Pitt Panther Prowl

Long Overdue Post-Depaul Thoughts

There is a lot to be excited about after Pitt’s 98-79 win over DePaul yesterday. Sure, DePaul is a bottom feeder in the conference. But Pitt hasn’t looked great even against bottom feeders lately. At this point in the season, heading into the post-season, it isn’t about who you beat, but how you beat them and that you end the season on a winning note. For a Pitt team that has sorely needed to garner a bit of confidence, they ended the season with a bang. To get an idea of what the game was like, in the last minute of the game, Jamie Dixon put senior and perpetual bench warmer Maurice Polen in the game and the Panthers just kept giving him the ball. He ended with 3 points and a huge celebration by his teammates who seemed genuinely happy to get Polen some points. Watching that final minute was much like watching the early season Panthers in the sense that the players looked happy, energetic, and like they were really enjoying themselves. That isn’t something we have seen from these guys much lately.

Beyond all of that, Pitt scored 98 points. It is hard to complain when a team that has been struggling with their shooting gets 98 points in its regular season finale. The Panthers shot 56% from the field, something we haven’t seen in a long time. Even better than the shooting percentage is the people who scored the points. DeJuan Blair, who has struggled with lay-ups in conference play, finished with 22 points and 14 rebounds on 8-10 shooting. Gilbert Brown, who has struggled with his confidence all season, finished 6-8 from the field with 13 points and added 5 rebounds and 2 assists. Levance Fields scored 11 points and had 9 rebounds (not bad for an undersized guard) and a staggering 9 assists. Keith Benjamin, Sam Young, and Ronald Ramon also finished with 11+ points each. Pitt also shot 55% from beyond the three-point arc. It was a very balanced and efficient offensive night.

It would be easy to look at the 79 points and assume that Pitt played bad defense, but with the number of possessions each team had, it isn’t surprising that DePaul scored a lot. The fact that they still lost by 19 points, despite scoring almost 80, tells you how one-sided the game was. DePaul shot 44% from the floor. That isn’t a super defensive night, but it is the lowest Pitt has held a team in weeks, and it is 12% lower than Pitt shot. Rebounding helped Pitt tremendously as well. They out-rebounded DePaul 42-26 including a 14-9 advantage in offensive rebounds. These are the kind of stats we are used to seeing from Pitt teams. Again, ignore that it came against a dreg of the conference. Pitt needed this kind of game. Confidence comes less from whom you whip, and more from whipping somebody… anybody- especially when the team has been struggling with confidence of late.

I am not going to pretend that beating DePaul by 19 means that Pitt is going to run the table in the Big East tournament; but scoring 98 points on anybody is good. Ending the season with a huge win and with winning three of four is a tremendous boost for the post-season. Eeking out another last possession win counts for the same number in the W column, but this team isn’t playing for W’s, they are playing for pride. They want to show themselves and the world that they are the team that dominated early in the season as opposed to the one the has been struggling for much of the Big East schedule. Hopefully they can carry this momentum into Madison Square Garden. They have dominated the Big East Tournament in recent years and it seems that most years one team in the championship game has been a Cinderella. It would be great if they could find a pair of glass slippers. Whether that happens or not, I am happy with how Pitt looked against DePaul and I will be happy if they beat Cincinnati in their next game. I am not going to get my hopes up for a deep BE tourney run. But I am proud of this team and I won’t count them out until they actually are.