Pitt beats Florida State: News and Notes

Pitt 74, Florida State 72

It wasn’t a thing of beauty but it was a road win and any road win in the ACC is a big one because they don’t come that easy or that often.

And that’s really the bottom line – Pitt needed to come to Tallahassee and get a win and that’s exactly what the Panthers did.

How that was achieved is not relevant – though I will break it down in this post – but that it was achieved is relevant.

Don’t get me wrong – Florida State is not a good team and as someone who has watched them a lot this year, I can add that the Seminoles aren’t a particularly smart team, either.

They just throw the ball away too much, take too many bad shots, get lost too often (see 5-second call down 3 with 27 seconds left) and their big guys are tall but don’t really use their height to their advantage enough. And yeah, I know, I know, “they are young“ which is an excuse and has nothing to do with not taking bad shots and throwing the ball all over the gym when you have a lead.

In short, Florida State was as much responsible for the Panthers coming back and winning as the Panthers were and Pitt isn’t likely to get this much help to come from behind and beat many other teams on the schedule, especially on the road.

But again, that’s not relevant, the relevant thing is that the Panthers got a road win – and did so shorthanded as Sheldon Jeter sat out of the game with a concussion – and now they are on to Clemson.

Here are the News and Notes:

*** First, as always, here are the postgame notes from the Pitt SID: The Panthers move to 68-35 under Jamie Dixon following a loss. …Pitt trailed at the half for the fourth time this season and this is the first time they came from behind to win. … The Panthers are now 1-3 when trailing at the half. …Pitt overcame a 10-point halftime deficit, the largest halftime deficit overcome since Jan. 17, 2012 vs. Oakland (-14) and the largest in conference play since joining the ACC. …The 10-point halftime deficit overcome to win is tied for the 11th largest in program history. …The Panthers won for the second time this season when allowing the opposition to shot over 50 percent from the field. …Pitt is 3-23 under Jamie Dixon when the opposition shoots 50 percent or better from the field. …Mike Young has started 89 consecutive games. …Jamel Artis has now scored in double figures in 23 straight games against ACC opponents. …James Robinson started his 107th consecutive game, the third-longest streak in Pitt history … his 121 career starts are the most among active ACC players. …Sterling Smith had his ninth game with three or more three-point field goals.

**** Let’s dissect some of those numbers…..

It is astounding to me that prior to this year, Pitt had only won one game under Jamie Dixon when the opponent shot 50 percent or better from the floor. They’ve now done it twice this year and my senses are this won’t be the last time.

Dixon was pretty funny after the game because he came to the podium and said he was going to talk about how he thought his team played good defensively – then he looked at the numbers and realized they didn’t. It is another example of how this team is different – the opponent shot 50 percent from the floor (53.7 percent) and outrebounded the Panthers and yet the Panthers won. And while it would be easy to say a key was the 16 offensive rebounds Pitt grabbed – they grabbed less in the second half then they did in the first and Florida State had more second chance points (12-11) then the Panthers.

The other number that was pretty telling – Pitt had never won an ACC game it trailed by 10 points or more at the half today. Again, that isn’t easy to do and it doesn’t happen if you don’t get lots of help from the opponent and make no mistake – the Seminoles were in a giving mood today and had a large hand in making sure the Panthers came from behind and won.

*** So what are the relevant numbers and the reason the Panthers won?

I’d look at a couple of things – beyond shooting 33 percent from the field in the first half and 46.4 percent from the field in the second….

First, the Seminoles took advantage of 7 Pitt turnovers and all those missed shots in the first half to build a 8-0 edge in fast-break points at the half. The Seminoles pushed the ball up the court and they looked to transition every time they had the opportunity to and as a result they built a 10-point lead through fast-break points.

In the second half, the Panthers only turned the ball over three times and obviously made more shots – and the fast-break points were 2-2. In other words, the Panthers trailed in fast-break points 8-0 at the half and only trailed 10-2 at the end of the game.

That was huge because the Panthers didn’t give up easy baskets and didn’t help Florida State score.

And then there was Florida State, which turned the ball over 16 times officially, but let’s face it, it felt more like 36 – especially down the stretch when the Seminoles had a chance to either build on their lead or take a lead and threw the ball all over the court and kept giving Pitt chances.

These two areas – fast break points and turnover differential were huge and the third number was a big one as well: Pitt was called for only 6 fouls in the second half while the Seminoles were called for 15 and the result was the Panthers outscored the Seminoles 10-1 from the free throw line (and that’s despite missing five of them down the stretch).

I am not going to get into a discussion about officials, I’d have to go through every call but Dixon did say that they made a concentrated effort to get to the rim more and force the Seminoles to foul. There were two key charges that went Pitt’s way that I thought were tough calls but for the most part, Florida State had a lot of silly fouls and that goes with the theme of a team that doesn’t know how to win games.

** One of the most bizarre sequences I have ever witnessed took place in the final minute of this game.

Jamel Artis hits the 3-pointer with 33 seconds left to give the Panthers a 70-67 lead and the Seminoles inbound the ball then call a timeout. They had one timeout left.

So let’s review – you just called a time out, presumably you told your team you have one left then you drew up a play.

Dwayne Bacon attempts to inbound the ball RIGHT IN FRONT OF FLORIDA STATE’S BENCH. For whatever reason, the play doesn’t unfold the way it was drawn up so he calls a timeout, correct? Well, no, actually he lets the official count to five seconds and they turn the ball over on a 5-second call.

