Quick Wednesday night thoughts, since I seemed to have abandoned our blog....
While I was watching Pitt pound the living Husky out of UConn on Monday, it occurred to me that there is a weird sort of karmic force at work in Pittsburgh sports and I think it all stems from the Steelers.
Seemingly, in any sport, we need to have teams with unbelievably stifling, physical defenses. Offense is an afterthought.
Both the Steelers and Pitt have played world class defense that takes the will to compete away from their opponents. On offense, they are proficient at times, but mostly just good enough. More specifically, they are very good when the have to be. Levance Fields on Monday was Ben Roethlisberger in almost every win this season -- average without mistakes for most of the game and then unbelievably clutch when they needed him to be.
Could our expectations as fans really manifest themselves on the court or on the field? Or is it just that our wishes for tough defense are exactly what happens to make teams great?
What do you think?
3 comments:
I think the benefit of a good defense is you are almost always going to be in games. I don't follow Pitt as closely as the Pirates of the Steelers, but it appears as if they aren't quite as imposing on defense as they have been in years past, but they seem to be better on offense. And certainly better from the line, which used to be an area of embarrasment.
My two cents...
I agree the D is solid, but not as good as the Brown/Page/Troutman teams. They are, however, very strong and very though on both ends of the floor. AJ Price described them best when he said, "They're like the Bad Boys."
The upside compared to the past teams is the offense is better. While they may have a 1 for 26 shooting streak from the guards like they did on Monday, they can avoid a long drought by (1) getting an easy score or two in transition, (2) pounding it inside to Blair or (3) Young, Brown or Dixon taking it strong to rim.
I don't understand how you could make these claims based upon on viewing one game against the top ranked team in the land on the road. Levance Fields has been superb this entire season, leading (or close to leading) the country in assist-to-turnover ratio. This was easily his worst game of the season...he looked flatfooted and slow against more athletic guards. But prior to this hiccup, he looked fantastic running the offense...the epitomy of what a point gaurd shood be.
Make no mistake, as well...Pitt's offense and versatility is the reason for its success. They are not nearly as solid defensively as they have been in years past, when they would force a team into working for every bucket. Sam Young is amongst the scoring leaders in the Big East (unheard of for a Panther during the Howland/Dixon era) and DeJuan Blair likely played himself into a lottery selection on Monday night. Wanamaker may be 6th man of the year.
Pitt has scored more than 80 points 12 times this year, including 4 times in Big East play. They've only been under 70 points 4 times, including both of their losses (2-2).
Yinz better recognize that these aren't your older brother's Panthers...and that is the reason why they have a shot to advance past the Sweet 16 this season.
In short, this team is nothing like the Steelers.
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