Thoughts from Pittsburgh

[rocky_warrior]

- Had a couple great days in the city.  Good food, and good people.

- Related, despite the attitudes we might get from Pitt fans on the message boards, I didn't run into a single person that displayed that attitude in person.  Wearing our gold Marquette shirts around today, a few people asked if we were going to the game tonight, and commented that it should be a good game.  One guy promised to root for us tonight if we cheered for UConn on Sat (his wife is a huge UConn fan).  Finally - everyone sitting around us at the game was friendly and knowledgeable.

- The Pete is a great little arena.  If Marquette ever were to build it's own arena (I know, unlikely), it would be a good model.  The students (zoo) circle the court on 3 sides of the arena, and were in line for the game outside the Pete at least 2 hours in advance (probably earlier, but we drove by a couple hours early).  During the big timeouts people have been mentioning on the site all evening - the students absolutely "brought it" as far as noise and energy even when the camera were at commercial.   Timeouts were essentially useless to take the crowd out of the game.

- The only "bad" part about the Pete, is the 4th side (that the students don't sit on) is the side with the benches, which has 4 (?) big luxury boxes right on the floor.  Probably great for the big donors, but not part of the design I would be looking to copy.

- Got there early enough to see all of Marquette's warm up.  It struck me that the team seemed to take a *lot* of shots during their time warming up.  I've never played hoops (well, not since Jr High) but it struck me that for a team with such a short bench they probably could have taken it a bit easier.  The also had a number of drills with the guys being attacked by assistants with pads to simulate interior contact.  Seemed like a great idea for a true practice, but again I thought it might be excessive for game day.

- Again on warmups, at some point, Acker and Cubes went to the other end of the court to work on 3's and FTs while the rest of the team ran drills.  Cubes looked deadly from anywhere near the top of the arc.  Not so good from the wings.  Looked like his shot was fine to me.

- I somewhat agree that Buzz could not have done much more with his timeouts.  Pitt got red hot, and we got as cold as an Alaskan Sea Otter.  However, our quick 3s on offense didn't help the case - they were essentially quick turnovers that allowed Pitt to regain the lead.  However, I acknowledge that we took the lead on very similar plays - it just that after you miss a couple and start giving back the lead you need to stop the momentum somehow.  Maybe it's via a timeout.  Maybe it's a T on buzz.  Maybe it's subbing out the entire lineup.  Something needed to be done, but I'm not smart enough to know exactly what could have been done (got that one from Buzz)..

Now, short of a good tourney run, I've sadly attended my final MU game o the season   So I can only hope the boys put it together an force me to come see them in the NCAAs.  Let's start with the Cuse!

[muhoosier260]

- Got there early enough to see all of Marquette's warm up.  It struck me that the team seemed to take a *lot* of shots during their time warming up.  I've never played hoops (well, not since Jr High) but it struck me that for a team with such a short bench they probably could have taken it a bit easier.  The also had a number of drills with the guys being attacked by assistants with pads to simulate interior contact.  Seemed like a great idea for a true practice, but again I thought it might be excessive for game day.

I noticed the same thing for UConn last week. MU had a drill where someone tossed the ball to the back board and a player went for the rebound and had to finish with a layup while getting pummeled by two coaches with pads. I thought it was a little much for an hour before the game as well.