.  No use dwelling on it.  Next year's Pitt frontline would've been incredibly crowded.  Where would the minutes have gone?  You'd have Taylor, Zanna, Khem, and of course mega-prospect Steven Adams all battling for minutes.  With a year of the college game, could Khem have developed an offensive game and played at the 3 with Patterson in a Wanamaker roll at the 2 and Tray running point.  With Adams at center and Taylor at the 4, that lineup would've been deadly.  I could've seen Birch in a Devin Ebanks role (who gave Pitt fits with his length).  But none of that matters.  Exit Birch.  Welcome to the party Malcolm. T. Gilbert (no idea what his middle name is, I like T)

Ehhhhhhhhhhhhh

Since this story never gets old:  After one of the preseason games, my friend went to the Zoo exit to slap hands with the players as they were leaving.  He yelled to Gilbert, "Gilbert my man!"  Gilbert turns around and gives a Fonz impression back to him (and thus a photoshop was born).

This game was closer than it should've been for two reasons.  SCST could not miss from 3 and Gibbs couldn't hit anything.  Grades.  (And a shout-out to one of my students who says he reads the blog, nicely done VC)

Malcolm Gilbert - He has replaced the Predator Gary McGhee as the big man you love to root for.  Hopefully he isn't an abomination like Gary was his frosh and sophomore years.  He played 5 minutes and managed to alter at least 4 shots from the Bulldogs.  What a weapon he is defensively.  He can alter shots without leaving his feet so there's never a threat of fouling.  He also had a putback dunk at the halftime buzzer.

Grade: A

Ashton Gibbs - Horrible shooting night for Gibbs.  He's been awful this season.  Dixon has been playing him way too many minutes and I think he's just exhausted.  That and jacking up 12 threes will take some out of you as well.  Since Pitt has had its fair share of struggles this NC season (and add Woodall's injury to that) Gibbs has had to play unlimited minutes.  The loss of Birch doesn't affect the backcourt, but with the Big East looming, it might help for Jamie to give Gibbs a bit of a rest these next 3 games.  I don't have a problem with Flipp running point for 10 minutes with Wright or Patterson at the 2.  I'd actually like to see Moore and Patterson on the floor together more anyway.

Grade C+

John Johnson - He ran the floor well and finished off 3 fast breaks for his only baskets.  He did miss both of his threes though.  Flipp has shot so well so far this season that I'm actually shocked when his shots touch something other than nylon.  He continues to get more and more comfortable every game.  He was trying to drive a lot more too.

Grade B+

Talib Zanna - His second double double of the season (12 points 14 boards).  Interesting stat of the day:  Both times Zanna has had double digit points this season, he's paired it with double digit rebounds.  That's not really a coincidence since Zanna only scores on putbacks anyway.  I'd give him an A, but he took a 19 foot baseline jumper, and had hands of stone down low (3 to's).

Grade B+

Nasir Robinson - I don't really remember much from Nasir except he hit an 18 footer.  It's not the prettiest jumpshot (think Shawn Marion-lite) but it got the job done.  He also took a tumble out of bounds into some camera people.  Am I the only one that holds my breath every time that happens?  I think we all remember Levance stumbling backwards out of bounds @Dayton in 07' and basically ruining our Big East season that year with the time he missed.

Grade B

Isaiah Epps - Token 2 minutes.  Made some passes around the perimeter.

Grade n/a

Cameron Wright - He didn't take a shot in 13 minutes, even though he had a lot of open looks.  He has no confidence in his jumpshot, always deferring to Gibbs for another contested 3.

Grade B-

Lamar Patterson - He led Pitt with 16 points and showed a compete offensive game.  He was hitting 3's and slashing (had 2 and 1's but couldn't sink the free throw both times)  His normal stat stuffing line: 16 pt 6 reb 3 ast 1 st 2 bl

Grade A

Dante Taylor - Quiet game from Taylor.  Outside of one huge facial he gave to some sap from SCST, he didn't score.

