Pitt 80, DePaul 50

After never trailing No. 3 Syracuse on Monday night, the Pitt men’s… Pitt 80, DePaul 50

After never trailing No. 3 Syracuse on Monday night, the Pitt men’s basketball team had to fight off a second-half surge from Big East bottom-feeder DePaul Saturday afternoon.

But with two timely second-half baskets from Lamar Patterson and a 36-13 run in the game’s final 12 minutes, No. 5 Pitt (19-1, 7-0 Big East) pulled away to avoid an upset, defeating the Blue Demons 80-50 at the Allstate Arena.

The Panthers couldn’t find their rhythm on offense to start the game and when DePaul freshman Cleveland Melvin converted an offensive board into a basket, he knotted the game at 10 with 12:11 left in the first half.

Melvin finished with a team-high 11 points. DePaul (6-13, 0-7 Big East) head coach Oliver Purnell said in a news release that the Panthers did a good job defending Melvin.

“Pittsburgh did an outstanding job of banging him,” he said. “They kept him squared up and would not give him a path to the basket. “

Pitt head coach Jamie Dixon praised Melvin in the same release, saying that he is a big-time recruit for the Blue Demons.

“We were able to keep some size and quickness on him and not let him beat us off the drive,” Dixon said. “We didn’t give him many offensive rebounds. He has a great knack of coming up with loose balls and putting them in quickly.”

Two Tony Freeland free throws put the Blue Demons ahead 14-12, but a five-minute, 17-4 run gave Pitt a 29-18 lead with 4:12 remaining in the opening half. Thanks to strong play from Brad Wanamaker — who scored all nine of his points before halftime — the Panthers went to the locker room leading 38-23.

“We battled to stay within striking distance,” Purnell said. “But then we took bad shots, committed turnovers and missed defensive assignments.”

The second half started like the opening half ended as Gilbert Brown hit an early 3-pointer that stretched Pitt’s lead to 18. Brown led all Panthers with 17 points.

But Purnell called timeout after Brown’s basket, and his Blue Demons swung momentum back in their favor, cutting the deficit to nine, 42-33, with 14:12 to go.

The Panthers missed seven straight shots after Brown’s 3-pointer, and the Blue Demons crept within seven points.

That was the closest DePaul would come.

Up 47-37, Wanamaker found Patterson for an open layup, and the freshman hit a 3-pointer less than a minute later to put the game out of DePaul’s reach. Wanamaker finished with nine assists.

“Pittsburgh is a great team, so deep and so physical,” Purnell said. “They’ve got a number of guys who can take over a game at stretches, particularly their perimeter players.”

A 36-13 Panthers run closed out the game and handed DePaul its 20th consecutive Big East loss.

The Panthers won the rebounding battle 48-33 and Gary McGhee had a career-high 15 boards.

The game marked a milestone for Ashton Gibbs as well. The guard scored his 1,000th career point in the second half. He finished with 13 points.

The Panthers return home on Monday to face No. 16 Notre Dame at 7 p.m.

Pitt 46, Connecticut 66

Twenty-five years is a long time — almost three decades. That’s how long it has been since the Pitt women’s basketball team managed to defeat now-No. 2 Connecticut on the the Huskies’ home court. The Panthers’ last victory was in 1986.

The losing streak continued Saturday night as Pitt (9-9, 1-4 Big East) suffered another loss to the Huskies (18-1, 7-0 Big East), this time by a score of 66-46 at the Gampel Pavillion in Storrs, Conn.

The Panthers had the difficult task of attempting to stop Maya Moore. Moore, widely called the nation’s top player in women’s basketball, averages 24 points and almost eight rebounds per game.

In Sunday night’s contest, Moore went off for 20 points before the end of the first half. She finished with 28 points, four assists and 11 rebounds on the night.

“Maya steps up in big games and every game is a big game in the Big East,” Pitt head coach Agnus Berenato said in a news release. “I love watching her play.”

Despite Moore’s dominance, the game was not a complete rout. The Panthers trailed at halftime by only six points. For the first 10 minutes of the second half, UConn had difficulty widening its lead by more than eight to 10 points.

“I am very proud of my team because I felt they really came out and competed,” Berenato said. “We went on that 5-minute stretch where we didn’t score and we couldn’t get to the line, couldn’t get a bucket and we gave up the and-ones and I thought [all of] that was critical.”

UConn head coach Geno Auriemma said the Panthers excelled at setting a slow pace.

“Pittsburgh did a good job of keeping the pace at a walk and not letting us get a lot of run outs,” he said. “They took advantage of a couple of defensive mistakes that we made.”

That’s when Connecticut’s Bria Hartley and Stefanie Dolson took over, finishing the game with 13 and 12 points, respectively.

The Panthers entered the game coming off of a tough 82-50 loss to No. 12 Notre Dame on Saturday. Senior guard Taneisha Harrison led the team against the Fighting Irish with 10 points and has tallied double-figure scoring in 10 straight games with 16 total on the year.

It was no surprise that Harrison led the Panthers against the Huskies too, as she shot 7-for-15 from the field and collected 16 points. Pitt forward Chelsea Cole also contributed 10 points to the team’s effort and Shayla Scott added eight.

Senior point guard Jania Sims, who was effectively contained by the UConn defense, scored only six points. She is 39 points away from joining the Pitt 1,000 point club.

“The game was much closer than the final score,” Sims said in a news release. “I think we played as a team offensively and defensively. We handled their press well and executed the half court sets.”

Pitt takes on the Syracuse Orange in another conference matchup. Tip-off is set for 7 p.m. Wednesday.