Pacific shoots its way past Panthers

BOISE, Idaho — Junior point guard Carl Krauser and sophomore forward Chris Taft slowly left… BOISE, Idaho — Junior point guard Carl Krauser and sophomore forward Chris Taft slowly left the floor, maybe for the last time in a Pitt uniform, looking to the rafters in disbelief.

“I still can’t believe we just lost,” Taft said following Pitt’s 79-71 defeat by the University of the Pacific in the first round of the NCAA Tournament.

Krauser, who scored 27 points, echoed Taft’s disappointment.

“I’ve never had this feeling since I’ve been here at Pitt,” he said, dejectedly. “I’m just kind of frustrated right now. Once you lose in the tournament, everyone forgets about you.”

Pitt may be forgotten, but the manner in which the Panthers were sent packing will remain fresh in their minds — especially in Krauser’s.

With 8:16 left in the game, Krauser stood at the free throw line with a chance to cut the once 17-point Tiger lead to five, but he missed the front end of the one-and-one opportunity.

Pacific’s Christian Maraker rebounded the errant free throw and Johnny Webb stroked a wide open 3-pointer down at the other end, pushing the lead back to 10.

His late 3 should not have caught Pitt off guard. Webb scored a career-high 15 points in the game, all on 3-pointers. Webb hit four of his five 3s during an 18-8 run that came in the final five minutes of the first half.

With the Tigers ahead 25-18 at the 5:57 mark of the first half, he hit his first 3-pointer of the day from the right side, and his coach, Bob Thomason, gave him the green light to shoot from there on out.

“As soon as he hit the first one, we kept running plays for him,” Thomason said.

“I was fortunate to have a few open looks in the first half and I knocked down my first and my second,” Webb said. “I just kept running from there, and I think as a team that really picked us up.”

Webb’s next three 3-pointers fell through, helping Pacific to a 45-30 halftime lead.

As a team, Pacific shot 6-of-8 from the 3 in the first half and 10-of-20 for the game. The scouting report on the Tigers read, “Pacific loves to shoot the 3,” but the Panthers still seemed surprised.

“We knew they shot the 3 well, but we really thought they’d force the issue inside with [Guillaume] Yango,” Keith Benjamin said. “They shot more 3s than we expected and they buried a lot more 3s than we expected.”

Maraker, a 6-foot-9-inch forward, was lethal from the 3 as well, connecting on three of his five attempts as he finished with 17 points in the contest. His ability to step out and hit the long shot mirrored that of Villanova’s Curtis Sumpter and West Virginia’s Kevin Pittsnogle — both teams defeated Pitt twice this season.

Another surprise was Pitt’s selection of shots early in the game. The Panthers attempted three 3-pointers in the first two minutes of the game. The first two misses were by Chevon Troutman and Mark McCarroll, two unlikely suspects from beyond the arc.

“I thought a lot of guys took good shots,” head coach Jamie Dixon said. “We felt we had to shoot the ball better coming in…and that didn’t happen today.”

The first-round loss ended Pitt’s streak of Sweet 16 runs at three. Despite falling out early and finishing the season with nearly as many losses at they have had in the past two years combined — nine this year, ten in the past two years — Dixon feels that his team got better as the year progressed.

“I don’t think we played as well as we could’ve today, but we improved throughout the year,” he said. “We’ve improved as a team.”

Freshman Ronald Ramon, however, struggled late in the season and capped it with his 0-for-5 performance from the field yesterday — including four missed 3s. In the midst of a slump, Dixon stuck with his young guard for 22 minutes.

“We didn’t lose confidence in him,” Dixon said. “I had confidence that he could make that shot today [or] tomorrow.”

But there is no tomorrow for Pitt, only next year for those who return. Seniors Troutman and McCarroll will leave the team as the winningest class in Pitt history.

Troutman ended his Pitt career with two of his worst shooting performances, going 0-for-5 on the day against Villanova in last week’s Big East tournament and 3-for-10 showing yesterday. He finished with 12 points and seven rebounds against Pacific.

Taft and Krauser have expressed interest in leaving early for the NBA, and yesterday’s loss might have helped them make their decisions. Both said yesterday that they are unsure and will take some time before deciding. Taft went as far as saying that it was 50-50 and he was going to talk to his family. He made a point of noting that he gets the final say.