What is Pitt's Celing Now?

Pitt won for the third time this year against a top five team, this time beating #3 Villanova 70-65 yesterday at Petersen Events Center. Pitt has the trademark of every good team and that is they keep getting better every time out. One game after playing what I thought was their best all-around performance of the year at Marquette; Pitt topped that performance yesterday in a game that is sure to raise the expectation level of the Pitt faithful.

Jamie Dixon and company won yesterday with their typical suffocating defense and their prowess on the offensive glass. Pitt collected 21 offensive rebounds, eight by Gary McGhee, and used their second chance opportunities to offset a poor shooting day (35% on field goals). There is no need to get into the many details of the game as I am sure most people either watched it or have read about it. Pitt did a great job breaking Villanova’s pressure, running their offense, and limiting the very dangerous guard duo of Scottie Reynolds and Corey Fisher. Ashton Gibbs had 21 points and Gilbert Brown chipped in 16 off the bench, including a thunderous dunk down the stretch that may have saved the game for the Panthers.

So where does that leave the Panthers and their expectations going forward? For now it is sure to vault the Panthers up in both pools, however meaningless they are, and has moved Pitt into 9th in the RPI standings. The remaining four Big East games are all winnable (at Notre Dame and St. John’s, home against Providence and Rutgers) giving the Panthers an outside shot at the Big East regular season title. I do not think Syracuse loses two more, but Pitt should have secured a two-day bye for the Big East Tournament with yesterday’s win. More importantly, without a collapse in their final four regular season games, the win should leave Pitt with no worse than a #4 seed and more likely a #3 seed in the Big Dance, with the opportunity to earn as high as a #2 seed with an extended run in the Big East Tournament. My guess is that the Panthers win out in the regular season before losing in the semifinals of the Big East Tournament and earning themselves a #3 seed in the tourney.

With a #3 seed, or even a #2 or a #4 seed, expectations are going to be high. Anything less than a Sweet Sixteen appearance would be a major disappointment and an Elite Eight appearance could be reasonably hoped for. That, again, is a long way from where this team looked headed back in December. I am not sure how many different ways to say how great of a coach Jamie Dixon is, but this has truly been his best job of his tenure at Pitt. BUT, there’s always a but right, this team reminds me so much of the Brandin Knight-Julius Page era teams at Pitt. That normally would be a good thing, but in this context it is not.

Come tournament time, when it is one loss and done, who is going to score the basketball for Pitt when things are not going smoothly? Who is going to break another team’s run? Who is the go-to guy at crunch time to get his own shot or create a shot for a teammate? All of these things remain major question marks for the Panthers as the tournament approaches. Yes, this team has a wide variety of options just as the Knight/Page teams did. Yes, Ashton Gibbs is their best scorer and player just as Knight and Page were. But just like Knight and Page, Gibbs is not a great creator and is not great at scoring off the dribble. This has been a recipe for early exits and disappointing losses to inferior teams in the past and I am afraid it could be the path this team is headed for as well. With the right match-ups and Pitt playing well in all facets of the game, I can see a run to the Elite 8, but (there’s that word again) more likely I see Pitt running into a team with a dynamic superstar that Pitt cannot match and going down once again in the 2nd or 3rd round to a team they would normally beat. Here’s hoping I am wrong…