The alarming thing about Pitt?s 68-50 loss Saturday to North Carolina State was how it was seemingly outhustled, uncharacteristic of a Jamie Dixon-coached team.
It was the eighth time the Panthers have lost by 18 or more points in Dixon?s 12 years as coach and was the second time they lost an ACC game by 10 or more points.
Pitt (10-4, 0-1 ACC) will look to get back on track tonight at Boston College (7-5, 0-1) in a game that appears important if the Panthers are serious about earning another NCAA tournament berth.
True, it is still early in the season but the Panthers? non-conference losses likely mean there is not much margin for error in the ACC part of the schedule.
The main issues so far have been on defense, and the loss Saturday also underscored their inability to score at times.
Pitt is averaging 67.6 points per game so far, down from 71.8 points per game in 2013-14.
Pitt has failed to score at least 60 points three times in the past seven games. Saturday it had a lot of trouble not just scoring, but getting quality shots.
?Going into Boston College, we have to trust our offense more,? forward Jamel Artis said. ?It really goes back to that, just trusting in our offense. We have to learn to believe in our offense more. We have to trust that all of our guys are going to make the right moves, get to the right spots, make the right cuts ? we have to learn to just be patient.
?We have taken some rushed shots, we have to learn from it. We have a good shot, but at times, I think we could get a better shot, we have a lot of young guys on this team so we have to learn and we will learn.?
Dixon said looking back at the North Carolina State game that is was pretty clear the Panthers didn?t always take the best shot available.
He added that they haven?t been very good in transition lately but shot selection is something the Panthers can control. Transition comes from good defense.
?I thought our shot selection was a key [against North Carolina State],? Dixon said. ?I think it was impatience. ? One thing that stands out, for instance, is we had nine shots blocked and that means those were probably not good shots, so that is a pretty good indicator of the kinds of shots we took.?
Boston College is a much different team in philosophy and roster from a year ago when the Panthers beat the Eagles, 66-59, at Conte Forum.
For one thing the Eagles have a first-year coach, Jim Christian, and he brought in two graduate-student transfers ? Dimitri Batten (Old Dominion) and Aaron Brown (Southern Mississippi/Temple).
Those two tart and are among the team?s top players. Brown is the second-leading scorer (15.7 points per game) and Batten averages 8.2 points, 2.3 rebounds and 1.2 assists in 24 minutes.
Christian, who was an assistant at Pitt under Ralph Willard from 1996-99, won 49 games his past two seasons as Ohio?s coach but has a huge rebuilding job.
The Eagles, like Pitt, are coming off a big loss Saturday in their ACC opener at Duke. The Blue Devils cruised to an 85-62 victory.
It was the eighth time the Panthers have lost by 18 or more points in Dixon?s 12 years as coach and was the second time they lost an ACC game by 10 or more points.
Pitt (10-4, 0-1 ACC) will look to get back on track tonight at Boston College (7-5, 0-1) in a game that appears important if the Panthers are serious about earning another NCAA tournament berth.
True, it is still early in the season but the Panthers? non-conference losses likely mean there is not much margin for error in the ACC part of the schedule.
The main issues so far have been on defense, and the loss Saturday also underscored their inability to score at times.
Pitt is averaging 67.6 points per game so far, down from 71.8 points per game in 2013-14.
Pitt has failed to score at least 60 points three times in the past seven games. Saturday it had a lot of trouble not just scoring, but getting quality shots.
?Going into Boston College, we have to trust our offense more,? forward Jamel Artis said. ?It really goes back to that, just trusting in our offense. We have to learn to believe in our offense more. We have to trust that all of our guys are going to make the right moves, get to the right spots, make the right cuts ? we have to learn to just be patient.
?We have taken some rushed shots, we have to learn from it. We have a good shot, but at times, I think we could get a better shot, we have a lot of young guys on this team so we have to learn and we will learn.?
Dixon said looking back at the North Carolina State game that is was pretty clear the Panthers didn?t always take the best shot available.
He added that they haven?t been very good in transition lately but shot selection is something the Panthers can control. Transition comes from good defense.
?I thought our shot selection was a key [against North Carolina State],? Dixon said. ?I think it was impatience. ? One thing that stands out, for instance, is we had nine shots blocked and that means those were probably not good shots, so that is a pretty good indicator of the kinds of shots we took.?
Boston College is a much different team in philosophy and roster from a year ago when the Panthers beat the Eagles, 66-59, at Conte Forum.
For one thing the Eagles have a first-year coach, Jim Christian, and he brought in two graduate-student transfers ? Dimitri Batten (Old Dominion) and Aaron Brown (Southern Mississippi/Temple).
Those two tart and are among the team?s top players. Brown is the second-leading scorer (15.7 points per game) and Batten averages 8.2 points, 2.3 rebounds and 1.2 assists in 24 minutes.
Christian, who was an assistant at Pitt under Ralph Willard from 1996-99, won 49 games his past two seasons as Ohio?s coach but has a huge rebuilding job.
The Eagles, like Pitt, are coming off a big loss Saturday in their ACC opener at Duke. The Blue Devils cruised to an 85-62 victory.
