Quote Originally Posted by Billy Dat View Post
Another game where we mount a furious comeback after being down 15, get really close, but never take a lead and fail to make the plays we need, on both ends of the court, at winning time.

The major positive was the play of Jalen Johnson who looked like an all conference player, especially in the second half.

The best player on the court, however, was Champagnie. It’s been a while since an opponent schooled us like that. Toney was also a beast. Great effort by Pittt, and Capel slays one of his mentors.

I like the potential of the Johnson, Moore, Hurt + guards line-up. Roach started better than he finished, DJ was fairly ineffective, but K went with him over Jordan.

We move forward. It doesn’t look good now, but the pieces of a solid team are there, maybe Johnson can catalyze a collective jump.
Yup, another game with a big lead for the other team which is asking a lot.. just stay within 8/10...

Not sure why you keep a zone on a guy like Champagnie?? At 28 points for him I told my son .. "watch 'is - pass, shot score by Champagnie" - thats EXACTLY what happened.. he was just smiling up and down the court. Sure he was shocked we would LET him have those shots w a zone and see a basket that big. WHY K WHY? I do get that our D stopper - Goldwire - is too short to cover Champagnie but maybe Moore M2M on him? At least for a little while???
The only answer I have is maybe K felt we couldn't stay in front of the 3 super guards - Toney / Johnson and Champagnie?? Maybe he felt they were too fast? But this team had just blown out Syracuse and just played vs a zone so they were REALLY well prepared to face that zone oof ours which is not as good as the 'Cuse Zone D since they run it all the time and are longer. Really don't get that - Pitt JUST played and beat the Cuse by TWENTY who are better prepared to run that defense.. that makes no sense. n o n e

All that said - good takeaways, HUGE game by JJ and Moore did a ton.. Hurt took too long to get involved unfortunately though he did eventually. Good to see JJ and Moore as we know Hurt will bring it most games.

Other takeaways - YET AGAIN the other team made way more free throws than we did. If you want to simplify a W v L - they made 24 FTs .. we attempted to 19! We HAVE To get to the FT line much more.. If we get to the line just 5 more times we probably win that game. And we need to learn to foul less - though there were a few calls I felt were tough on Duke where we basically got out of the way and they still gave a foul against us. But Pitt was 24-37 FTs.. Duke 11-19. With all we did right and wrong if we get to the line a few more times and hit a few more FTs we may win. 37 attempts vs 19!

Honestly its a decent showing that we went --- 38% shooting overall (BAD), 28% from 3 (BAD) and 57% FT shooting (BAD) and still almost beat a good team

Need to quit getting down 15 points to start the game and get to the FT line more.