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Wake Up. Please?

Simply put, Pitt didn't play very well. There haven't been too many times this year when I've been furious at their effort, but tonight was certainly one of them. I don't even have the energy to provide links and his game has really left me wondering just what Pitt will do in the tournament.

They looked apathetic in the beginning, played better in the middle, then downright stunk at the end. It seemed like when they came back and made the score close that they just expected Notre Dame to lay down and die. What a load of crap.

And someone please shut Gilbert Brown up. All the talk of wanting to play Notre Dame again looked like just that - talk. I try not to criticize college players too much, but Gil, maybe you should focus on playing defense and scoring more than three points than opening your mouth to take on all comers. They not only stunk up the joint offensively, they allowed Notre Dame to shoot over 50% from the field. Again. And even in the 2nd half when they played better defense and held ND without a field goal for seemingly an eternity, they couldn't get anything going offensively.

The disappointing part was that it wasn't hot shooting from outside this time. It was major defensive lapses on Pitt's part. There was a play around the 12:00 mark of the 2nd half that summed it up perfectly (even though it didn't result in a field goal). Dante Taylor was out on the arc covering a guard and for some reason unknown to me, left him to cover another player leaving him wide open. The guard was so stunned to find himself open, he stepped up and promptly airballed (or wildly missed - can't remember which) a three-pointer - probably because he couldn't believe what just transpired.

The end was no 'walk in the cake' either as Wanamaker missed a layup and got a second chance on a tie up. Little did they know it would do them absolutely no good as they (can't remember who took this shot) would miss a wild layup attempt.

Now, the optimist will chalk this up and say it doesn't matter or say, 'well, they were just rusty.' That's fine, but the problem is they're now off for at least six more days. You can talk all you want about the 'disadvantage' of going deep into the Big East tournament, but at least you're less likely to be rusty if you do that.

For their sake, they better hope they don't play like this in the NCAA tournament. Otherwise, it will be a long night for them against a 13 or 14 seed.