Pittsburgh out-muscled and out-hustled Connecticut last night in a big road victory at UCONN. Pitt's 6-10 center DeJuan Blair faced off against UCONN's 7-3 Hasheem Thabeet, who is the best shot blocker in the country and has been an intimidating force all season.
When watching film on Thabeet, Blair noticed that he could take advantage of things that others were not willing to do against the intimidating presence of Thabeet. The result? A 22 point, 23 rebound performance that was one of the best this year:
He took time this past week to watch Connecticut on tape. Blair witnessed time and again how teams weren't going into Thabeet's chest, trying to knock him off balance.
"I did a little research and if you go against a shot-blocker, you've got to body him up and get him off balance so he can't jump,'' Blair said. "The only time he blocked my shot I was fading away and I got the ball right back and went right into his chest and got the and-one.''
Blair said he saw that Thabeet also will give opposing players room, and that's when he decided to go right at him, body him up and go "power, power, power and jump and use the rim, too.''
