Lamar Patterson has been Pitt's best player this season - there's really been no disputing that. Others have stepped forward to have big games, but for the most part, Patterson is Pitt's go to guy if there is such a thing.
Patterson proved that again with a monster effort against Cal Poly on Saturday. He had a career-high 30 points, shot 11-15 from the field, including 4-7 from three-point range. It's a good thing Pitt has him because they're often susceptible to some scoring droughts.
But Patterson hasn't been all positive. A closer look at his last five games shows some inconsistency. Before his big game this weekend, like the rest of the team, he struggled against Cincinnati, only getting off five shots in the box score. He was far more active than that as he had nine free throw attempts, but he came up short at the end of the game, missing two of them before the Bearcats scored the winning bucket.
Before that, he had a strong game against Youngstown State with 18 points, but disappeared again against Loyola Marymount, with only ten points on 3-8 shooting. He also had three turnovers in that game.
Another thing I'd like to see more out of Patterson is work on the boards. Recently, he's been well below his season average of 4.6 per game as over the past four games, Patterson's rebounding has dipped to only 2.7 per contest. Patterson also started out slow. In the team's first games, he averaged only nine points while shooting 5-17 from the field and averaging three turnovers a game.
He's been more on than off this year and Patterson has been Pitt's biggest asset. But heading into the ACC portion of the schedule, Pitt is going to need him to be a consistent force.
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