Men’s Basketball: Panthers notch emphatic win in ACC Tournament debut

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Talib Zanna kicked off Pitt’s first appearance in the ACC Tournament with a 15-point, eight-rebound first half. Lamar Patterson followed suit with 14 points in the second on perfect shooting to pace the Panthers to a 84-55 victory against Wake Forest.

Zanna had a hand in four of Pitt’s first five baskets Thursday, scoring twice himself and assisting on two others. The redshirt senior center from Kaduna, Nigeria, finished with 17 points and nine rebounds as the Panthers (24-8) began their conference tournament run with a bang.

“We were really prepared and focused,” Zanna said. “I think from the freshmen to the seniors, everybody was into it. The energy, you can see the energy on the bench and everybody was really ready to go.”

Behind Zanna’s energy, Pitt opened up a double-digit lead early that blossomed into the team’s 29-point domination.  His energy in particular helped Patterson and the Panthers establish an early presence.

“He’s a leader, he’s a senior, and when you see him going, it just gets the ball rolling,” Patterson said. “Everything was clicking.”

Patterson said the Panthers wanted to get Zanna involved offensively early on, and head coach Jamie Dixon was satisfied with the way Zanna passed out of the high post area to get his teammates good shot attempts.

After Zanna’s big first half, Patterson followed suit in the second by scoring 14 points on a hyper-efficient 4-of-4 shooting which led to his game-high 24 points. His second-half scoring boosted the Panthers’ lead to as much as 29 points in the second half.

“I was on the other end of getting the easy looks and knocking them down,” Patterson said. “We did what we were supposed to do, held onto the lead got the W.”

Behind Zanna and Patterson the Panthers were able to hit Wake Forest “right between the eyes” in the words of head coach Jeff Bzdelik and prevent the Demon Deacons (17-16) from ever taking a lead Thursday.

So effective were the work of Pitt’s two seniors that they and the rest of the Panther starters were able to spend the final 6:34 of the game on the bench, cheering while Derrick Randall slammed home a put-back of Chris Jones’ missed lay-up and freshman walk-on Josh Ko drilled a three from the corner.

Zanna’s work on the defensive end, in tandem with power forward Michael Young, helped the Panthers slow down Wake Forest’s sophomore big man Devin Thomas after he posted 19 points and 10 rebounds in Wake Forest’s win against Notre Dame Wednesday.

Thursday, Thomas fouled out with more than six minutes remaining in the game after he scored eight points and pulled down six rebounds in 26 ineffective minutes. Dixon said his team was “concerned” about Thomas

“We wanted to keep the ball out of his hands,” Dixon said. “But when he did get it, [we wanted to] make it tough for him to play.”

Each time Thomas touched the ball, he was met with an extra defender–usually Zanna–to assist Young. That strategy,which Young said the team calls “Red”, made for an early moment that Dixon knew sent a message to Thomas.

“I thought a big play was the steal that we had when we double-teamed him in front of our bench and that kind of let him know that he wasn’t going to get anything easy,” Dixon said. “We didn’t want him to get any lay-ups.”

While he had help, Young was the primary defender on Thomas and knew Wake Forest’s forward was a little “mouthy” which allowed Young to get in Thomas’ head.

“I said a few things here and there, you know when he tried to score on me, things like that,” Young said. “It was nothing major, I just felt like me coming out being aggressive and being physical with him he wasn’t able to get anything easy or get it going and that frustrated him.”

Young also noticed early on after he was whistled for a foul that Thomas and Bzdelik “got into it” on the bench when the coach pulled him from the game, and Young thought Thomas game went “downhill” from there.

With the 29-point win, the Panthers face No. 15 North Carolina tomorrow at 2 p.m. Pitt lost the first bout between the team, 75-71, at the Dean Smith Center in Chapel Hill, N.C.

But Josh Newkirk, who chipped in 10 points in 24 minutes off the bench, said Pitt’s start Thursday has the team’s momentum going as the Panthers look to close their season on a high note by making a statement to the tournament committee that they “belong.”

“We don’t want to lose,” Newkirk said. “You got to keep this winning streak going so you’ve just got to keep fighting, keep trying to get wins and keep this momentum going into tournament time.”