Marquette took the outright lead in the Big East when Syracuse lost at Pittsburgh on Saturday. That distinction was short-lived, as the Golden Eagles emerged from their game against Louisville the next day with a humbling 70-51 defeat and the league’s upper echelon nipping at their heels. Beneath Marquette and the slumping Orange suddenly lie four teams a half-game behind at 6-3, including the resurgent Cardinals. The game put to bed several of the lingering misgivings about whether Rick Pitino’s team had really turned a corner after  its close win over Pitt last Monday. Rebounding and shooting percentage defense had been of particular concern. The win over the Panthers was a messy affair in which neither team could corral many defensive rebounds. It had also marked the third time in four games that the Cardinals gave up more than 44% shooting from beyond the arc.

Louisville’s transition offense got back on track against Marquette (Credit AP)

Neither issue manifested against Marquette, though. After a vexing first five minutes in which Louisville failed to make a field goal, Pitino plugged in energetic backups Montrezl Harrell and Stephan Van Treese. In about 10 first-half minutes apiece, the big men combined to hit each of their three shots (all dunks) and grab five offensive rebounds. Their enthusiasm also lifted the play of Peyton Siva and Russ Smith, who entered halftime with a cumulative 21 points, seven rebounds and six assists and would finish the game with 32 points on 12-of-24 shooting. Fundamentally sound rebounding from every position and stingy man-to-man defense catalyzed a 37-15 run that sent the Cardinals to halftime with a 14-point lead.

Read the rest of this entry »

1. The U.S. Basketball Writer’s Association released its Oscar Robertson Trophy Midseason Watch List yesterday, which featured Syracuse’s Michael Carter-Williams and Louisville’s Russ Smith. The Big Ten placed four players on the list, followed by the Big East and Big 12 with two apiece. The award, which recognizes the best player in college basketball each season, hasn’t been claimed by a Big East player since St. John’s Walter Berry won it in 1986. While Carter was a consensus 4/5-star recruit with NBA prospects coming out of high school, the recognition denotes a long three-year journey for Smith, who was hardly even evaluated by national scouting services out of high school.
2. Syracuse forward James Southerland will get an opportunity to appeal his recent academic suspension before a university panel next week, but not before missing two more games. Jim Boeheim’s leading three-point shooter will sit out for upcoming bouts at Pitt and at home against Notre Dame. But in light of DaJuan Coleman’s recent knee injury, Southerland’s presence under the basket might be missed most of all: The two combine to average 9.5 rebounds per game. The Orange bench will only go seven deep for at least two pivotal games, but at least for Syracuse fans there’s a definite possibility that Southerland could return this season.
3. Speaking of timetables, Rick Pitino revealed during his weekly radio show yesterday that there’s a chance Wayne Blackshear and Kevin Ware could both return for Sunday’s game with Marquette. Blackshear (sprained shoulder) and Ware (“indefinite” suspension) both practiced yesterday for the first time this week. Blackshear was expected to recover from his injury this week, but news of Ware re-entering Pitino’s good graces came as a surprise to Louisville fans. He seemed firmly and perhaps irrevocably planted in the doghouse after the Pitt game, when his coach claimed he “isn’t coming back anytime soon.” We’re left to wonder what exactly it was that Ware did, but Pitino indicated it wasn’t an egregious offense like drug use.
4. Though outrebounded by a Big East-record 55-24 margin, UConn managed to outduel Providence on the road in overtime last night, 82-79. It was a war of attrition Ryan Boatright claims last year’s Huskies would have surrendered: “Last year’s team, when it got tough like that, when they made all those runs, we would have folded.” Jeff Jacobs at The Hartford Courant outlines a strong argument that the Big East members’ agreement to exclude the Huskies from the conference tournament looks increasingly disingenuous as league members disperse to greener pastures. “It’s too bad all those schools that are fleeing the conference sit in judgment of UConn. At this point, the only schools that should count are Cincinnati, South Florida and the schools that are coming in to be part of the Big East’s future.”
5. They may be sitting in third place in the league standings with a 6-3 record, but Steve Lavin recognizes his St. John’s team is “still a work in progress.” Despite two impressive wins over ranked teams in the top half of the conference, the Red Storm have narrowly avoided upset against their last two inferior opponents and the meat of their schedule undeniably lies ahead of them. Lavin’s players are well aware of the criticism and seem excited for an opportunity to make a statement against another hot team. Said D’Angelo Harrison, “Teams are probably still doubting us because if you look at our schedule we’ve played the bottom half of the league. We’re looking to prove ourselves at Georgetown next.”

