Basketball: Panthers pick up win, force game three

Even without injured senior star guard Ashton Gibbs, the Pitt men’s basketball team refused to… Even without injured senior star guard Ashton Gibbs, the Pitt men’s basketball team refused to let its season end on Wednesday night.

With a dramatic 57-53 victory over Washington State at the Petersen Events Center, the Panthers leveled the three-game College Basketball Invitational championship series with the Cougars at 1-1. The decisive third game will be played Friday night at the Petersen Events Center.

Pitt sophomore guard Lamar Patterson said Gibbs’ absence didn’t affect the Panthers’ mindset too much throughout the game.

“Our game plan didn’t really change that much,” Patterson said in a postgame press conference. “We knew what we wanted to do coming into the game and I felt like we did pretty much that.”

Following Monday night’s tough one-point defeat at Washington State and the cross-country flight back to Pittsburgh, the Panthers appeared to be the fresher team early on in the game.

A pair of 3-pointers from junior point guard Travon Woodall gave Pitt a 9-7 lead that the team would maintain until the game’s closing minutes.

Then, with time ticking down in the first half and the Cougars hoping to carry momentum into the break, senior Nasir Robinson found himself in a precarious situation. The Pitt forward was forced to hoist up a rare 3-pointer and, to the pleasant surprise of the crowd, swished the shot as the Panthers went into halftime with a 29-20 advantage.

“I just shot it and it went in,” Robinson said of the shot. “I was confident that it was going in.”

The 3-pointer was only the seventh in Robinson’s career, who scored 10 points and had four rebounds on Wednesday evening.

However, the Cougars quickly got back into the game at the beginning of the second half.

Washington State used a 10-4 run to cut the lead down to five and continued to chip away at the deficit throughout the second half before finally tying the game at 49-49 with less than two minutes remaining.

“I liked the way our guys competed, especially in the second half,” Washington State head coach Ken Bone said in a postgame press conference. “That’s something positive we can take into game three.”

On Pitt’s next offensive possession, Patterson regained the Panthers’ lead for good when his midrange jump shot restored his team’s advantage.

After an important defensive stop, sophomore forward Talib Zanna made two foul shots to seemingly seal Pitt’s victory. He led the Panthers in both scoring and rebounding, finishing with 14 points and eight boards.

However, the referees then called an intentional foul on Pitt guard John Johnson that infuriated the home crowd and allowed the Cougars to cut the deficit back to just two.

But Patterson ended all doubts by draining two pressure free throws in the game’s final seconds to complete the scoring.

After the game, Pitt head coach Jamie Dixon said he was pleased with the victory and believes playing in these close games is something that will pay off when Pitt’s returning players find themselves in tight battles in future seasons.

“We’re getting some good experience out of this and working on these situations will help us down the road,” he said.

Patterson agreed and said winning games that come down to the wire will give the Panthers confidence heading into next season.

“Some of our guys … weren’t as confident during the season, but they’re getting that confidence right now and that’s going to be perfect going into next year,” he said. “We plan on getting back [to the NCAA Tournament] next year.”

Now the two teams will meet one final time on Friday, with the victor ending their season as CBI champion.

“It’s a good opportunity for us,” Robinson said. “We wanted to play in this tournament and now we want to try and get this win Friday night.”