Men’s Basketball: Oakland has size advantage over Pitt

The Pitt men’s basketball team calls Oakland home, but just for today, Oakland will be… The Pitt men’s basketball team calls Oakland home, but just for today, Oakland will be its adversary.The Panthers begin the NCAA Tournament Friday afternoon against a Summit League opponent with a familiar name, as No. 3-seed Pitt (24-8, 13-5 Big East) takes on the No. 14-seed Oakland Golden Grizzlies (26-8, 17-1 Summit). The game tips off at 2:45 p.m. in Milwaukee, W.I.

Oakland earned an automatic bid into the tournament by winning its conference tournament last week. Derick Nelson scored 36 points for the Golden Grizzlies in their championship-game win over Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis 76-64.

According to junior guard Brad Wanamaker, every Panther will chip in to try and shut down the dynamic forward Nelson.

“All of us will get a chance to guard him,” Wanamaker said. “We just got to play good solid defense on him and not give him any angles to score.”

One advantage Oakland has on Pitt is its size. Nelson stands 6-foot-5, and the Golden Grizzlies feature 6-foot-11 center Keith Benson, who averages 17 points and 10.5 rebounds. The Golden Grizzlies lead the Summit League in rebounding.

“I know their program because we played them a couple of years ago,” Pitt coach Jamie Dixon said on Selection Sunday. “They’re bigger this year: more size, bigger bodies.”

The Panthers beat Oakland 66-55 in 2006.

While Oakland enters Thursday’s game on a high note, Pitt is coming off a disappointing loss to Notre Dame (50-45) in the Big East tournament quarterfinals.

Dixon isn’t buying too much into claims that his team’s offense is slumping.

“It’s a week later. Pretty much everybody’s lost,” he said. “It’s what we do this week that is more important than what happened last week.”

Wanamaker sees the NCAA Tournament as a chance for the Panthers to redeem themselves.

“Losing in the first [game] of the Big East tournament always puts a bad taste in your mouth,” Wanamaker said. “It put a bad taste in our mouth last year, too. We just got to come out and try to make a run like last year, or maybe better.”

No Panther remains from the 2006 win over the Golden Grizzlies, but one member of the team has played them before. Chase Adams transferred to Pitt from former Summit League member Centenary College, facing Oakland six times in his three seasons with the Cyclones.

“Chase told us about them,” Wanamaker said. “He told us they’re a very good team.”

Dixon, though, believes game film will help Pitt far more than Adams will.

“From film we can probably get a good idea more so. [Adams] hasn’t seen them play in a year,” Dixon said. “Often times these teams that win their conferences and win their tournaments, they’re completely different teams the next year.”

The Golden Grizzlies played a challenging out-of-conference schedule, traveling to Kansas, Michigan State and Syracuse, which were all top-15 teams when playing Oakland. Though Oakland lost the three games by an average 31 points, Wanamaker said Pitt’s opponent can’t be taken lightly.

“They’ve played some pretty good teams,” Wanamaker said. “They hung around for the most part.”

In addition, Pitt hasn’t played in eight days and has played just three times in March. Wanamaker said his teammates will have to prepare themselves mentally for Friday.

“Some of us may walk around and see what [Milwaukee] is like,” he said. “But mainly we just got to get out there and get mentally focused for the game.” If the Panthers don’t focus, Oakland could upset them, and Wanamaker admitted the thought of being upset always lingers.

“You worry about it,” he said. “That’s something that’s always in the back of your mind, worrying about upsets, but we just go out and play our game.”

If Pitt beats the Golden Grizzlies, it will face the winner of No. 6-seed Xavier versus No. 11-seed Minnesota, but the Panthers are trying not to think ahead.

“We haven’t been worrying about them two guys yet,” Wanamaker said. “After we play Friday, then we’ll worry about Minnesota or Xavier.”