Friday, November 14, 2014

Game 1: Pitt 78 Niagara 45

Well, the 2014-2015 college basketball season is underway, and I am more excited than Frank Kaminsky in a dance off.

A lot has changed since I last joined you.  I got married in August, which was awesome.  Since my wife is one of like five people who read this, "Hi, you are sleeping right now, and your husband is posting gifs of white player of the year candidates dancing on his blog."

Anyway back to Pitt, wait hold on...


Okay, I'm done.  I promise.

Pitt opened their season with another slaughter of some cupcake school, this time the part of sacrificial lamb was played by the Niagara Purple Eagles.  They went 7-26 last year out of the MAAC, and they are awful.  But hey, in 2007 they made the tournament AND beat Florida A&M in the play-in game (back when there was only one).  Then they lost to Kansas by 40.  Pitt was the #3 seed in that region so what I'm saying is we were only 3 historic upsets (and one Pitt over UCLA win) away from this game being a 2007 West Regional Finals rematch.

Pitt probably would have lost.

Players who have attended Niagara actually have scored more points in the NBA than players from Pitt.  The score is currently 37,779 to 37,244.  Help us, Steven Adams, you're our only hope.
That stat is misleading though, since Niagara got almost half its output from the hall-of-famer Calvin Murphy, who is the shortest NBA player in the basketball hall of fame.  Apparently, Calvin Murphy was also a world class baton twirler who won the 1977 Texas State Men's Twirling Championship.  You know, in his time off from averaging 25.6 points per game for the Houston Rockets that year.



At this point, you may be wondering, did I even watch this game?  Well, I could not get ESPN3 to work until the first half was almost halfway over.  When I finally turned it on, the first play of the 2014-2015 Pitt basketball season was a Derrick Randall committing a foul.  There might not be a more perfect play to start another year of this blog.

Pitt was up 32-6 with six minutes to play in the first half.  Speaking of having six points, I went to a game my senior year of high school against Auburn.  I think at one point Pitt was up 40-6 and of course, the Zoo chanted, "You have six points!"

Honestly, I did not watch enough of this game to give accurate grades.  Here are a few things I noticed which may or may not be hyperbole.

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  • Robinson bricked a couple threes which means he still cannot shoot and thus has not gotten any better. Ames Robinson will probably lead the ACC in assists anyway.
  • Michael Young only scored 7 points so all predictions of him having a breakout year were stupid.
  • Durand Johnson will be the most important player for Pitt this year.
  • Derrick Randall will set the NCAA record for fouls in a season.
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By the way, Pitt announced they were suspending Johnson for the entire season about thirty minutes before tip-off, which sets a new record for fastest a Pitt athletic's season has gone up in flames.  They did not yet reveal the reason for the suspension, but this might be the last chance I get to post this for a while.

Seriously though, pretty much every player on Pitt played well.  Freshman Ryan Luther did not play, and he'll probably red-shirt.  Walk-on Mike Lecak scored his first points as a Panther.  The biggest surprise was probably freshman Cameron Johnson scoring 11 points in his debut.  The pride of Our Lady of  the Sacred Heart High School seemed comfortable, and he receives bonus points for inspiring the best tweet of the night.
Pitt plays Samford on Sunday at 1.  I promise I will actually talk about it.

Hail to Pitt,
J.O.

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