Patterson, Zanna pace efficient offensive attack

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At a point early in the second half, Lamar Patterson cut in from his position beyond the arc and ran a circle around his defender. He returned to his starting point untouched.

He nor his team scored on that possession, but that sequence summed up the ease with which they dispatched Wake Forest in the second round of the ACC tournament at the Greensboro Coliseum, 84-55.

In front of an announced attendance of 21,533 that appeared half as many, the Panthers began the game on a 21-9 run and never stopped, finishing the game with their largest advantage of the day, which tied the program record for biggest postseason tournament victory.   

Their opponents never led or tied the contest after Pitt’s first basket.  After Pitt’s initial push, the Demon Deacons got as close at eight with 6:29 left in the first half but again fell behind by double-digits by the period’s end.

“They hit us right between the eyes,” Wake Forest coach Jeff Bzdelik said. “We were on our heels throughout the entire game.”

Redshirt seniors Patterson and Talib Zanna led the offensive surge for the 5th seeded Panthers (24-8, 11-7 ACC), finishing with a game-high 24 and 17 points, with Zanna collecting a game-high 9 rebounds.

The Nigerian helped his team grab that advantage in the first half by tallying four points, three assists, three offensive rebounds a block, and a steal in the game’s first seven-plus minutes.

Patterson himself went on a 9-0 run early after halftime to extend the team’s lead to 20, making the possibility of a Wake comeback that much slimmer as time went on.

“I was on the other hand of getting the easy looks and knocking them down,” he said. “It was a good way to start [after the break].”

For Pitt head coach Jamie Dixon, these performances from his oldest players, coming with both free of injury, are encouraging. Patterson contended with an injury to his shooting hand in recent weeks, while Zanna was hampered by a hurt ankle.

“Now we’re seeing them at 100 percent,” he said.

The rest of the Panthers attacked as well. Every eligible player for Pitt saw the floor, with 11 of the 13 players scoring.

“That’s how we want to win every game, but it’s not possible in basketball,” Patterson said.

Pitt had success shooting the ball, something Dixon attributed to the looks his players got and then acted on.

“I was amazed at halftime at our field goal percentage [48.6],” Dixon said. “I felt like since we’d taken all good shots, it would have been higher than that.”

The Panthers finished the game having made 50 percent of their field goals as they imposed their will for every one of the game’s 40 minutes. Pitt’s execution left Bzdelik and the Demon Deacons with a sense of helplessness as their season came to an end.

“We just couldn’t stop them,” Bzdelik said.