This was ABSOLUTELY RIDICULOUS and there was no excuse, reason or whatever for this to happen. Either call a timeout or throw the ball up for grabs and hope your guy comes down with it – but to let this happen was silly. That’s what I said about this Florida State team – I watch too many of these games and see far too many things like this happen to believe it was just a coincidence that the Seminoles melted down and lost this game.

After that play, though, Pitt gets the ball and inbounds it to Mike Young, who is promptly fouled and he makes two free throws – so the Panthers lead is now 72-67 with 23 seconds left, meaning, unless the Panthers do something equally as silly, well, the game is over.

Then Dixon and the bench, who had been warned to stay in the box and stay off the court, got a technical foul. Now, I didn’t see exactly what happened other than it looked like Dixon wasn’t in the box when the technical foul was called. Either way – the Panthers got lucky because Devon Bookert missed the free throw – because had he made it, they’d have been down only four and then when Xavier Rathan-Mayes hit his 3-pointer it would have been 72-71, not 72-70.

And that’s significant because even after Sterling Smith’s two free throws, the Seminoles would have had the ball with six seconds to play and a chance to tie the game with a 3-pointer.

I asked Jamie about this technical foul and he said that nobody from Pitt said anything and that if you watch the film of the game and watch what happened it is clear that the Panthers were innocent. He said he wasn’t given an explanation as to why it was called and he wasn’t happy about it.

So there’s that, another technical foul we will probably never get a straight answer from anyone about.

*** The Panthers played without Sheldon Jeter (concussion) and Dixon said he is in the “concussion protocol program” and then remarked Pitt is “tops in the country and the originators” in concussion research. He said Jeter feels fine, felt much better today – he apparently got hit in practice – and he expects him to be back up and on the court soon, likely by the Clemson game.

In his absence, Ryan Luther stepped up to the plate big time and once again showed he probably deserves more time than he is getting. He was by far the best of the three centers that played today and he made some huge plays down the stretch to help the Panthers win the game. Obviously, the big one was the sequence of offensive rebound and kick out to Artis for the big 3-pointer at the end of the game.

Clearly when Jeter is back he will eat up the bulk of the minutes at center again but Luther has been productive when he has got opportunities and this is something he should be able to build on.

*** About that fiery halftime speech that Dixon and his players talked about --- I’ll say this, it must have been as advertised. Jamie Dixon said in his 13 seasons he had never gone after a team as hard or been as verbal with a team as he was with this group at halftime. Jamel Artis said it was clear Dixon was “very pi… [ticked] off” but the key was it wasn’t just all negative and challenging manhood stuff. Artis said “He is not always going to be happy with what we do, but he also believes in us and he was telling us we were going to get back in the game.” Dixon said that he did go after the Panthers but he also told them “we are going to win this game” and he said the reason he thought that was because they didn’t play an awful first half, they just didn’t protect the ball or make shots. I don’t know if Knute Rockne speeches really work, but in this case maybe it was what the doctor ordered. Again, the Panthers did play better in the second half but they don’t come back and win this game without some help from the Seminoles.

** I know Mike Young missed some free throws down the stretch but I can’t help but think he was a little bit fatigued because he played 37 minutes. And Artis played 37 minutes. And Robinson played 36 minutes. Sterling Smith played 29 minutes but nobody else played more than Luther’s 15. Clearly Dixon wanted his best players on the floor for as long as possible but this team is usually better when Young, Artis and Robinson are closer to 30-minutes than these games when they have to play 35+. Obviously not having Jeter hurt a lot because he eats some minutes but this trio is the core of the team and Dixon said he wanted them on the floor as long as possible. He talked about stealing some minutes in the first half by going zone but made it pretty clear if they need to be out on the court, they will be no matter how many minutes they have played in a given game.

** Here are some quotes from the two coaches:

Jamie Dixon: “If you look at the shooting, the execution and a great win for us and it really game down to those plays at the end. Obviously we weren't happy with our first half but they had to a lot to do with it. The response was terrific. We needed a win like this, this kind of win just being down and coming back we’ve done that a couple times this year but we needed a result and we did and it was great and it was great to do with without Sheldon because we had other guys running, we obviously made the big play at the end and i thought Alonzo (Nelson‐Ododa) and Rafeal (Maia) did a great job for us too. We had some foul trouble but we battled through it, had a lot of adversity and I can’t say enough about our guys so. I think this one is going to be, it’s a great win on the road but it’s going to mean a lot to us going forward.”

Leonard Hamilton: “Obviously, anytime you go out you defend the team where they shoot 39%, you shoot 53% you think that you put yourself in a better position to win games. I thought that this afternoon they did a much better job playing within their system, which allowed them to have less turnovers. I thought that we were very anxious at times and we had 16 turnovers, eight of them unforced turnovers, turnovers that we created ourselves. Anytime you play against a nationally ranked team of this quality, caliber, they’re going to force you into a couple turnovers. Eight of our turnovers were turnovers that were self‐inflicted. Playing against a good basketball team who executes better, who executes very very well, one of the teams that averaged 19 assists a game, which is unbelievable. They only had 12 against us tonight, so I thought we did a pretty good job defending. But you hold a team to 39% field goal percentage you give up 15 offensive rebounds it allows them to go to the free‐throw line 24 times and their lies a close loss.”

** Next up is a tough game at Clemson (12-7, 5-2), who have been a tough team to beat at home. The Tigers have notched wins over Louisville, Duke and Miami in their last three home games. It should be noted, though, that the Tigers aren’t playing at their on-campus home arena Littlejohn Coliseum because it is being renovated. Instead they are playing their home games this season in Greenville, S.C., at Bon Secours Wellness Arena.