There is a huge weakness on the Pitt basketball team that showed up in a big way during the Panthers’ Big East Conference losses to both Cincinnati and Rutgers.
A big reason that Pitt has gotten off to an 0-2 start in conference play is the fact that they can’t hit a jump shot to save their lives right now.
This is a problem that you saw coming during Pitt’s soft non-conference schedule. They have some shooters, but they haven’t been able to consistently knock shots down as a team.
With Talib Zanna, Steven Adams and Dante Taylor, Pitt has a size advantage down low against pretty much every team they will face this season. But instead of playing to that strength, the Panthers turn themselves into a perimeter team for long stretches at a time.
Pitt is only shooting 33.8 percent from behind the arc on the season and struggled big time once again Saturday afternoon, making only two of their first 14 three-point attempts, en route to digging themselves a 16 point hole. Pitt finished the day hitting only 8-of-26 attempts from behind the arc.
Only when they made an attempt to pound the basketball down low did Pitt get back into the game, something they aren’t doing enough of.
Pitt is shooting 56.1 percent on two-point attempts, but their 33.8 percent is good for only 169th in the country. But on two-point attempts Pitt is ninth in the nation, which begs the question of why this team leans so heavily on the three-point shot?
However when other teams take away the inside game, you have to be able to knock down shots and Pitt isn’t capable of doing that at the moment.
If their performance against the Scarlet Knights weren’t bad enough, Pitt went 0-for-10 from three-point range in their Big East opening loss to Cincinnati.
They were able to hide some of the shooting problems due to a very soft non-conference schedule, but now that the Big East Conference season is here, the Panthers won’t win games if they don’t knock down shots.
The problem is team-wide as no Panthers player is shooting over 40 percent from behind the arc.
Technically Cameron Wright is shooting 60 percent, but he has attempted only five shots from long-range on the year.
Tray Woodall is shooting only 38.8 percent from behind the arc and has taken a team-high 67 three-pointers in only 15 games. That’s wy too many ffor a guy that is not a great shooter.
After Woodall, the numbers look even worse: Durand Johnson is shooting only 33.3 percent, Lamar Patterson only 32.7 percent, J.J. Moore only 29.3 percent, James Robinson only 29.2 percent and Trey Zeigler has yet to make a three-point attempt (only attempted three).
“We are taking good shots,” Pitt head coach Jamie Dixon said after the Cincinnati game. “We just have to start making shots as a team.”
They can start doing that Tuesday night as the Panthers face a tough road test in No. 15 Georgetown.
If they don’t start making shots on a consistent basis pretty soon, Pitt’s last season in the Big East could turn into a very long one.
Photo Credit: USA Today
