March Madness: Five most heartbreaking moments from Pitt’s season

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After making through this whirlwind season of basketball, Pitt may need to call in a doctor to run some preliminary tests on the hearts of all its fans.  There is reason to believe that many of these fans are suffering from a broken heart. 

“This hurts more than when my boyfriend of four years left me for another girl,” shouted one fan in the Oakland Zoo after the last second loss to Syracuse in February.

The entire Pitt schedule was a nail-biter that featured four overtime games and 13 games decided by five or fewer points. Five of Pitt’s losses came on last second shots, two of which were hit at the buzzer in front of a home crowd.

Even though March Madness for the Panthers begins on Thursday against Colorado in Orlando, Panther fans have had their hearts broken this season more than any other season before and here are the top five reasons why:

5. Nothing Falls in the Garden

Pitt, undefeated at 10-0 at the time, met Cincinnati on Dec. 17th at Madison Square Garden,which would become one of the worst shooting games of the season. In the second half, the Panthers went nearly 14 minutes without sinking a single field goal. 

Despite the lack of offensive production, Pitt still maintained control of the game. With 1:07 left in the game, a Cameron Wright drive ended the 14-minute drought and gave the Panthers a 43-42 lead. Patterson had a chance to extend the lead to three, but missed two free throws with 21 seconds left. 

The Bearcats took the victory on a Titus Rubles rebound basket with 4.2 seconds to play. It was a true foreshadowing of Pitt’s season as Cincinnati was the first strong opponent the Panthers saw. It would end up becoming the first of many heart-clenching losses.

4. Comeback Falls Short in Syracuse

Pitt started 4-0 in ACC play before traveling north to the Carrier Dome to meet its former Big East rival, second-ranked Syracuse (18-0).

The Orangemen jumped out to a double-digit lead in the middle of the second half, but Patterson, with 18 points on the day, rallied the Panthers to a 52-49 lead with just over four minutes to play. 

Eventualy, a Syracuse freshman point guard by the name of Tyler Ennis sunk two driving layups and two free throws in the final two minutes of the game to give the Orangemen a 59-54 victory.

3. Durand Goes Down 

Even when Pitt was ready to launch over a bottom-of-the-conference team something had to go wrong to break Pitt fans’ hearts. 

During the final few minutes of a 15-point victory over Wake Forest, redshirt sophomore forward Durand Johnson was fouled hard on a drive to the basket. He made two free throws before having to exit the game, and was diagnosed with a torn ACL and meniscus in his right knee.

Johnson was second on the team in 3-pointers with 22 and was averaging 8.8 points and 3.0 rebounds as the first man off the bench. His range and energy was surely missed throughout the rest of conference play. It was a loss that had even Pitt coach Jamie Dixon saying he was “heartbroken.” 

2. And None…

With 10 seconds left in the semi-final of the ACC Tournament, sophomore point guard James Robinson cleanly slapped the ball out of the hands of Virginia’s Malcolm Brogdon and bolted toward the basket. He hit an off-balanced layup to pull the Panthers within a point after being bodied hard by Virginia’s Akil Mitchell.

But no tweet came out of the referee’s whistle. The Panthers would not find another good chance to tie the game and fell to the eventual tournament champions, 51-48.

1. Tyler Bleepin’ Ennis 

The brutal 4.4 seconds were forever repeated on highlights throughout the season. Ennis killed Pitt again with a midcourt hurl just before the buzzer sounded. The entire Petersen Events Center went silent as the “swish” echoed and the Syracuse bench celebrated.

The Panthers were up by as much as seven points for the majority of the game, but Ennis was able to put the Orangemen up by one with ten seconds after hitting two free throws. Senior Talib Zanna thought to have had the game winning shot after giving Pitt the lead with a few seconds to go. 

But  Ennis denied Pitt the chance to take down a top-ranked undefeated Syracuse team and gave Pitt fans the worst heart break in recent memory.