Men’s Basketball: Poor free-throw shooting costs Pitt in dramatic OT loss

For a moment on Saturday afternoon, Pitt basketball felt normal.

Normal, meaning that the game made little sense and the opposition held Pitt down for 39 minutes.

But Pitt still had a chance to win in the waning moments of the contest, after Marquette led Pitt for the previous 37 minutes of game time.

With 1.7 seconds on the clock and Pitt trailing 57-54, Lamar Patterson caught an inbounds pass from James Robinson just in front of the “P” in the center-court Pitt logo and launched a deep 3-pointer.

Patterson’s shot hit no part of the rim, and splashed through to the bottom of the net as the crowd at the Petersen Events Center erupted in cheers.

Unfortunately for Pitt, the overtime period held no excitement for Panther fans as Marquette (12-3, 3-0 Big East) scored 17 points in five minutes to take a 74-67 victory over the Panthers (13-4, 1-3) back to Milwaukee.

The Golden Eagles knocked down 13 of 16 free throws in the extra period.

Marquette’s 13 successful free-throw attempts in overtime coincidentally matched the number the Panthers hit through the duration of the game.

The Panthers shot 13-for-26 from the charity stripe, a 50 percent mark that will long linger as one of the reasons Pitt dropped its second consecutive Big East home game.

“If we would have made half of our [missed free throws], I’m sure we would’ve won the game,” Patterson said, who finished up tied for the game-high point total with 22 — also a career high — and knocked down a career-high six 3-pointers.

Also of misfortune for Pitt was a collision that occurred early in the first half, which resulted in senior point guard Tray Woodall crashing to the floor holding his eye. After being taken to the locker room, medical staff diagnosed Woodall with a concussion, thus removing him from the rest of the game and for a certain period of time afterward in order to go through the process set in place for concussions, head coach Jamie Dixon said after the game.

Dixon’s Marquette counterpart, Buzz Williams, believed Woodall’s exit from the game changed a lot of what Pitt wanted to do Saturday.

“I think losing Woodall changed the complexion of that team,” Marquette’s head coach said.

With Woodall out, the prime responsibility to run the offense fell on the shoulders of freshman point guard James Robinson. And against the Golden Eagles’ zone defense, Pitt’s only weapon proved to be the 3-point shooting of Lamar Patterson.

“They had a good defensive scheme tonight,” Robinson said. “I think we could have executed our plays a little bit better, been a little bit more crisp on our execution. We just didn’t get it done.”

Robinson was one of the other two players to score in double-figures, with 12 points on 4-for-11 shooting. Redshirt freshman forward Durand Johnson scored 10 points himself off the bench, but in an inefficient manner akin to Robinson as Johnson finished 3-for-10 from the field.

Overall, Pitt’s offense finished the day under the 40 percent rate — usually a benchmark for a decent shooting day — at 39.7 percent, ending up 23-for-58 from the field. Meanwhile, Marquette made the same number of shots, but on 10 less opportunities, resulting in an excellent clip of 47.9 percent shooting.

Another contributing factor to Pitt’s loss Saturday — and a re-occurring theme in Pitt’s four losses so far — is the inability to make the necessary plays at their respective necessary times, as Patterson described.

“We just gotta get down and make sure that when we need a stop, we get a stop. When we need rebounds, we gotta make sure we get the rebounds,” Patterson said. “Whenever we needed a big play, we just didn’t come up with it.”

Following the game, Dixon indicated that the Panthers underperformed in several areas.

“Rebounding stands out to me, I know people will point to the free throws,” Dixon said. “I think you can point out a lot of things.”

But Coach Dixon did admit his team’s 13 missed foul shots probably altered the outcome of the game.

“When you don’t make free throws and not make layups, you’re not going to get the success you want,” Dixon said. “Obviously you want to make free throws, obviously we want to go inside. We got fouled, we got good shots, good opportunities. We didn’t get makes from the free-throw line.”

For the third time in conference play, Pitt was out-rebounded by its opposition. Marquette finished the game with a plus-five advantage on the glass, pulling in 38 rebounds to Pitt’s 33. Dixon noted also that after offensive rebounds, Pitt didn’t finish put-back attempts, which you “have to do against the zone.”

“We’ve lost three games in the league and got out-rebounded in all three of them, so that shows,” Dixon said. “I point to the rebounding. It usually comes down to that for me.”

Defensively, Dixon also cited that the Panthers did a poor job of keeping the Golden Eagles “in front,”and Marquette’s 61-percent rate from the field in the first half was a direct derivative of the inability to do so.

Now the Panthers need to find a way to start winning games and “getting it done” as nearly every Panther said after the game, beginning with Pitt’s next game at Villanova on Wednesday at 7 p.m.

For Dixon, it will start with two specific aspects of his team’s game.

“We need to grow up quickly, and figure out the way to get it done,” Dixon said. “I think we know that the rebounding and the finishing plays will be the things we emphasize the most.”