Another game and more of the same for Pitt. Be honest - this season can't end soon enough for most of us.
Pitt has had trouble scoring all season long and Thursday's game against West Virginia was no different. For the second time this season, the Panthers didn't even crack the half-century mark, finishing with only 48 points. And then again also shot a horrific sub 40% from the field.
If there's anything I'm surprised about this season, it's how poorly Pitt has shot as a whole. The Panthers are typically known for getting easy shots mostly due to sharing the ball and finding the open man. But Pitt is simply unable to make shots and for all the analysis we might want to make, if you can't score, you can't win. I don't care what anyone says - there's no complex reason the team is struggling so much. If you continually shoot under 40% like Pitt has done this season ... that's the problem.
I've alluded to the fact that the team is young and that's certainly not helped. But when veterans like Ashton Gibbs (2-11 on Thursday) and Tray Woodall (5-16) miss as many shots as they did, there's really not much hope. The team hasn't been able to play lights out defense as they have in past years and now that they're needing to score more ... well, we're seeing how that's working out.
If there's another culprit in addition to the poor shooting, it's quite easily the turnovers. Pitt racked up another 17 of them against the Mountaineers. The sad thing is that numbers like that are becoming commonplace. Woodall again had four and he hasn't had fewer than that since the win over Providence three weeks ago.
This isn't a very good team right now and it's probably finally time to shed any hopes of reaching the NCAAs.
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