Watching the Pitt Panthers play basketball this season, there is one glaring weakness on Jamie Dixon’s team- rebounding.
Dixon has always preached rebounding and usually his teams deliver, but this season crashing the glass has become a major problem for the Panthers. Usually one of the top rebounding teams in the nation, Pitt finds themselves ranked just No. 196 in the country, pulling down just 34.6 boards per contest.
Things hit an all-time low during Saturday’s home loss against Clemson as the Panthers were outrebounded 39-22, which included watching the Tigers grab 14 offensive rebounds to only six from Pitt.
Pitt’s 22 rebounds on Saturday was the lowest total of any team in the Jamie Dixon-era and marked the lowest rebounding total for a game at the Petersen Events Center. The minus-17 rebounding margin was also the lowest total for the Panthers on the season.
The last time a Pitt team was outrebounded by 17 came on January 3, 1999 in a loss to Georgetown, which came under Ben Howland’s watch.
“We addressed it,” said Dixon. “We talked about it. Interestingly enough, it was our big emphasis going into this game – as it always is – but we made an even more impassioned plea and emphasis on the rebounding. To get beat this bad on the glass is even more difficult to realize.”
There are several indicators why this Pitt team just isn’t getting it done on the glass this season and one that gets pointed out the most is size.
These Panthers don’t have a real center to dominate the glass like most Pitt teams have in the past. Michael Young is playing out of position at the 5 and while it has helped him take advantage of mismatches at the offensive end of the floor, just the opposite has occurred at the defensive end of the floor.
That is a trend that could continue to occur against some bigger ACC teams down the stretch.
Another thing that plays into the Panthers struggles rebounding the ball is poor shot selection. Scoring droughts have become a staple of this Pitt team. Just on Saturday they went a 12-minute span in the first half that saw them turn a small lead into an 11-point deficit by only making one shot from the floor in that span. After rallying to tie the game, Pitt then responded with another six-minute scoring drought that saw the game get out of hand.
“It shouldn’t be [size], certainly not that big of a difference,” said Dixon. ”I think shot selection hurt us too. I say again: shot selection, getting to the weakside glass – we didn’t get it done, and then they beat us to some long ones. They beat us to two free throw rebounds, too, which is not a good indicator.”
Another factor is that this Pitt team is simply not a great man-to-man team like Dixon has coached in the past. That’s actually putting it kindly. Dixon has had to switch to the 2-3 zone a lot more than he likely wants to and it creates a ton of opportunities for offensive rebounds, something Clemson exploited on Saturday.
Pitt started to close the gap on the glass and subsequently rallied to tie the game. Then the Tigers dominated the glass the rest of the contest and the results speak for themselves.
“The offensive rebounds, 14 of them, caught up to us,” added Dixon. “You’d like to get them back on the other side and we didn’t do that. You can see [rebound and the run] go hand-in-hand. You’re making up the difference and outscoring them, and that’s what we did. As that happened, [the game] turned the other way [with] rebounding and then the score turned back the other way.”
“We talked about it. I don’t think our double-team was very effective. I don’t think our press was very effective. Our man-to-man, straight up, wasn’t very effective either. I think they shot 47 percent. There’s no way we can have a team shoot 47 percent against us here – and then the rebounding. The numbers certainly don’t lie.”
The biggest thing that Dixon has to figure out down the stretch is a rotation that will work.
The likes of Sheldon Jeter, Derrick Randall, Joseph Uchebo and Ryan Luther are all bodies he will use off the bench, but none of them have defined roles.
Dixon must develop a solid post defender or two out of that group or teams will continue to eat the Panthers alive. That’s especially true when Pitt is forced to play a zone.
“Their big guys hurt us inside with post-ups, at times,” added Dixon. ““It’s interesting. We tried Sheldon [Jeter] at that spot a little bit. We played Jamel [Artis]. We think Jamel is good against the zone. We think Ryan [Luther] is good against the zone, too. We’ve got to look at something because what we did didn’t work. I’ll take responsibility for that because I thought we had the right guys to go, but the zone made us do some things a little differently I think. It just caught up to us.”
If Dixon doesn’t get things figured out starting Wednesday night, it could be too late.
The way things shape up, Pitt is going to have to play themselves back onto the NCAA Tournament bubble.
The only way to do that is by starting to crash the glass and they must start doing so Wednesday night when they host Florida State.
Photo Credit: USA Today Sports