Will Tucker is an RTC correspondent and Big East microsite writer. He filed this report after Monday night’s Louisville-Pittsburgh game.

Louisville endured a three-point shooting onslaught from Pitt down the stretch to hold on to a 64-61 victory on Monday night in the Yum! Center. The Panthers hit five of their eight threes in the final seven minutes, but the Cardinals made the necessary plays in the final possessions — demonstrating a resilience conspicuously absent in close losses to Syracuse and Georgetown. Most impressive was the fact that the Cardinals pulled out the win in spite of sudden attrition on its wings. Wayne Blackshear (sprained shoulder) and Kevin Ware (unspecified suspension) weren’t in the lineup, subtracting 38 reliable minutes per game from Rick Pitino’s rotation.

Louisville’s Tim Henderson played 14 sound minutes off the bench (Credit: Andy Lyons)

Leading up to the game, the two teams appeared headed in vastly different directions. Louisville had lost three consecutive Big East gut-punches and was facing the possibility of a 4-4 record in conference play less than two weeks removed from a #1 ranking in the polls; Pittsburgh had won four straight, capped off by an emphatic 38-point win over DePaul. Rick Pitino’s team needed no extra motivation (nor anxiety) to get up for Pitt, but that’s exactly what they got when they learned in the past couple days that Blackshear and Ware would sit out.

The outlook was bleak on paper, with the eighth-most efficient offense in the country entering the Yum! Center. Who would defend Pitt’s Lamar Patterson and Tray Woodall, who were shooting 39% and 37% from beyond the arc, respectively? Louisville’s lineup was about to get smaller, and it had already allowed Big East foes to shoot more than 34% from outside (fourth worst in the league). Could UofL’s increasingly anemic offense survive the void left by Blackshear’s scoring, which accounts for 12% of their points in league play?

Read the rest of this entry »

Brendon Mulvihill is an RTC contributor. You can find him @TheMulv on Twitter. See bottom of the post for the Official RTC Star System.

Things are a little quiet this week with mostly match-ups between top and bottom teams in the conferences.  However, there are a few games that mean a lot to certain teams, including those in some of the smaller conferences. Let’s get to the breakdowns!

Pittsburgh at #8 Louisville – 7:00 PM EST, Monday on ESPN (****)

Pitino needs to stop the bleeding at Louisville (AP)

• Louisville is in an absolute must-win situation. They have lost their last three games and have struggled at crunch time with opportunities to win. Everyone keeps saying the Cardinals still could be the team to beat in March. However, history shows that teams that lose three games in a row during the regular season rarely win the title. Only four teams since 1980 have lost three games in a row and still managed to win the whole thing – 1982-83 North Carolina State, 1984-85 Villanova, 1987-88 Kansas, and 2005-06 Florida. Only one team in history has lost four games in a row and still won the tourney – Danny Manning and the Miracles (Kansas actually lost five straight at one point that season). The reality is that Rick Pitino‘s team is a poor shooting team and unless they get that corrected quickly, Louisville should not be considered a threat to win it all. Pittsburgh on the other hand seems to be turning things around. After starting 1-3 in conference play, they have managed to rattle off four straight wins. Both teams need a win to stay within two games of Syracuse and Marquette in the Big East. Pitt has improved their shooting and offensive rebounding in the last four contests and has been able to play tough defense without putting teams on the line. Keep a close eye on how Pitt does in the paint against Louisville shot blocker Gorgui Dieng. The Panthers are not a threat from three, so most of their points will come from inside the arc. For Louisville, they need to convert their turnovers into points by simply hitting shots. While Pittsburgh is not as long as Syracuse, Villanova, and Georgetown, they are not short. So Pitino’s crew needs to get to the basket for lay-ups and dunks. Shooting over the top is not a great way to break a shooting slump. Watch Chane Behanan and Wayne Blackshear, as their performance on the interior will be the key to Louisville breaking their losing streak.

