Men’s Basketball: Pitt holds on to conquer Connecticut

The Pitt men’s basketball team (15-4, 3-3 Big East) won arguably its biggest game of the season to-date on Saturday, with the Panthers beating the Connecticut Huskies (12-5, 2-3) 69-61 by again using a run in the home stretch to take control of the contest.

Just as in Wednesday’s game at Villanova — when Pitt outscored ’Nova 15-0 in the game’s final minutes — Pitt commandeered a 11-3 run to finish the game after UConn’s Ryan Boatright tied the contest at 58-all with 4:09 to play in the game.

In those last four-plus minutes, the Pitt defense prevented the Huskies from making another field goal, while Pitt went 6-for-6 from the free throw line to seal the victory at the Petersen Events Center.

Once again, the difference Saturday afternoon for head coach Jamie Dixon came down to rebounding. For the third time in conference play, Pitt out-rebounded its opponent and, as a result, picked up its third conference win.

“A great job rebounding by us, which is what we’ve been emphasizing. And we know when we don’t, we come up short,” Dixon said. “We took care of the ball, [and I] thought we moved the ball well in the first half.”

Overall, Pitt held a 11-rebound advantage against Connecticut, 38-27.

Dixon thought some defensive mixups and foul trouble contributed to his team blowing a 13-point halftime advantage.

“Second half, we didn’t do what we needed to do,” he said. “Zone didn’t work — it worked well in the first half. Obviously, it didn’t work as well to start the second half. We had some guys in foul trouble; we had to get through some minutes with that and it didn’t work to our advantage.”

Helping to counter UConn’s second-half run was the performance of Pitt’s second-unit, which contributed 20 points to the Panthers’ cause.

“I thought our bench was terrific, with Dante [Taylor] down the stretch,” Dixon said.

Leading the way off the bench with his energy was senior forward Dante Taylor, who scored six points and pulled in seven rebounds. On consecutive possessions in the final minutes, Taylor found freshman point guard James Robinson in the corner for a 3-pointer, knocked down a pair of clutch free throws and rattled home a 15-foot jumpshot.

“I’m just a guy that’s gonna come in and play,” Taylor said. “I try to be a motivator and positive on the floor.”

With Taylor’s points, Pitt pulled out to a comfortable 65-59 lead and coasted to the finish. In conjunction, junior guard Trey Zeigler followed up his breakout performance at Villanova with 23 quality minutes off the bench, scoring eight points and playing solid defense.

For the Huskies, Boatright put up a game-high 20 points albeit on 19 field-goal attempts. Alongside him, Omar Calhoun tallied 14 points of his own with a 5-for-11 shooting performance, making three 3-pointers.

Boatright did most of his damage in the second half, scoring 16 points highlighted by his and-one at the 4:10 mark in the second half to level the contest. From there, he hurt Pitt no longer as the Panthers changed up their scheme and kept UConn from penetrating at the degree the Huskies were able to throughout most of the second half.

“We made a couple adjustments guarding the ball screen at the end, and I thought that helped because they were hurting us,” Dixon said.

For Pitt, redshirt junior small forward Lamar Patterson led the way with a super-efficient 14 points, attaining his total with 4-for-9 shooting while making two of his three attempts from distance and notching five assists. Senior point guard Tray Woodall chipped in 13 points of his own alongside a game-high six assists, while Robinson added 12, making four free throws in the waning minutes of the game to help Pitt put the game away.

“We were running a lot from missing free throws,” Woodall said about practice this past week. The running paid off rather marginally overall, with Pitt shooting 65.2 percent from the the free throw line.

But Pitt’s free-throw shooting was highlighted by the team going 12-for-15 from the charity stripe in the second half, which provided a huge lift to the Panthers efforts to shut the door on the Huskies.

UConn head coach Kevin Ollie expressed disappointment in his team’s first-half performance, saying that the Huskies did not compile the kind of performance necessary to defeat Pitt on its home floor.

“Second half, our guys came out and responded the right way, got in the game, got it tied twice, but we couldn’t get a stop at the end,” Ollie said. “We have to play hard, we have to play for 40 minutes, and I thought we only played for 20. You can’t do that in the Big East.”

Ollie also addressed questions about guard Shabazz Napier, who suffered a shoulder injury against Louisville, but Ollie said Nappier was “100 percent” for Saturday’s game.

Boatright disagreed.

“Shabazz’s shoulder is hurt. As anyone could tell, he wasn’t himself,” Boatright said.

Napier expanded upon the comment, saying, “I couldn’t dribble with my left hand.”

Napier’s injury limited his offensive performance, and he converted only two of seven field goal attempts — two 3-pointers — and finished with just eight points, well below his 17.1 points-per-game average.

Coach Dixon will undoubtedly want his improving team to rebound well again on Tuesday night at Providence as the Panthers look to win their third consecutive Big East game.

“I seem to be the only one emphasizing that, or do it more than others. That’s where it lies — possessions,” Dixon said. “If we get more rebounds, we’ll have far more possessions than our opponents. That, to me, is the key.”