Grade: B-

JJ Moore - Scored 7 points in 14 minutes of action.  His nice alley oop finish, and a 3 he hit were pretty much the only things I remember from him this game.  Oh and he followed Zanna's ugly jump shot with a nice put-back.

Grade B

Pitt plays again on Tuesday night.  Zoo will again be infested with regular people who've purchased leftover seats.  Jokes.  Will probably be bringing a friend to her first game in the Zoo (family has season tix so she's been to games just not in Zoo) so that should be fun.

Shameless pimping of another blog of the week: www.yaseeitsfunnybecause.blogspot.com

My friend just started this one, it should be pretty funny, since he's a funny guy.  Will feature a lot of rage face comics.

U mad?

JO

Game 10: "Gottlieb! Quit staring at our Women!" Pitt 74 OK State 68

We all know that Pitt and Doug Gottlieb don't get along.  From ripping the zoo for not being loud (against Siena during winter break with 75% of the students home with their families-ass) to constantly taking shots at the team, Gottlieb is certainly an enemy.  Therefore in honor of Gottlieb's alma mater OK State, we will have a Gottlieb Joke Counter throughout the recap.

First of all, the title of the post and subsequent photoshop illustrates the funniest moment I've ever experienced in the zoo.  During that Siena game (I believe my sophomore year),  the cheerleaders/dance team were performing.  Gottlieb was watching.  And so one of the Zoo standing behind the announcer's table yelled at him "Gottlieb!  Quit starin' at our women."  He looked away.

Gottlieb Joke Counter: 1

Okay, since there may be a few more people reading these now, I'd just like to give a quick summary of myself.  I'm 22 and I've been a fan of Pitt sports since Vonteego Cummings and Pete Gonzalez.  Last year during my senior year of undergrad, I decided to start writing about them.  I posted notes to Facebook, but this year I felt the need to see if anyone outside of my friends wanted to read them.  I am by no means a good writer.  I never wrote for a school paper or took a journalism class.  I just love Pitt basketball.

Like most of you, I watched the game on TV.  Pitt jumped out to a typical huge lead, but we all knew that it would still end up close at the end.  We can look at box scores that tell us how many 3's Gibbs made, or how many blocks Khem had, but there are a lot of different stats that go unnoticed.  Decisions, good and bad, that define the outcome.  Therefore each game, I am going to make up a different stat and keep track of it.

Since I could be on my laptop this game and take some notes I have 3

Edit:  And that file is now nowhere to be found so going to be from memory now.

Great passes - Assists tell a pretty good story of how well a player passes, but there's no context behind them.  A player swinging the ball around the perimeter to a shooter who buries a 3 gets an assist in the same way a big man in close quarters down low flips it to a teammate for an easy dunk.  I'm looking for the latter here.

Bad passes - The exact opposite.  Turnovers do not count the times passes are deflected or require a great catch by the receiver.  Also in the bad pass category is any time someone makes a bounce pass to a big with 5 guys in the lane around him.

Defensive Blowbys - Any time someone gets beat off the dribble.  Whether or not they score is irrelevant and losing your guy because of a pick and a switch also don't count.  We're looking at pure one-on-one defense.

Having said all of this, it's time to grade:

Gibbs - (Great passes 1, Bad passes 0, Defensive Blowbys 0)  We like to give Gibbs crap for his defense and shot selection, but this was an okay game defensively for him.  He didn't get beat off the dribble that often.  He picked his spots also and there was only one instance of him dribbling at the top of the key with the shot clock running down waiting to get a pick to shoot a contested 3.  Another thing, the announcers (Raftery,  Van Gundy, and whoever the play-by-play guy was can't remember) made a claim about how Gibbs is always happy on the court or something.  Ummm, what the hell?  Gibbs is Mr. Pissy Pants on the floor.  He's always scowling or shaking his heads at teammates when they misplay one of his poor entry passes or fail to get open.  What an ass.  I like the competitive drive, Ashton, but seems like you're being more of a dick than a super-competitor.  Maybe, I'm wrong.  I don't know.  As far as Gibbs' passes are concerned, he's just not good at it.  He rarely takes risks or tries to make a great feed.  All of his passes are very high percentage (around the perimeter or entry passes with no help defense).  I'm not sure he trusts his teammates to make catches in traffic.  All things considered, the shot selection was so much better that I have to give him credit.

