Panthers put away Seminoles in first half

It wasn’t supposed to be this easy.

Florida State should have given Pitt a run for its… It wasn’t supposed to be this easy.

Florida State should have given Pitt a run for its money. The Seminoles should have shown the Panthers that they couldn’t warm up on small-conference teams and still punish a team that finished in the top half of the Atlantic Coast Conference last year.

Nope. It shouldn’t have been easy for Pitt.

But it was.

Pitt (6-0, 0-0 Big East) was lights out in the first half against the Seminoles (4-1, 0-0 ACC), shooting 69 percent from the floor and 6 of 11 from behind the arc, and cruised in the second half en route to an 88-66 victory in front of a sellout crowd at the Petersen Events Center Friday.

With the victory, Pitt won the Colonial Classic tournament, half hosted by both teams, with a 4-0 record. The Panthers’ three wins against Northeastern, Massachusetts and Oakland last weekend were also a part of the tourney.

The championship game was all but decided after just the first 20 minutes. After playing the Seminoles relatively even early on, something clicked and Jamie Dixon’s squad never looked back.

The Panthers put together an 18-0 run in the waning minutes of the first half and went in up 50-30. They shot an astounding 69 percent from the field compared to Florida State’s 39. They forced 10 Seminole turnovers and broke the early half-court pressure like it was nothing.

“In no way did I think we’d be able to get off to a lead like we did,” Dixon said. “We shot the ball well and we’re pretty hard to guard when we shoot the ball that well.”

The only first-half offense the Seminoles scrapped together was largely because of sophomore forward Uche Echifu’s three consecutive 3-pointers to start the game.

Early foul trouble sidelined Florida State’s leading scorer and All-America candidate Al Thornton, so FSU’s Toney Douglas did his best to pick up the slack with 15 points. Douglas finished with 23, leading the Seminoles, and Thornton finished with 16.

Even if the Seminoles had any chance at a comeback, the Panthers started the second half on a 23-9 run and led by 25 with a little more than 10 minutes to play. By the fourth-minute media timeout, many fans had seen enough and began filing out. Florida State head coach Leonard Hamilton may have known why.

“They kind of gave a clinic, I guess you might say, in ball movement, execution, shot selection. They created a lot of situations that seem to take a little bit of energy from our players,” Hamilton said. “This will be a good film to look at to evaluate to see how not to do things because they exposed a lot of our weaknesses.”

The Panthers did so by passing well and locking down on defense. Senior Antonio Graves attributed the quick start to the team’s stingy defense.

“We had the mindset to come out here and get stops,” Graves said. “A lot of people said this was a test for us, so we were pumped up from the start, and we wanted to make plays defensively, and early we got it done, so that’s what got us the big lead.”

The Panthers kept the big lead by continuing to make the extra pass, moving the ball about as well as Hamilton has ever seen.

“The team is so unselfish,” Hamilton said of Pitt. “It’s a coach’s dream to have a team that shares the ball as much as they do.”

Dixon gave post-game praise to junior Mike Cook, who led the Panthers with nine assists and is realizing just how much offense he can create by passing.

“He’s got point guard skills, and I’ve always thought his passing ability was the thing that could separate him,” Dixon said of Cook. “I don’t think he realized how good a passer he was, and now I think we’re seeing that.”

Cook added 15 points, second only to Graves’ 17. Ronald Ramon added 12 on 4-for-5 shooting from 3 to pace a night that belonged to Pitt’s guards. Aaron Gray was double-teamed most of the night, being held to a season-low nine points.

“They’re going to key on him — He’s like our Shaq,” Graves said, referring to the Miami Heat’s Shaquille O’Neal. “We have a great group of guards. All around, we’re very talented, we know how to play and you can’t double team one of us because that’s going to leave somebody open.

“That’s the thing about this team — we’re all good, and we can all have a big night.”

The game was the ninth meeting between Pitt and FSU. The Panthers now lead the series 8-1 and have won the last five games.

Heading into Friday, the Panthers were ranked No. 3 in the Associated Press poll and No. 4 in the ESPN/USA Today Coaches poll — both the team’s highest rankings in each poll since February 2004.

The convincing victory gives Pitt a chance to move up in both polls, after North Carolina and Florida — two teams ranked higher than the Panthers in each poll — both lost their games over the weekend.