Men’s Basketball: Panthers prepare for last exhibition game

The Pitt men’s basketball team will face one of the most successful programs in Division II… The Pitt men’s basketball team will face one of the most successful programs in Division II basketball at 7 p.m. tonight.

The Kentucky Wesleyan Panthers come to the Petersen Events Center ranked No. 15 in the country by the National Association of Basketball Coaches and No. 19 by Basketball Times.

Pitt’s second and last exhibition opponent has won eight Division II national championships, the most recent in 2001, and should provide a tougher challenge for Pitt than Division III La Roche College.

The Panthers defeated the Redhawks 101-33 in Pitt’s first exhibition game this season.

Kentucky Wesleyan already gave one Division I program a scare this season, falling to South Carolina 69-59 on Nov. 3. Kentucky Wesleyan’s Panthers went into the break trailing by just one point, 33-32.

The Gamecocks eventually pulled away, outscoring Kentucky Wesleyan 36-27 in the second half.

“I thought the first half and going into the second we were winning, or at least had a chance of winning this game,” Kentucky Wesleyan head coach Todd Lee said in a postgame press conference. “They hung in there and did a good job of coming back and we just had a bad five, six-minute stretch at the end of the first, start of the second half.”

Kentucky Wesleyan returns three starters this season: senior center Anthony Young, senior guard Cardell McFarland and senior forward Marseilles Stewart.

Last season, Young and McFarland were named to the All-Great Lakes Valley Conference team, and Young is a preseason All-American selection.

Young led the team with 12 points and eight rebounds in its game against South Carolina. Last season, he averaged 19.4 points and 8.4 rebounds per game.

McFarland averaged 18 points a game, while Stewart put up 9.6 points per game.

While Kentucky Wesleyan has been historically successful at the Division II level, the visiting Panthers shouldn’t pose too much of a challenge for Pitt, which will likely continue to spread minutes around.

“We played a lot of guys,” head coach Jamie Dixon said after the game against La Roche. “Ashton [Gibbs] only played 20 and Travon [Woodall] 17. We really balanced it out.”

Pitt’s 68-point victory over La Roche was the Panthers’ largest ever in an exhibition game. The big men stepped up in the game against the Redhawks, as freshman Khem Birch led the team with 16 points and freshman Malcolm Gilbert got the crowd going with three huge blocks. “I think it got the momentum moving a little bit,” Gilbert said of the blocks. “It discouraged the offense and got the team hyped.”

Pitt’s frontcourt should be able to dominate again: At 6-foot-7, Young is undersized as a center.

Pitt’s shortest big man — 6-foot-5 senior Nasir Robinson is sitting out with a knee injury — is 6-foot-9.

The exhibition game will serve as another opportunity for Birch to continue his transition to center, the position where Pitt needs him the most this season. After the win over La Roche, Birch acknowledged the mental difference between playing power forward and playing center.

“I find it harder to play the five,” Birch said. “It’s more physical. Just the way the play is, the five is way harder to play than the four.” The match-up with Kentucky Wesleyan is Pitt’s last exhibition game before the season opener against Albany on Nov. 11 at the Petersen Events Center. Tipoff is set for 7:00 p.m.