Pitt loses second straight home game

Virginia’s Malcolm Brogdon’s game-winning 3-pointer dropped into the basket with 0.4 seconds to play Sunday afternoon. In a game tied 17 times, his head coach knew the outcome would be determined by one series on each side of the ball.

“You knew it was going to come down to a score and a stop,” Virginia’s head coach Tony Bennett said.

As a result, an unranked Virginia left Pittsburgh with a 48-45 victory against the No. 18 Panthers. 

Pitt head coach Jamie Dixon also foresaw the importance of a late basket, knowing how the Cavaliers wanted to play.

“I think when you talk about Virginia, you’re not going to score as many points given two really good defensive teams,” Dixon said. “They’re going to work the clock and use the clock, and that will result in a low-possession game.”

As a result, Brogdon’s triple from 25 feet out swung the game’s final balance in Virginia’s favor. But what happened in the previous 39 minutes and 59 seconds resulted in Pitt’s second-consecutive loss at home. 

Even on Pitt’s possession before Brogdon’s dagger, the Panthers missed a three of their own when sophomore point guard James Robinson’s attempt bounced off the rim. But the possession wasn’t over.Freshman forward Jamel Artis rebounded Robinson’s miss and went for a layup. And missed. 

Artis didn’t think he was fouled. He only offered, “I didn’t finish. I gotta finish.”

The freshman forward from Baltimore finished as Pitt’s leading scorer with 11 points next to a team-high seven rebounds off the bench. Another freshman, Michael Young, paired with Artis in the post and recorded eight points and four rebounds to give Dixon rare production from the power forward position.

“We had some good performances by our freshmen,” Dixon said. “I thought Mike and Jamel played well and are continuing to get better and improve.”

Pitt’s freshman presence was necessary after fifth-year senior Talib Zanna had to briefly leave the game after twisting his left ankle. He later returned, but “obviously wasn’t the same” after his injury, according to Dixon.

Lamar Patterson was the only other Panther with a double-digit scoring total at 10 points, but shot 3-of-14 from the field. Patterson played 28 minutes, but dealt with foul trouble that forced him to the bench for crucial stretches of the second half. 

Namely, the game’s final seven minutes in which Pitt’s only field goal came when Cameron Wright threw in a turnaround, fadeaway, bank-shot 3-pointer to beat the shot clock with 6:52 left to play. 

From there, the Panthers went without a field goal for the remainder of Sunday’s contest.

Patterson’s poor shooting follows a rough effort against Duke, when he scored 14 points but finished 4-of-14 from the field. The 29.1 percent shooting is far below his 50 percent clip for the season, which has allowed Patterson to score nearly 18 points per game. 

But against good defensive teams such as Duke and Virginia, Dixon attributes Patterson’s below-average point totals to the way the teams played against him. 

“The numbers are going to be lower,” Dixon said. “They’re defending. They’re not going to give up any easy shots. He got into some foul trouble today, and that’s going to affect anybody’s game.”

Virginia’s Brogdon led all scorers with 16 points, Joe Harris had 11, and Akil Mitchell added 10 with 12 rebounds.

Dixon recognized that missed shots were a recurring theme of Sunday’s loss, as Pitt (18-4, 6-3 ACC) shot a measly 31.9 percent from the field and made only 15 field goals. A lot of misses came close to the rim. 

“I think it’s just something we have to get better at,” Dixon said. “Sometimes maybe you have to pass if there is too much traffic and too many people around you. It’s a combination of things.” 

Virginia (17-5, 8-1 ACC) also beat Pitt at its own game in the paint as the Cavaliers out-rebounded the Panthers 33-32. 

“They were more physical than us,” Young said. “They just out-toughed us.”

The loss to Virginia follows Pitt’s 15-point loss against Duke on Monday, which has the Panthers in the midst of their first losing streak of the season. A potential win Sunday was one the Panthers obviously wanted, and one Young thought his team needed. 

“Coming off a loss against Duke, we needed this win,” Young said. “We needed this win to bounce back and to get us back where we needed to be.”