Read the rest of this entry »

1. After we’d learned last week that an injury-plagued Scott Martin was on an indefinite hiatus from Notre Dame’s rotation, Mike Brey insisted that he was holding open auditions to fill the starting job. Senior Tom Knight apparently earned the spot in practice, and responded in a big way in the Fighting Irish’ 73-65 win over South Florida on Saturday. In 32 minutes, the 6’10″ forward grabbed seven rebounds and scored a career-high 17 points on 8-of-10 shooting. He’d only scored 24 points on the season prior to the USF game. The performance underscored the value that experience plays in Brey’s program: “[Knight’s] been around us for a while, so it’s nice. You lose a six-year senior and we put in another senior who’s been in our program.”
2. Many (myself included) dismissed Villanova’s upset victory over #5 Louisville last week as more symptomatic of a poor effort from the Cardinals than a turning point for the Wildcats. Then on Saturday, Jay Wright’s squad turned around and upset #3 Syracuse in overtime, 75-71, in a cumulative effort from “a long list of standouts.” Ryan Arcidiacono’s three sent it to overtime and Mouphtaou Yarou’s 13-point, 16-rebound double-double put his point guard in a position to tie it up. But the biggest key to Villanova sustaining its momentum may be the efficient scoring of 6’6″ sophomore guard Darrun Hilliard. After averaging 21.4% from the field and shooting 2-of-17 from beyond the arc in his first three Big East games, Hilliard is suddenly lighting up elite defenses, shooting 55.8% from the field and hitting 9-of-17 threes (53%) in these last four league games.
3. Rick Pitino is calling tonight’s Pittsburgh game a must-win. Panthers’ blog Cardiac Hill concedes that a fourth straight loss coupled with a lack of quality wins could understandably trigger panic, but also argues that a loss to Pitt wouldn’t spell doom for the Cardinals. Pitino likely agrees, but a dose of exaggerated urgency could fit the bill for a team that might have been too flippant about losing after falling to Syracuse.
4. Shabazz Napier willed UConn to a crucial win over Rutgers in Hartford over the weekend that moved the Huskies to .500 in conference play. Coach Kevin Ollie says the junior guard is healthy and “making the definite choice to be a leader.” Napier put forth the kind of efficiently prolific performance he had in the Huskies’ win over Notre Dame, scoring a team-high 19 points (6-of-13 shooting) to go with six assists and five steals. Most impressive was the fact that UConn finished +4 in rebounding margin, after being abused on the glass in their two previous games.
5. Marquette is quietly sitting alone at a half-game out of first place in the Big East after subduing Providence 81-71 in Milwaukee’s Bradley Center. The game wasn’t particularly close after Marquette opened it up with an early 13-2 run, and the only real source of basketball-related excitement came from a huge Vander Blue dunk over LaDontae Henton. Thankfully, an absurd spectacle sparked by a rogue bat with a preternatural affinity for the brightest space in the building made the game well worth the price of admission. Ed Cooley was not amused. At least we have this .gif for posterity.

Ed Cooley: not stopping in bat country (From @bubbaprog)

I. Renko is an RTC correspondent based in D.C. and the author of the weekly column, The Other 26. He filed this report after Saturday afternoon’s game between Louisville and Georgetown. Follow him on Twitter @IRenkoHoops.

“Some people panic, but we don’t panic at Louisville,” said Rick Pitino after his Louisville team lost its third straight game on Saturday, falling at Georgetown, 53-51. “We’re judged in March,” he said, adding that he was happy that the Cardinals “played their tails off tonight” and that what ails the team are “little things that are correctable ” For his part, Georgetown head coach John Thompson III wasn’t about to downgrade his opponent either after his team’s big win: “Let’s get this straight. [Louisville is] a helluva team. That’s one of the best teams in the country.”

No single factor explains the Cardinals’ slide since being ranked as the very best team in the country two weeks ago. After the loss to Syracuse, a terse and somewhat ill-tempered Pitino had no particular diagnosis, suggesting only that it was a good basketball game and Syracuse made the plays they needed to make. Against Villanova, Pitino pointed to poor free throw shooting (12-of-24), especially down the stretch, as the culprit. What were the difference-makers in the Georgetown game? Here are the three key factors that produced a Georgetown win:

