Pitt, DeGroat demolish BC

CHESTNUT HILL, Mass. — Playing against John DeGroat is frustrating — just ask Pitt point… CHESTNUT HILL, Mass. — Playing against John DeGroat is frustrating — just ask Pitt point guard Carl Krauser.

“Man, he’s like a real good basketball player-wrestler out there,” Krauser said of playing against his teammate in practice.

Then ask the Boston College Eagles.

Turning in a career night, DeGroat scored 10 points and grabbed seven rebounds, five of them offensive, to lead Pitt to a 72-50 blowout victory over No. 5 Boston College last night. The loss was the first at home for the Eagles this season and prevented them from winning the Big East regular season title outright.

“John is one of those guys who plays hard,” Krauser said. “He crashes the boards, and he’s a team player.”

“The best thing about John is his attitude,” head coach Jamie Dixon said. “He has a great work ethic, and he’s gotten a lot better as the season’s gone on. I’m happy for him because of his attitude.”

A 6-foot-6-inch junior college transfer who averages 1.7 points and 1.4 rebounds a contest, DeGroat possesses exceptional quickness, given his size. He scored all of his points on offensive putbacks for the Panthers (19-7 overall, 9-5 Big East), one in particular that ignited his teammates.

After missing a jumper, he followed up an Aaron Gray miss with an emphatic put-back dunk that left the crowd of 8,606 stunned.

“Oh yeah, I haven’t had one of those in a long time,” he said with a big smile. “It definitely helped juice up my teammates.”

DeGroat’s strong play inside fueled a 49-27 rebounding advantage for the Panthers, who also held a 40-18 edge in points in the paint. Pitt also pulled down 19 offensive rebounds, leading to 19 second-chance points to steadily pull away from a cold-shooting Boston College team, who hit only 19 of its 61 shots.

Three times in the second half, DeGroat followed up missed shots by Antonio Graves with buckets, including one that epitomizes DeGroat’s style of play.

With the shot clock winding down, Graves hurled up a long 3-pointer, which fell short of the rim. The ball found its way into the hands of DeGroat, who softly laid it in on the other side of the backboard as the shot clock expired and the crowd groaned.

“That’s just me,” he said with a laugh, later adding he has “made a living” doing things like that.

That bucket gave Pitt a comfortable 45-32 lead, one BC would never be able to trim to less than nine. Craig Smith led the Eagles (23-2, 12-3) with 22 points, but not without shooting woes of his own. He hit only eight of his 20 field goal attempts and threw up five air balls, one of which came at the free-throw line.

Chevon Troutman added 11 points and seven rebounds of his own, while Chris Taft scored 12 and pulled down eight boards to help the Panthers end their three-game losing streak. Graves led all Panthers with 13 points, including two back-breaking 3-pointers that pushed a 12-point game to a 67-49 margin with 3:03 remaining.

Pitt’s strong offensive play took a while to get going, however.

Early on, Pitt played like a team 11th in the Big East in turnover margin, losing the ball more than three times in the opening four minutes, two coming from Taft. At one point, the sophomore threw the ball right into the arms of an Eagle defender, translating into a fast-break lay-in at the other end.

That was one of few easy buckets though, as points were at a premium in the first half, but Krauser did his best to make Pitt’s points flashy. After rebounding a Smith miss, Troutman, Krauser and Levon Kendall pushed the ball up the floor. Krauser faked a hand-off to Troutman and rifled the ball through his legs while in mid-air, to a wide-open Kendall for an easy dunk to tie the score at nine.

The Eagles’ shooting percentage dropped like the temperature outside the Silvio O. Conte Forum, as they missed 21 of their first 27 shots. While Pitt’s three-of-11 start wasn’t much better, the Panthers made three of their next four to spark a 13-1 run and reached 18-10 lead with just more than five minutes left in the first half.

Stretched over that run was a nine-minute BC field-goal drought, four turnovers and three shots blocked included. Smith scored 11 straight Eagle points to help the home team climb to within 28-25 at intermission, but too much DeGroat in the second half spelled doom for the Eagles in their last Big East home game.

“[John’s performance] didn’t surprise me, he’s been playing like that in practice all season,” Taft said. “He’s a work-aholic, and he makes everyone guarding him pick up their game in practice.”

“Hard work pays off. The opportunity came, and I just decided to take it,” DeGroat said. “Every day I am getting better. I just had the opportunity, and I had to take it. The team needed me, [and] I stepped up.”