Men shake upset bid, hold on to beat Buffalo, 70-67

AMHERST, N.Y. — Aaron Gray scored the first basket of Saturday’s game at Buffalo to give… AMHERST, N.Y. — Aaron Gray scored the first basket of Saturday’s game at Buffalo to give Pitt the early lead.

The Panthers would not get that lead back, however, until a little more than five minutes remaining in the game when Levance Fields stole the ball off a Greg Gamble pass.

Fields then took the ball on a fast break for an easy layup to give the Panthers a one-point edge at 59-58, their first lead since the 2-0 score.

With the lead in hand, Pitt held on and staged off the Bulls’ upset bid, winning 70-67 in front of a standing-room only sellout of 6,350 in Alumni Arena.

“It was a great atmosphere,” head coach Jamie Dixon said. “They were exactly what we thought [they] would be. We knew we’d be in a tough game, we knew they would come out fired up and ready to go.”

The game started off with Pitt struggling from the field as it only made two of six field goal attempts. On the other side of the court, Buffalo could not miss early in the game, as they made 57.1 percent of their fields goals.

After Buffalo’s Parnell Smith tied the game up at two with a jump shot, Antonio Graves missed a shot, allowing Buffalo the opportunity to take the lead, which it did moments later on a shot by Yassin Idbihi.

The Bulls came out running on all cylinders. Idbihi got a one-and-one as he was fouled by Gray on a made layup. He converted on the foul shot to put the Panthers down by five.

Just over two minutes later, Keith Benjamin missed a 3-pointer, and 20 seconds later, Bulls point guard Eric Moore hit a 3 to put Pitt down by nine points early.

Another 3-pointer by Eric Moore put Buffalo up by 11, which would end up being its largest lead of the game. Although Pitt kept the Bulls’ lead at 11 or less for the rest of the game, it struggled to get it close and was reluctant to go into the locker room at halftime with a seven-point deficit.

“We knew they would make some tough shots, and they did,” Dixon said. “They made a couple hook shots, they made some great plays, one ball went straight up in the air and went in the basket.”

The Panthers shot 55.6 percent in the first half from the field, despite being down by halftime, which was slightly less than Buffalo’s 56.7 percent performance.

“We did a great job of keeping our composure,” Gray said. “We did a great job of staying together in timeouts.”

The Panthers, however, made adjustments at halftime to shore up their defense. Dixon challenged the team to step up its physical style on defense, and Fields thought the team responded well.

“First half we just had mental breakdowns,” Fields stated. “Second half we just played a little more aggressive Pitt defense, bump them a little bit, try to get in passing lanes.”

And he did just that. Fields got in the passing lane of Gamble’s attempt to get the ball to their sure-handed point guard Eric Moore and took the ball the rest of the way to give the Panthers a 59-58 lead.

Dixon added, “We needed a basket, it seemed like they were getting the loose balls and the put backs.”

Fields ended the night with 11 points on 5-for-7 shooting and five assists. His counterpart was equally as key for Buffalo’s attempt to ruin the Panthers’ perfect season, as Moore contributed 14 points and four assists, but most importantly no turnovers while playing the entire 40 minutes.

“Moore played unbelievable,” Dixon said of the point guard’s play. “His stat line, four assists, no turnovers, four of seven from three.”

With the Panthers’ victory on Saturday, as well as the women’s basketball team’s victory at Ohio, Pitt becomes one of two schools in Division I-A basketball who have both undefeated men’s and women’s programs. The other team is Big East rival UConn.

Pitt will put its undefeated start to the test Saturday when it resumes play on the road against 11th-ranked Wisconsin — Pitt’s second in a string of three challenging away games with the third coming against Oklahoma State on Dec. 21.

When Dixon was asked if he would continue to schedule these tough road games, he smiled and humorously replied, “I’ll get back to you on that one.”