• The Failure to Block Out and Aaron Bowen’s Acrobatic Tip-In — Pitino identified his team’s failure to block out as “the difference-maker.” Indeed, watching the game, you would not have guessed that Louisville was a strong defensive rebounding team and Georgetown a weak offensive rebounding team. But the Hoyas managed to score 13 second-chance points on 11 offensive rebounds. No offensive rebound was bigger than redshirt sophomore guard Aaron Bowen’s athletic putback to give the Hoyas a 52-50 lead with 3:36 remaining, a score that would prove to be the game-winning basket. “I’ve never seen anything like that,” said Bowen’s teammate Markel Starks. “When the shot went up, he just came out of nowhere… it was unbelievable.” It wasn’t the first time that Bowen’s aggressiveness on the glass paid off for the Hoyas. Late in the first half, after an 8-2 run by Louisville cut Georgetown’s lead to two, Bowen attacked the glass after a missed Starks jumper, and managed to knock the ball towards Nate Lubick, who converted a layup. Since the suspension of Greg Whittington, Bowen has found himself thrust into far more playing time than he’s ever had and on Saturday he made it pay off. Read the rest of this entry »

Brendon Mulvihill is an RTC contributor. You can find him @TheMulv on Twitter. See bottom of the post for the Official RTC Star System.

While this weekend’s slate of games doesn’t quite match last weekend’s, there are several conference match-ups that are vitally important in the Big Ten, ACC, and Mountain West. The theme of the weekend is “must win”. The action should be great, so don’t sleep on these games. Let’s get to the breakdowns!

#5 Louisville at Georgetown – 12:00 PM EST, Saturday on ESPN (****)

• Louisville is trying to avoid a three-game losing streak, as they head on the road to Georgetown. Another loss by the Cardinals and Rick Pitino may have to do some reevaluating or reshuffling. For Georgetown, a fourth loss in the Big East this early would certainly put them on the verge of irrelevance. This game is the first of three straight home games for the Hoyas before heading on the road to Rutgers. If they can string together some wins prior to their match-up against Marquette next month, the Hoyas can keep themselves in the thick of the Big East race. In Louisville’s two losses to Syracuse and Villanova, they have struggled against the length of both teams. They simply could not get good shots over the taller players from the Syracuse and Nova. They shot 46.6% eFG and 44.8% eFG against those two teams. Georgetown is another long team. In order for Louisville to avoid a three-game skid, they must figure out a way to hit shots. Creating turnovers without capitalizing on them will not get it done on the road. The Hoyas on the other hand still need to protect the ball and play at their pace. If they are turning the ball over, which they have been doing in conference play, and the pace speeds up, it will be a big problem for John Thompson III‘s squad.
  

  Can Russ Smith Get Louisville Back On Track? (Credit: Getty Images)

#10 Minnesota at Wisconsin – 2:00 PM EST, Saturday on BTN (****)

• Minnesota has lost three straight games while Wisconsin has lost two straight. Because the Big Ten is so tough this year, it’s too early to say that either team would be out of the race with another loss. However, it will make things much more difficult. The Gophers are struggling on defense in conference play and when they get aggressive, they are fouling. They are also turning the ball over at a rate of 24%. This isn’t the same team we saw in non-conference play. They have put themselves in a must win situation very early in Big Ten play. Similarly, Wisconsin is struggling after their big win against Indiana. They need to continue to play at their pace. If Minnesota can speed this game up with its great athletes, Wisconsin will have a tough time competing. Play close attention to Jared Berggren on the glass. He has to have a monster rebounding game in order for the Badgers to win. If Wisconsin can find a way to get to the line, they can make it four losses in a row for the Gophers.

Read the rest of this entry »