Grade: A-

Patterson (GP's 5 BP's 0 DB's 1)  Great game from Patterson.  In the first half, Lamar put on a passing clinic. I counted 5 great passes in total (not all resulting in points, Robinson missed a couple gimmes)  It was Chris Paul-esque.  He was a force on the boards as well registering his first career double double.  There were a couple shots he could've knocked down, but I can't complain, Patterson is making the typical Dixon-coached jump in his junior season.  Grade A+

Birch - (GP, BP, DB All 0) I'd really like Birch to get some more minutes in these games.  There weren't really any big moments for him this game.  As usual, the announcers had to mention his quick leaping ability.  Big time trolling of Van Gundy when one of his partners claimed that Alonzo Mourning had quite the vertical despite having a guy hanging on his leg (referencing the Heat-Knicks brawls in the late 90s)  He showed his ability to step out when he knocked down a J from the free throw line.  Grade B+

Robinson (GP 1 BP 0 DB 1)  Awful free throw shooting (1-5) but hey at least he's not Mason Plumlee (2-11 today jeez)  Again typical Nas performance down low and finishing.  The only thing preventing him from having a monster game was a few blown layups that he normally finishes.

Grade A-

Wright -(GP 0 BP 4 DB 4)  Wow, horrible game from Cameron.  So many of his passes were deflected, and he was routinely beat off the dribble.  For a player who's only getting minutes for his hustle, this is not the type of game you like to see from him.  His offense is still a work in progress as well.  I did however notice that he had put his shorts on the right way.  Something Gottlieb struggles with.  Gottlieb can't dress himself  Grade D

Gottlieb Joke Counter - 2

J. Johnson - (GP 0 BP 2 DB 2-3).  His one three pointer was a heckuva play because it was off his back foot and looked to be a poor decision.  But it hung the friggin net.  What a stroke.  He did have four turnovers and still seems to have trouble staying with guards though.  And I'll also mention when he brought the ball back out when he didn't have numbers on the fast break because the announcers saw it and thought it was awesome because he made that decision as a freshmen.  I mean, it was a smart play, but just because the guy's a freshmen doesn't mean he hasn't been in that situation hundreds of times before in games.  If you don't have numbers, pull it back out.  Grade B

Zanna - (GP 1 BP 0 DB 3)  The box score says that Zanna did alright in his 11 minutes.  He had 4 boards, 0 turnovers, made his only shot.  But this was a poor game defensively for him.  He was beaten three times off the dribble.  Grade B-

Moore - Sophomore slump?  When Gil Brown was a freshmen and sophomore he would only get his points by driving and alley oops.  Later on, he developed a decent 3 point shot, but he still realized that his bread and butter was the fact he could jump over people.  Moore doesn't seem to realize this.  When he does, look out.  Grade B

Wait a minute my sister just texted me.  She's can't seem to find her credit card.  Gottlieb probably has it.

DGJC - 3

Epps - Played one minute.  Nothing really to say here.  Grade n/a

Taylor - Four big-time blocks from him.  He had a fantastic hook shot for a 3 point play.  There was also another moment when he tried to lead a fast break but blew the layup.  That's not your game big fella.  As skilled as you are offensively, ball-handling is not one of your strengths.  Grade B

Pitt is off for a week until they play South Carolina State.  I'll be back in the zoo, leading the charge.

Final Gottlieb Joke Counter - 3

Doug Gottlieb sucks (make that 4),

JO