I haven't posted in a while so I thought I'd start off with some Sinatra because hey, the guy was incredible. Does this have anything to do with basketball? No, but I've been in that kind of mood lately. And when I was driving downtown for the game tonight I stopped at a red light. I had been talking about Sinatra with someone, and when I looked into the car in front of me I saw this license plate.
License plate of the year nominee.
Back to basketball. I would have really loved to write recaps for all of the previous CBIncredible games, but alas I had to work every single night and couldn't go to them. Pitt beat Wofford, then Princeton, then survived a game at Butler to advance to the "Championship Series" (that's ridiculous by the way). Well Pitt lost game 1 by 1 at Wazu. I watched it on TV, it was meh.
One more word on Butler. We all know what happened last year against them. Honestly, it's impossible not to root for them. They are so classy. Case in point, the day before they played Pitt, their coach Brad Stevens sent out an e-mail to the Butler students asking them to please not heckle Nasir Robinson because of his dumb foul at the end of last year's tournament game. Even better is that they weren't even planning on it. Class acts all around at that institution.
And now finally, I shall actually write about the game that just occurred.
Pitt controlled the first half and opened up a 9 point lead at intermission. They hit some threes and held the Cougars to the lowest first half total of any opponent this season (20 points). Unfortunately as has always been the case this year, Pitt was due for a long scoreless drought, and this one happened midway through the 2nd half. They went 7 minutes without scoring, yet stayed ahead. That ended when the Cougars tied it at 49 with a minute and forty seconds to go.
But then, Lamar Patterson made me almost as happy as I am when someone offers to cook me bacon ;)
He scored and Pitt made a few stops, hit some free throws and was up 6 with 15 seconds left. Then the meltdown started. Pitt was called for some type of off the ball foul or something, intentional maybe. Anyway the Cougars made both free throws, then got the ball back and scored so a 6 point lead was cut to 2 like that. Four and half seconds left, Pitt threw the inbounds pass long but IT WAS INTERCEPTED! Oh nooooo. Thankfully the Cougar player fell out of bounds. Pitt got the ball back, Patterson made a couple free throws and it was over. One more game at Pitt on Friday to decide it. Isn't the CBI exciting? Of all the crazy things, I swear, best of 3 for the title.
Grades.
Ashton Gibbs - Gibbs didn't play "because he is a bitch." Well that was the word from my friend Ben, but apparently he tweaked his ankle or something in the last game. It's been nagging him all year long, but in all honesty I think he got benched because he's a sorry excuse for a team player. He's been a joke this entire tournament. Grade: n/a
Note: Washington State was also without their leading scorer, but his injury was probably real.
Tray Woodall - Not a good shooting night from Tray. He scored all of his 6 points on two threes in the first half. There were a couple times he tried to drive and got it stuffed. Grade B-
Lamar Patterson - Patterson is probably my favorite player on this team. He had a chance to win the first game on Monday but he missed. He didn't let that phase him and was clutch in the final two minutes tonight. He didn't shoot well from the field 2-8 but he made 8-10 from the line and filled the stat line as well (5 assists and 4 rebounds) Grade A
Cameron Wright - Wright started in place of Gibbs. Coach Dixon was doing an offensive/defensive substitution with him and John Johnson in the second half. Wright was asked to try and slow down Moore, the point guard for the Cougars. I'm not sure how effective it was because the dude scored 16 in the second half. Cameron basically didn't do anything because he stinks. He scored once or something. Grade C+
Dante Taylor - Sleepy stinks. He didn't do anything. Scored 4 points, but whatever. Grade C
Nasir Robinson - 10 points and 4 rebounds in the second to last game for Nasir. He had a nice reverse for an And 1 in the first half, but he blew the free throw. I really like Nas. I don't think he should have ever started, but it just so happened he was always Pitt's best option for the past 3 years. It shows how weak Pitt's post game has been since Blair left. Grade A-
JJ Moore - Moore hit a three in the first half, and missed his other three shots the rest of the night. He had been playing extremely well recently so I hope this game is just an anomaly. Grade C
Isaiah Epps - He played four minutes. He sucks. Grade Poop
John Johnson - He hit a couple threes, but that's it. Grade B
Talib Zanna - Big time game from Zanna. He had 14 points on 4-4 shooting (team high) as well as 8 rebounds (game high). I think all of his baskets were dunks, which is always good. Grade A
A final note, there were probably like 2000 people there total. Seems that nobody in Pittsburgh cares for the CBI, the Zoo was half full and we did our best. Props also to my good friend Ben D. for coming to the game in what will be his last. He's graduating and entering the Seminary. He's one of the best men I know.
Hail to Pitt,
JO
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