Throughout Pitt’s start to the season, there has been one constant on Jamie Dixon’s team- senior Lamar Patterson.
Patterson emerged as Pitt’s best player and a legitimate ACC Player of the Year candidate. He’s been named ACC Player of the Week three times already and has been a big part of why the Panthers got off to a surprise start through their first 20 games of the season.
However the past week hasn’t been very kind to the senior as he has struggled in a big fashion as No. 25 Pitt has dropped back-to-back home conference games against Duke and Virginia.
In the pair of losses, Patterson scored just combined points, but the results have been more disturbing than that. Patterson has made just 7-of-28 shots from the floor in that span, including only 3-of-9 of his three-point attempts. In addition, the Panthers leader in assists dished out only four in the two losses and as one of Pitt’s best rebounders, he grabbed only eight as Pitt was outrebounded in both losses.
Add all of that up and is it time for Pitt fans to worry about Patterson?
Not likely.
I attribute bad matchups more to Patterson’s struggles than anything else. That being said, Patterson needs to come out and make a statement Wednesday night against Miami.
“I think we have played two good defensive teams,” said Pitt head coach Jamie Dixon. “They defended well and don’t give up easy shots early in the shot clock.”
Duke had success against Patterson because they had a guy like Rodney Hood to hound Patterson all game.
Hood was the first player Patterson has seen all year that not only had the length, but the quickness to stay with Patterson. Duke made it a point to deny Patterson the ball and had the talent to pull it off.
Entering the game, in terms of his efficiency, you could put Patterson’s name in the hat for the best all-around offensive player in the country not named Doug McDermott. However Patterson found himself frustrated and finished with only four points in the first half. While he finished with 14 on the night, late in the game Patterson simply tried to do too much as the Panthers were blown out at home.
The Blue Devils helped on Patterson a lot, but they had their greatest success by denying everything on the perimeter and stretching itself into every passing lane so Patterson couldn’t impact the game as a playmaker. The help defense kept Patterson from getting to the rim, and overplaying kept him from catching the ball cleanly on the perimeter.
Duke essentially tuned Patterson into a mid-range player and that is not his strength.
While Patterson is a lights-out shooter from 3 and a 65 percent finisher around the rim, he is merely human on the mid-range jumper. According to hoop-math.com, Patterson shoots just 40 percent on 2-point jump shots. It’s also where he is least comfortable, and most likely to turn the ball over, something he did an uncharacteristic five times against the Blue Devils.
“Lamar is a Player of the Year candidate,” said Duke head coach Mike Krzyzewski. “We are very fortunate that we have a player of Rodney’s caliber to be able to guard him all game. The way the both of them went at each other all night, they were exhausted by the end of the game.”
It was a similar story against Virginia on Sunday.
The Cavaliers lead the nation by allowing only 55.5 points per game, so you knew it would be a tight one-possession game. It didn’t help matters much that Patterson was in foul trouble and sat for a good portion of the second half, but Virginia still made things tough on him as he connected on only 3-of-14 field goal attempts.
That being said it would be nice if Pitt had another scoring option to take some of the pressure off Patterson. The last four games showed how much the Panthers miss Durand Johnson’s range.
But at the end of the day you have to give Duke and Virginia credit for game planning well against Patterson.
“When you play a player as good as Patterson we wanted to make him earn it,” said Virginia head coach Tony Bennett. “We didn’t want to give him any free baskets and I’m sure there were some shots that Lamar would want back, but we wanted to make it hard on him and force him to really have to work hard for everything.”
Very few other teams have that type of ability on the defensive end of the floor to keep Patterson in check the way Duke and Virginia were able to.
Wednesday night in Miami is a statement game not only for the Panthers to get back on the winning track, but also for Patterson to get back on track as well.
Patterson has been a player who usually responds to the challenge in front of him. I’m sure he has a lot of big games left in him the rest of the season.
Photo Credit: Charles LeClaire/ USA Today Sports
