Pitt Panther Prowl

Thoughts as we near the end of the regular season

Pitt has had a long and turbulent road this season which has led to some long faces and frustrated fans at times. There is no doubt that this team is struggling and that it has its weaknesses. I am not sure I am willing to buy into all the hype that Dixon can’t coach or the players aren’t talented, because these problems have really only been since after the Georgetown game, and they have progressively gotten worse. Pitt played some good games in the early part of the season, including Oklahoma St., Washington, and Duke (who are all the equivalent of at least someone in the Big East) and they didn’t seem to have their current troubles with any of those teams. As many people have said on various message boards and in the media, this one comes down to a few issues. First, there seems to be a lack of commitment and effort lately on the defensive and rebounding end of the game. Both of these aspects require a strong desire and pride at being good. This team doesn’t have either of those things.

Second, this team lacks experience and leadership. When Mike Cook got injured, I don’t think many of us realized what kind of leadership he brought to the team. When Fields went down, we had lost both our emotional (Cook) leader and our floor general. Ronald Ramon did an admirable job of filling it at point guard, a position he never played before, but he wasn’t able to bring any emotional leadership and he was more of a manager of the ball than a floor general. Keith Benjamin, the other senior, got his first real opportunity to contribute as a starter because of the injuries. While he is a senior, his lack of real game time compared to Cook and Fields, and even Ramon, made him an unlikely candidate to assume the leadership position. While Sam Young is a great player, and, in my opinion, currently the best player on the team, he doesn’t have that leadership quality that will make his team rally around him. There are multiple reasons for this, but the most obvious one is that the leadership usually comes from a guard much like it does from the quarterback in football. The rest of the options are freshmen. It does happen, but it is rare that a freshman steps in and becomes the leader of a team in his first year.

This issue with leadership isn’t just an issue of what is happening in games. For anyone who has played organized sports, you know that the leadership comes out strongest in two situations. It comes out in clutch moments in games and it comes out in practice. For the most part of conference play, aside from Ramon hitting a huge three against WVU, Pitt has lacked the emergence of a leader in clutch situations. In fact, aside from that three-pointer, Pitt could probably be called anti-clutch throughout conference play. The lack of leadership was a glaring issue when game after game, coming down to the wire, Pitt couldn’t even get a look at the basket for a chance to tie or win.

In practice the team leader is the one who sets the example by working the hardest. He runs harder and faster than everyone else. He isn’t satisfied with the way a play ran and makes the team run it over and over again. He is the one who calls his teammates out, in the privacy of the practice court, and commands them to step up their game for the benefit of everyone else. I haven’t been to a Pitt practice, but I would assume that Levance Fields was the one doing that for Pitt all season. The fact that he worked so hard to slim down and quicken his game in the off-season, challenging Mike Cook and others to do the same, is just one example of why I believe that Fields is that guy in practice who just isn’t willing to let his team run through it half-assed.

This leads us to the third reason for Pitt’s struggles, and that is the injuries. In addition to costing Pitt two if its most crucial players and forcing Dixon to play four freshmen in his rotation; it is precisely these two injuries that cost Pitt its team leadership throughout the Big East schedule. There were other injuries that added to the issues of depth and the ability to run full practices. There is no doubt that these things are some part of Pitt’s woes. But I believe that a significant part of Pitt’s struggles, especially with finding the heart and pride to play hard-nose defense, goes back to these injuries robbing Pitt of the two people who could inspire this team to greatness. I believe that if Young had gotten hurt instead of Cook, even though Young is averaging nearly 20 points per game, that this team would have been much better suited to continue its winning ways. After all, one of the complaints about Young is that he is more self-centered whereas Cook was the emotional center of this team. If Ramon had gotten hurt instead of Fields, then there are at least two games we likely wouldn’t have lost (Cincinnati and Villanova) because his presence alone would have kept those games from coming down to the last possession. And if they did manage to be last possession games, I guarantee Pitt would have gotten a shot off with Fields at point, even if the shot didn’t go in.

To further illustrate my point about the loss of leadership being a major factor, consider the way Pitt has played since the Dayton game. They blew out a no-name team (expected); they beat the no. 6 team in the country by 9, dominating the entire game (only the second game down two starters, so their confidence and identity were still in tact); then they started losing close games (throw in the anomalies of a big Rutgers loss and a big St. John’s win); then they started looking really bad, like they are a bottom feeder in this league (Marquette, Louisville, ND, WVU). Sure, they have played their worst since Fields got back, but that relates to his leadership as well. I have said it before, but I believe that this team had lost its identity little by little after those two injuries to the point where, when Fields returned, the team seemed to expect him to single-handedly fix the problems. Not only was that unrealistic, but it led to the team losing even more focus than when Fields was out of the lineup. Unfortunately at this point in the season, even with Fields back, the team has been so lost for so long that I am not sure Fields can bring his leadership back quick enough to turn the team around.

All of this means that we have to reconsider what our standards for a successful season are. I do understand that by being successful you set the standard of expectation for not just that same level of success, but continued improvement. Those kind of expectations just aren’t realistic at this point. Pitt isn’t going to be a final four team. They (almost certainly, unless they find the heart to play defense) aren’t going to win the Big East Tournament. What our expectations for them were after beating Duke and Georgetown aren’t going to be realized at this point. We can call the season lost, which some have. And that is fine, since ultimately a shot at a championship (league or national) is what we all want. Personally, since I am a Pitt fan, I am willing to readjust my expectations to still give us something to look forward to since there are still games left. After all, football had an awful season, but we readjusted our expectations to the point that beating WVU fired up the fans and media to the level that you might think we actually did win a national championship (or even finish with a winning record).

So, since Pitt is a LONG shot for a final four or a Big East Championship, what would make this season a success at this point? What can we point to or hope for to end this season on a high note? First of all, Pitt has to beat DePaul. If they lose to them, this season will, in my opinion, be a bust. A win over DePaul would give Pitt 10 conference wins which is a good feat in this league when healthy, but actually a great feat considering how banged up Pitt has been all season. (I know that someone recently discounted the injury talk after the Syracuse game saying that every team is banged up this time of year. But the point regarding Pitt is that they have been this banged up all through conference play. It isn’t a home stretch issue, but a season long one.) Second, they have to win a game in each of the Big East and NCAA tournaments. First round exits are ok for 10 seeds, but Pitt is better than that. They need a win in each tournament. If they could manage two wins in the NCAA tourney, I would believe that this team did regain its heart and I would see that as an enormous success. Third, they need to out-rebound DePaul and their first round match-ups in both tourneys, and they need to hold those same three teams under 45% shooting (a number that a year ago would have been what the best team shot against them). Doing those things would show that the team committed themselves to not only recognizing their deficiencies, but working through them and truly bettering themselves after going in the opposite direction steadily the past two months. Finally, they need to play the rest of their games, win or lose, with the intensity of a team that truly believes they can win their games.

Those are my updated expectations for this Pitt team. They are capable of doing all of the things I suggested and I would be as proud of them as I have been of any Pitt team should they actually accomplish them.