Clemson Beats Pitt: News and Notes

Clemson 73, Pitt 60

This was yet another ugly outing for the Panthers and one that Mike Young showed up for but most of his teammates did not. Young scored 25 points and grabbed seven rebounds but no other Pitt player scored in double figures and that’s not a good formula for this team.

I know what the spin is after every loss --  defense and rebounding, rinse and repeat --  but spare me that because this game was lost in the first half when Clemson made a run and Pitt couldn’t match it because the Panthers couldn’t score.

Ryan Luther had another nice effort – he played 19 minutes, he scored 8 points and while all eight were in the first half, he definitely gave the team a boost when he got into the game.

His ability to hit some jump shots makes him really good for that stretch 4 position but he still plays a lot of minutes under the basket.

And here is what has becoming increasingly clear – this team is starting to have the same issues that last year’s team had and that is they struggle against teams who have big, athletic post players. Clemson had two guys – Sidy Djitte and Landry Nnoko – that really made it difficult for the Panthers to defend in the post and also tough to score in the post.

This was similar to the N.C. State game, the Louisville game, the Purdue game --- and if Florida State wasn’t one of the lowest basketball IQ teams I’ve seen in a while, the Panthers would have lost that game as well.

I am not sure if there is a good answer here but the post position has been by committee and based on who is playing the best and right now Luther and Sheldon Jeter have played better than Rafael Maia and Alonzo Nelson-Ododa.

But until they figure out how to handle teams with big athletic frontcourt players, they might continue to stumble and that’s unfortunate because this season started with so much promise.

There are three trends, though, that are not good ones:

1) This is the third game in a row the Panthers fell behind by double digits at the half.

2) This is the third game in a row the Panthers were outrebounded.

3) This is the third game in a row the Panthers failed to shoot 40 percent from the floor.

And as I said – the only reason the Panthers went 1-2 in that stretch and not 0-3 is that Florida State played an incredibly awful second half and decided to start throwing the ball all over the court at the worst possible time.

Here are the News and Notes:

*** First, as always, here is what the Pitt SID has to say: The Panthers are now 1-4 when trailing at the half. …Pitt shot under 40 percent for the game for the fourth time this season … Pitt is 0-4 in those contests. …Mike Young made his 90th consecutive start, the seventh-longest streak in program history … Young became the 44th player at Pitt to top the 1,000 career point mark. …He reached that milestone with a lay-in- at the 2:55 mark in the opening half of play. …He scored in double figures for the 19th time this season and 50th time in his career. …Jamel Artis made his 54th consecutive start. …Finished with only nine points to snap a string of 23 double figures scoring games against ACC opponents. …Robinson recorded an assist for the 82nd consecutive game, the third-longest streak at Pitt. … Ryan Luther scored eight points on 3-of-3 shooting, 2-of-2 from three-point range, in the opening half of play.

*** Here are some pretty cool Clemson notes – This was the Tigers 4th win over a top-25 team (Panthers No. 23 in Coaches poll) – the most in a season since 1996-97 when the Tigers led by Rick Barnes, won five games against top-25 teams. ..But get this -- this is the first time in school history the Tigers have won four games over top-25 teams in the same month and also, this is the first time in school history the Tigers have won four games in both football and men’s basketball over ranked opponents. …And finally, here is the last one I thought was interesting. Coming into the game the Tigers had made a school record 29 consecutive free throws. They stretched that record to 36 because they began the game 7-of-7. But then Sidy Djitte missed one early in the second half to break the streak and they missed eight more the rest of the way. Clemson finished 18-of-26 from the free throw line.

*** You want to know one major reason the Panthers fell behind by 14 at halftime? Well, mostly because the guards couldn’t put the ball in the basket in the first half. It was amazing to look at the halftime box score and see that James Robinson, Sterling Smith, Cam Johnson, Chris Jones and Damon Wilson combined to score a grand total of 1 point on 0-of-7 shooting. I don’t know that I have ever seen an entire half of basketball at any level where every guard that played combined to score only one point. Some of it was bad luck (i.e. missed shots) but that group of five needs to take more than seven shots collectively in a given half and they also had a couple of turnovers and just didn’t really get into a rhythm. As it is they only combined to score 12 in the second half and while that is not overwhelming, it was certainly an improvement.

*** This loss was tough because it was a chance for the Panthers to notch a really good road win and take a step forward in the ACC standings. Pitt had a chance to be alone in third place but now they dropped into a tie for fifth. But the math is still favorable for the Panthers to get to that all important “10-conference win” level they need to provided they take care of business at home. They have five wins now – they have two against Virginia Tech (certainly not an easy win or a pushover, but if you are an NCAA Tournament team you get both of these), one at Georgia Tech, one at home versus Wake Forest and then a game at Syracuse, who they have beaten three times in a row. Those five games give the Panthers a chance to get to 10 wins and then if they can knock off one of the other five teams they play (Louisville, Virginia, North Carolina, Duke and Miami) it puts them at 11 and gives them a huge quality win. So the path is still there but the margin for error (thanks to a weak nonconference schedule) is getting a little bit slimmer. And think about this too - if the Panthers win ONLY the five games I mentioned as possible wins, looking at their resume I am not sure that 10-8 will be good enough - even though they would finish 5-4 in ACC road games. There just aren’t enough good wins on Pitt’s resume unless the Panthers, as I said, find a way to beat one of the ranked teams left on the schedule.