Upsets take Pitt all the way to Big East title game

Two teams that ended their regular seasons with a thud — Pitt and Syracuse — hit their… Two teams that ended their regular seasons with a thud — Pitt and Syracuse — hit their respective strides in the opening rounds of last week’s Big East Tournament. Both pulled off key upsets to reach the championship game, a contest that went to the ninth-seeded Orange, 65-61.

In case you missed the games leading up to the championship game, here’s a quick look at the Panthers’ first three games beneath the lights of Madison Square Garden.

Pitt 61, Louisville 56

Louisville apparently misread the tip-off time, because in the first half they never showed up.

Pitt jumped to a 35-7 lead behind the blistering shooting of Carl Krauser. Krauser hit six of his 12 shots in the half for 13 points. He also grabbed six rebounds and added two steals in the first half. He finished the game with 19 points to lead all scorers.

As a team, the Panthers dominated the boards in the opening 20 minutes, out-rebounding Louisville 27-9. Of the 27, 11 came at the offensive end.

“We just got destroyed on the backboard and panicked a little bit and forced shots,” Louisville head coach Rick Pitino said. “We were just taken to the woodshed on the glass.”

The second half began much the same way, and Pitt’s lead swelled to 27 when Aaron Gray slammed home a pass from Krauser.

And then Louisville showed up.

Andre McGee hit a driving layup-and-one with 16:29 to play after Louisville had called a timeout. That sequence sparked a 22-5 run that brought the Cardinals within 10 points with just over five and a half minutes to go.

The Cardinals then made another run, this one a 16-6 stretch capped by Taquan Dean’s 3-pointer with 32 seconds left after Antonio Graves missed two free throws for the Panthers. However, Pitt hit four foul shots over the last 18 seconds to secure the game and escape what would have been the greatest comeback in Big East tournament history.

Pitt’s offense did everything they could to help the Cardinals. The Panthers didn’t make a field goal after Sam Young’s jumper with 13:40 to play.

Gray notched a double-double for the Panthers, dropping 14 points and grabbing 13 rebounds. Pitt also got five rebounds from Keith Benjamin, who made his first start of the season, replacing John DeGroat.

“Keith’s just been playing well and just doing a great job in practice,” head coach Jamie Dixon said of his prediction. “We saw something with Keith. He’s constantly working hard and doing a good job.”

Pitt 68, West Virginia 57

The Panthers awoke to bad news on Thursday when they found out starting forward Levon Kendall had back spasms that kept him from leaving the hotel. Dixon was forced to start Sam Young, making him the second new player in the starting lineup since the start of the tournament.

Pitt’s offensive woes continued into the first half of the quarterfinals, while West Virginia came out hot. Mike Gansey’s trey with 6:06 to play in the opening frame extended the Mountaineers’ advantage to a dozen at 22-10. The Panthers pulled themselves together to stay close the rest of the half and entered the break down only seven.

When they came back to the floor, they were a new team. After giving up a pair of free throws to Gansey, Pitt exploded. First Gray hit a layup. On the ensuing trip down the floor, Ramon plucked a Kevin Pittsnogle pass. The Panthers ended that possession with a big driving layup from Levance Fields and-one. In all, they put together a 15-4 run to tie the game with exactly 15 minutes to play.

From there, they traded leads until the 7:06 mark, when Joe Herber’s 3-pointer brought the Mountaineers even at 49. Pitt scored 19 of the game’s final 27 points, the last two of those coming on a Krauser feed to Gray that added an exclamation point to what might have been Pitt’s finest half of basketball to that point in the season.

Gray led the Panthers with 19 points and 15 rebounds for another double-double, while Sam Young tallied a double-double of his own with 14 points and 11 boards.

“Sam’s played well against WVU in the previous two games,” Dixon said. “He really got great passes from Aaron a couple of times. We’re really trying to emphasize to him how good he can be on the offensive boards.”

Krauser, Ramon and Fields each added 10 points for the Panthers.

Pitt 68, Villanova 54

The Panthers went up against the No. 2 team in the nation in Friday’s semifinal, but nobody passed that message along to their bench.

Antonio Graves scored a team-high 18 points on 7-of-12 shooting and Fields added 14 points of his own as Pitt’s reserves outscored their counterparts 38-4.

“We’re a deep team,” Graves said. “We play well together, and we share the ball, so that’s all that counts.”

Graves hit big shot after big shot for the Panthers. Afterwards, Villanova guard Kyle Lowry could only marvel at Graves’ display.

“He just got it going,” Lowry, one of the top defenders in the Big East, said. “He was getting good looks. Every good look he got, he hit it, knocked the shot down. Couldn’t do anything about it.”

The Wildcats jumped out to an early 9-2 lead, but the Panthers answered with a 16-3 run that put them ahead for good.

Villanova got as close as six on Randy Foye’s tip-in-and-one just over a minute into the second half and looked to get closer when they got two steals from Mike Nardi in the next minute.

However, they couldn’t finish on either possession, and with 17:32 to play, Fields hit a backbreaking 3 while being fouled, providing the Panthers with a huge burst of emotion and putting away Villanova for good.

Randy Foye singlehandedly kept Villanova in the game. The Big East Player of the Year scored 26 points and pulled in eight rebounds, both game highs. However, his supporting cast couldn’t step up enough to help him get the job done. The rest of the team could only score 28 points among them.

Part of the low output was because of the loss of senior leader Allan Ray. The guard was taken to the hospital after sustaining an eye injury early in the second half, depriving the Wildcats of a top scorer.

The Panthers won the battle on the glass, 45-27, led by Gray and Kendall with seven apiece.