1. Just days removed from being the top ranked team in the nation, Louisville has fallen on tough times.  Back to back losses to Syracuse and Villanova has Rick Pitino noticeably upset about his team’s play.  After the Villanova loss, his venom was directed towards the Cardinals’ free throw shooting, at the expense of a pair of basketball stars:  “It was really a simple answer to why we lost.  Basically we were Dwight Howard or Shaquille O’Neal. We came down we had a six-point lead and it could have been eight. Could have kept coming down and extending it but our free throws were a turnover. Very simple answer for why we lost. Our foul shooting was despicable.” Despite the two losses, Louisville can still be considered the class of the conference, and we know that Pitino is coaching his team with March in mind.  That being said, with both Chane Behanan and Montrezl Harris shooting ~50% from the line, the Cardinals may have a tough time closing out savvy teams.
2. Moving forward, the game may say more about Villanova than it does Louisville.  The Wildcats have struggled to notch conference wins to this point, but they’ve been knocking on the door.  Against the Cardinals, they just decided to kick it down.  Where in previous games against Pitt and Providence, Villanova was unable to put away its opponent, against Louisville the Wildcats applied the pressure while playing from behind, and with an assist from the Cardinals’ poor free throw shooting, Nova finally stole one.  The Wildcats have a chance to make another big statement against Syracuse on Saturday morning.  Another strong performance would go a long way towards getting Villanova back into NCAA Tournament talks.
3. I wouldn’t have guessed Buzz Williams as the Big East coach to utilize long-running extended metaphors to describe his team from season to season, but here we are.  Marquette‘s a hard team to pin down.  They haven’t looked awfully impressive in any game this season.  It took overtime to beat Pittsburgh and UConn, they snuck by Georgetown in a classic Hoya 49-48 game, and they only topped Seton Hall by seven.  However, they only have one loss in league play, in overtime against Cincinnati, and the Golden Eagles find themselves in second place, 1.5 games behind Syracuse.  Some teams have played below expectations, others have surpassed them.  Marquette seems to be right where it should be, it just hasn’t been an easy path taken.
4. Scott Martin‘s six year Notre Dame career may be coming to a close.  The oft-banged up Irish captain has struggled to regain form after offseason ACL and meniscus repair, and has been shut down for the time being.  Mike Brey says that it’s all hands on deck to try to find a replacement for Martin: “But I think I’m going into it thinking, we’re looking at everybody in a gold (practice) shirt – Zach (Auguste), Austin (Burgett), (Garrick Sherman), Tom Knight. We’re going to do it today, we’re going to do it tomorrow, and we’re probably going to do it the first half Saturday to see, what do we have?”  Martin’s scoring has dipped a bit this season, but he’s a solid player who is especially dangerous with his .463 mark from three-point range.  More than anything, the Irish will miss Martin’s consistency, and the team needs it more now than ever.  Hopefully Martin is able to come back from this most recent issue.
5. UConn freshman Omar Calhoun was not only lucky enough to be blessed with tremendous skill on the court, but he also has two parents who have a unique perspective on what it takes to succeed off of it.  Calhoun’s father, Omar Sr., played at St. Francis College before leaving the game when Omar Jr. was born.  His mother, Semara Breland, was a star in high school on track to receive multiple scholarship offers before she left the game as a Junior.  Both stayed in school and received their college degrees while raising Omar and his sister Sierra, a good player in her own right, and that experience has been invaluable in guiding their kids to making good, informed choices with their basketball careers.
   

1. Earlier in the season, I thought that Notre Dame had as good a shot as any team in the conference to crash the Louisville-Syracuse party atop the standings.  The Irish looked impressive early in the year, but they have really struggled as of late, and some earlier wins like the one against Kentucky are quickly losing their luster.  The bottom fell out for Mike Brey’s team in their most recent game against Georgetown, when a usually anemic Hoya offense used an 18-0 run to take out the Irish in South Bend.  Notre Dame looks to stop the slide against a gritty USF squad on Saturday, and then takes on a quickly-improving Villanova team on January 30, before a game against DePaul.  All three games are winnable, but as we all know, there are no sure things in the Big East.
2. In Big East play, road teams are 22-20, and Rick Pitino is just fine with that.  Pitino believes that refereeing in the conference has gotten better for a number of reasons, including a resistance to pressure from the home crowd and the fact that refs are under increased scrutiny by the media if they make bad calls.  I’m sure there are other, less discussed factors at play here as well.  Refs will never be perfect, but I do think they are doing a good job this year, and hope that continues through tournament time.
3. Syracuse is coming off of two wins against ranked teams in three days, after dropping then-#1 Louisville at the Yum! Center and Cincinnati and the Carrier Dome, but Jim Boeheim isn’t happy with how his team has played, saying that the Orange should probably have gone 0-2 in those games.  In the Louisville game, Syracuse was bailed out by a white-hot Brandon Triche in the first half, who kept the game close, and were able to lock down the Cardinals on the defensive end in the last five minutes.  Cincinnati went into a similar offensive funk, and led by Michael Carter-Williams, the Orange were able to pull out another close win.  The positive is that Syracuse is learning how to win, even without the ineligible James Southerland whose status is completely up in the air.
4. Pittsburgh basketball generally thrives with aggressive, man-to-man defense, strong rebounding, and efficiency.  Guess what?  According to Jamie Dixon, not much has changed: “We‘re a low-turnover team. If we get more rebounds, we‘ll have far more possessions than our opponents. That, to me, is the key.”  After a rough 2011-12 campaign, Pitt looks poised to make a run at the NCAA Tournament once again, led by a conference-best scoring defense, strong turnover margin, and good rebounding.  Dixon has changed things up a bit, using some zone this season, as a number of teams have begun to do, but the general axioms of the Pitt program remain the same.
5. Anthony Collins is one of the better pure point guards in the conference, but in order for USF to start winning big games, he needs to assert himself more on the offensive end.  Collins plays with a pass-first mentality, but the Bulls’ offense has struggled to score, and Stan Heath believes that Collins needs to focus on scoring more when the rest of the team goes cold:  “I think Collins has to score the ball for us. I think he’s got a true point guard mentality: Get everybody else involved. But I think he understands if things aren’t working that way, boy, I better step my game up.”  Collins doesn’t have a great jump shot, but he is an absolute bull (no pun intended) in the lane, and is great at finishing around the rim.  USF has some decent shooters, so if Collins looks to attack more consistently, it can open things up for more kick-outs to open guys around the arc.

