It might be a new season, but the end of the last one still doesn’t sit well with Pittsburgh’s Ashton Gibbs.
The senior guard and Seton Hall Prep product was named the Big East’s preseason player of the year at yesterday’s conference media day in Manhattan. But Gibbs admitted that the Panthers’ last-second 71-70 loss to Butler in the second round of the NCAA tournament haunted him long after the final buzzer had sounded.
“It was a tough game,” Gibbs said. “I think the toughest part about it was that they were in the national championship game, and we lost to them by a point. That was the toughest thing for me.” For years, Pittsburgh has entered the season among the country’s elite teams, only to find different, painful ways to come up short of its annual goal of reaching the Final Four each March. Gibbs said that goal remains in place, and the failure to make it there last year was part of the reason he chose to return for his senior year.
“It played a role, but so did wanting to get my degree and play with my seniors, and just win,” Gibbs said. “We should have a really good team, and that’s something [getting to the Final Four] that I definitely want to accomplish.”
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Connecticut was already expected to be one of the main contenders for the Big East title this season after Kemba Walker led the Huskies to the school’s third national championship under Jim Calhoun last March.
And that was before the Huskies landed arguably the nation’s best freshman, 6-foot-10 big man Andre Drummond, in late August.
“He dunks on a lot of people,” sophomore guard Jeremy Lamb said. “He can really get off the ground. He plays good post-defense, he’s long, he’s strong . . . he’s really good.”
The combination of Drummond, the Big East’s preseason freshman of the year, and preseason all-conference second-team selection Alex Oriakhi gives the Huskies an intimidating 1-2 combination inside that few, if any, programs in the nation can match up against.
“I think we can be a crazy combo,” Oriakhi said. “The fact that we can both pass the ball helps, and we’re two big, strong athletic guys. “He likes playing on the same team as me in practice, and we’re just trying to work together and know where each other is at, so we can get to work building chemistry early.”
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Like Drummond, Syracuse’s Fab Melo came into last season as a freshman with big expectations. Melo, a 7-foot center from Brazil, was tabbed as the preseason freshman of the year, but came nowhere close to justifying that ranking. He finished the season averaging 2.3 points and 1.9 rebounds per game.
But after that rough season, Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim is confident that fans of the Orange will see a new and improved Melo anchoring his patented 2-3 zone defense this season.
“He’s lost a significant amount of weight. I think he’ll be in better condition, and he’ll be a much improved player this season.
“It’s tough when you can’t get up-and-down [the court]. . . . You can’t be productive.”