Men’s Basketball: After slow start, Pitt dominates City Game

During a media timeout in the first half of Wednesday night’s City Game, a Pitt student correctly answered a trivia question asking in what year the first men’s basketball game between Pittsburgh’s two biggest schools was played.

The answer was 1932, and that game, played at the Pitt Pavilion 80 years ago, finished in favor of Duquesne, 28-21.

Early on at the Consol Energy Center Wednesday, it appeared the 2012 edition of the historic match-up might be almost as low-scoring as that inaugural game. But the Panthers (8-1) eventually found their scoring touch and pulled away to win their 12th straight City Game over Duquesne, 66-45.

The early stages of the game were plagued by missed shots, fouls and turnovers, as neither the Panthers nor the Dukes could establish an offensive flow.

The teams couldn’t even take advantage of their free throws, shooting a combined 5-for-10 from the charity stripe.

With points hard to come by, the difference in the first half was Pitt’s Steven Adams and Tray Woodall. Adams set a career high in rebounds with 14, 11 of which were in the first half alone, and Woodall’s same number of points gave the Panthers a 29-17 lead after a sloppy first period.

Head coach Jamie Dixon spoke about Adams’ improved performance.

“We worked on some things with rebounding,” Dixon said. “He’s a great kid, and he has gotten better. It’s fun to have him on the team.”

The freshman ended the game just shy of a double-double, tallying eight points and 14 rebounds.

Offensively, Pitt redshirt junior forward Lamar Patterson said that when his teammates saw that Woodall was feeling confident with his shot, they knew he needed to have the ball.

“We like to feed the hot hand, and he definitely had it today,” Patterson said of Woodall.

Woodall, who finished with a game-high 24 points, said that it was important to him and fellow senior Dante Taylor to win against Duquesne in their final game against Pitt’s city foe.

“This is my last go-around,” Woodall said. “I definitely didn’t want to go out as a senior losing to Duquesne.”

In the second half, Duquesne used a small spurt to cut the deficit to 11 points, but the Dukes never sustained enough consistent offense to suggest that they would complete a comeback.

With a 41-30 lead, Pitt effectively ended the game with a 17-9 run that gave the Panthers a 19-point lead.

After struggling with rebounding and defense in recent games, the Panthers pleased Dixon by holding the Dukes to just 45 points on 31.6 percent shooting. Pitt also dominated the glass as a team, winning the rebounding margin 49-33.

“They came out and hit a 3-pointer on the first play, and the last two days of emphasizing guard, that was thrown out the window,” Dixon said. “But we ended up doing a good job. I thought we really defended well. We rebounded well. The numbers indicated that.”

Despite being visibly frustrated with his team’s performance, first-year Duquesne head coach Jim Ferry said that the City Game needs to continue.

“As long as I’m here, this game will be played,” Ferry said. “With everything else going on with schools flip-flopping conferences, this game has to be played.”

Dixon agreed.

“I think we had a great crowd for a middle-of-the-week game,” he said, noting the announced attendance of 13,089. “[This game] is important to us. It’s important to them.”

The Panthers now lead the all-time series with the Dukes 50-31.

Looking for its fifth consecutive victory this season, Pitt will return to its actual home to face North Florida at 7 p.m. Saturday at the Petersen Events Center.