Posts tagged ‘Jamie Dixon’

NEW YORK — On the last rebound of the game in which the contest’s result was still in doubt, two bench players determined the outcome.

With 1:30 left in overtime of Pittsburgh’s 76-69 win over Louisville in the Big East Tournament on Thursday, the Cardinals trailed by four. Louisville’s Andre McGee attempted a wide-open 3-pointer that went long. Two of the game’s most important players — both reserves — were in on the rebound. Louisville’s Earl Clark got it, but the Panthers’ Gilbert Brown stripped him and recovered the ball.

Seconds later, Levance Fields got the roll on a tear-dropper that gave Pitt a six-point lead with 1:08 to play, and the Panthers were on their way to eliminating Louisville from its third straight Big East Tournament. And while stars like Fields and Sam Young will grab most of the headlines, reserves like Clark and Brown would form the character of the event.

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NEW YORK — Last October, at Big East preseason media day in Madison Square Garden, Pittsburgh’s players wanted to tell anyone who would listen that a Pittsburgh-metro prospect named DeJuan Blair was — all due respect to Syracuse’s Jonny Flynn and Donte’ Greene — as good as, or better, than any freshman in the conference.

The confidence Blair’s teammates showed in the 6-foot-8 big man was well-founded. Blair and Flynn shared conference Freshman of the Year honors this week. But to see the young man play in Pittsburgh’s 70-64 win over Cincinnati on Wednesday was to wonder whether this long season has taken a toll on him.

Blair’s game is built on both an unyielding energy and an uncommon on-court intelligence that allowed him to be among the conference’s leaders in both steals and blocked shots. But that energy appears to be on the wane. In recent games at Syracuse and West Virginia, he was in and out of the lineup and combined to grab just nine total rebounds — this for a player who’s averaged 9.5 per game this season.

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