1. Rick Pitino was pretty upset after Louisville’s loss to Syracuse on Saturday, but the Cardinals players seem ready to move past the game and prepare for tonight’s showdown with Villanova: “This team is not devastated by the loss, I was devastated for them… They came back the next day. They were the same old group, it didn’t bother them one bit.” It makes sense. Louisville’s a veteran squad coming off of a Final Four run last season; they’ve been through the wars and have just about reached the peak of the college basketball mountain. A longer stretch with the #1 ranking would have been cool, but luckily for college basketball fans, it really doesn’t mean much come Tournament time.
2. As for Syracuse, the starting backcourt of Michael Carter-Williams and Brandon Triche has emerged as the key to the Orange’s success. Against Louisville, an 18-point first half outburst by Triche kept Syracuse in the game during an awful stretch by his young running mate, but it was MCW who made the clutch plays in the last five minutes to clinch the victory. In a second straight close win against Cincinnati, Carter-Williams was a steady presence throughout, finishing with 16 points and seven assists, and he and Triche again combined to make the game’s most crucial plays. Triche’s veteran presence and newfound consistency has really made him a nice counter-punch to Carter-Williams’ brilliant though frequently frenetic play.
3. Lenn Robbins’ has taken notice of the parity in the Big East this season, and contends that it is making for a great “final” season for the league as we know it. Following close games between Notre Dame and Rutgers, Syracuse and Louisville, and Marquette and Georgetown, Robbins spoke with a few different Big East coaches, and the resounding theme is that teams shouldn’t take any wins for granted: “‘You can’t blink in this league this year,’ Rutgers coach Mike Rice said, ‘or you’re going to lose two, three games in a row and you’re going to fall down in the standings.’’’ While the league seems to be breaking up into a few tiers, its not all that easy to define them yet (after Louisville and Syracuse at least), and with pretty much every team still involved and jockeying for position heading into the meat of the schedule.
4. Because UConn hasn’t had enough bad things happen to it yet this season, Shabazz Napier is currently dealing with a shoulder injury as the Huskies have dropped two straight games. Napier sustained the injury against Louisville, and although he played and ‘was 100-percent’ against Pittsburgh, according to Kevin Ollie, it was apparent to those who watched that Napier wasn’t himself.  While the UConn faithful can add this injury to the long list of excuses for poor play from the Huskies, Ollie isn’t having any of it: “We’re banned from the NCAA Tournament but we’re never banned from heart. We’re never banned from having determination. We’re never banned for excelling. We got a lot of things to play for, and we got the pride of UC on our chest. UConn is a special place and we’re never banned from that. We’re never banned from going out here and showing our family and our friends what we’re made out of.”
5. Pittsburgh’s Dante Taylor has never really lived up to expectations; the senior was a McDonald’s All-American in high school, but he has only started 20 total games in his four years with the Panthers. However, to his credit, he has stuck with the program and is currently a key contributor to a team that seems to have bounced back from a rough 2011-12 season. His stat lines may not blow many people away, but Taylor is able to make the key little plays that end up going a long way towards Pitt victories. In the Panthers’ recent win over UConn, Taylor was huge down the stretch: “In the final four minutes — after UConn had rallied to tie the score at 58 — he dished out the game‘s biggest assist, grabbed his fifth offensive rebound and hit two free throws and a basket to ensure Pitt‘s third victory in the past four outings.”