Pitt 76 – BC 62
Brandin Knight was trying to be diplomatic, but this just didn’t make sense to him. How is it that the best team in the conference gets just one player, himself, on the league’s first, second and third all-star teams?
“I think Miami has good players, but three players [on the teams] and [Pitt’s] Jaron Brown and Julius [Page] don’t make it?” Knight wondered. “I really can’t understand it.”
Perhaps a recount is in order.
Continuing a rise that is in full ascent, Pittsburgh is showing how good it is, at exactly the right time. The Panthers yesterday repaid in full a debt they owed Boston College with a 76-62 pounding of the Eagles in a Big East Conference quarterfinal game that featured last year’s two finalists.
“Last year they took away our dreams,” Knight said, “and today the situations were kind of reversed. We felt it was definitely our turn.”
The 22-point thrashing administered a year ago by BC ended a dramatic and unexpected run by the Panthers, who used that defeat to spark this season’s success, which includes a school-record 26 victories, a 26-4 record and an impending seed as high as No. 2 in the NCAA Tournament.
But only one player on the all-Big East teams.
“It was absolutely a slap in our face,” said Pittsburgh coach Ben Howland, whose team plays Miami in tonight’s semifinals and is in pursuit of its first-ever Big East Tournament title. “We have really good players.”
There can be no disputing that fact. Knight, the six-foot junior point guard from East Orange, N.J., is a gifted floor leader and he was overwhelming in outplaying his counterpart, Troy Bell of BC. Knight had 13 points and six assists while Bell, averaging 21.8 points, did not get his first basket until only 3:20 remained, with his club hopelessly behind. He finished with 10 low-impact points and sure looks worn down, having shot 6 of 29 in his two tournament games.
Fittingly, Bell clanged a dunk attempt off the back of the rim in the last few seconds.
“The only thing stopping me is me,” Bell said. “I don’t know exactly what’s going on, but it’s never the defense.”
It took a while for the Panthers to get in the flow, but once they did their superiority showed. Ryan Sidney’s quick eight points boosted BC to a 12-4 lead, but that didn’t last. The difference in the first half was a 15-0 run during a four-minute stretch that turned a 20-15 deficit into a 30-20 Pitt lead.
The most lethal scorer in the surge was Donatas Zavackas, a 6-8 junior from Lithuania, who pumped in eight poinhts. Knight capped the scoring spree when he fired up an off-balance trey with the shot clock all but expired. The Eagles (20-11) never got closer than 11 points in the second half.
Zavackas led the Panthers with 16 points while freshman Chevon Troutman came off the bench to add 15. Uka Agbai of Archbishop Molloy had a career-high 25 points (he was 13 of 13 from the foul line) for BC.
“I came to this program because I wanted to help us out,” Knight said, “and it’s a good feeling now we’ve made that transition from being a horrible team to being a good team.”