The 2015-16 Pittsburgh season has come to a close after losing to Wisconsin, 47-43, in the NCAA Tournament. Now an offseason of uncertainty begins.
Recap:
From the opening tip on it was abundantly clear neither team’s offense was at the top of their game. It took Wisconsin over three minutes of game time just to record their first points, while Pitt, in that same time frame, managed just four. However, the Panthers were able string together some momentum as they built a ten point lead with around 11 minutes to go. The high point of the game came when Jamel Artis and Chris Jones scored on back-to-back possession push their advantage to 18-6, at seven minutes left to play. However, in the final five minutes of the half Wisconsin would outscore them 8-2, which made the halftime score 22-16.
The Badgers continued their run from the end of the first half into the second frame, taking a 25-24 after the Ethan Happ dunk. Pitt would reclaim the advantage and go up by five with 12 minutes left, unfortunately they scored only two points in a seven-minute span. Wisconsin took advantage of that bad offense to lead by four with two minutes and change left to play. Artis came up with a clutch three to cut the deficit to one, but after the Badger miss on the ensuing possession James Robinson missed the go ahead shot. Wisconsin made the final free throws to truly ice the game.
Pitt’ s poor offensive showing saw only one player score in double figures, Artis with 13.
Offensive Grade: F
Jamie Dixon’s offensive attack needs a complete overhaul. The plays do not consistently generate good looks and the flow is nonexistent. If the offense had even a semi-decent game they would have won this game by 20. Instead, the team was 18-48 from the field, 3-11 from three and 4-7 at the line. All of those are just abysmal. The worst stat of the day had to be the fact that they had just six total assists as a team.
Defensive Grade: B-
The defense was pretty good for the most part, but a lot of that had to do with Wisconsin having an equally bad offensive day. The one major problem the defense did have was in the rebounding. They allowed 12 offensive boards, which in a tightly contested tournament game makes it hard to win. However, they did hold a team to 47 total points, which on most night should be enough to win.
Coaching Grade: F
Jamie Dixon decided, for some reason, to play Alonzo Nelson-Ododa for 13 minutes on Friday. Ryan Luther played just four minutes, after doing nothing but produce. Maybe he was trying to match the Badgers’ size, but with how bad the offense was it would have been nice to play guys who can actually score.
Up Next:
An offseason of uncertainty.