Determined to make believers out of people like me, the Pitt Panthers are doing quite the job. The most recent example of their surprisingly-strong play came in a 67-57 win at #15 UConn on Wednesday night, as the Panthers completed their first three-game road winning streak in school history, hard as that is to believe.Pitt led for the bulk of the game, only momentarily falling behind when the Huskies took a 49-48 lead with 9:40 left in the second half. The Panthers would quickly regain that lead and not give it back, closing out Jim Calhoun's team for the third straight time and moving to 4-0 in Big East play, with road wins over two ranked teams.
Pitt outrebounded UConn by a a 40-31 margin, including 26-13 in the second half. The Panthers continued their excellent free throw shooting, sinking 17 of 20 and six straight to close out the game. The Huskies shot just 46% from the charity stripe on 13 attempts.
Brad Wanamaker and Ashton Gibbs led Pitt with 19 points each, and Gilbert Brown added 11. Gary McGhee topped the Panthers with nine rebounds, while scoring eight points. Stanley Robinson led UConn with 19 points.
The only down side of Pitt's game was some spotty shooting from Gibbs and Jermaine Dixon, who made just nine of their 29 shots on the night. But now's not the time for nit-picking, because a win at UConn is a win at UConn.
The Panthers, who've won seven straight, are off until a noon matchup on Saturday with Louisville at the Pete. The Cardinals are 12-5 and 3-1 in the Big East, most recently dropping a 92-84 contest with #4 Villanova on Monday.
*By the way, Wednesday was a good night for former Panthers as well. Dejuan Blair had a career-high 28 points and 21 rebounds filling in for Tim Duncan in a 109-108 Spurs win over Oklahoma City on Wednesday. In his rookie season, Blair is averaging 6.5 points and 5.4 rebounds per game for San Antonio.
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3 comments:
Pitino's coming to town--hide the women!
In other hoops news, why is UNC still ranked in the top 15?
Oh yeah, that's right, because they're UNC.
The Panther continue to define "grit." Few things in Pittsburgh sports are more satisfying for me than beating UConn (and more recently, Gtown).
Although this might not mean much right now as the other local teams struggle, but I feel that Jamie Dixon is currently the best coach in the Burgh.
He alone deserves praise for making Gary McGhee into a serviceable center in the Big East conference.
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