Zanna’s big night spurs dominant play

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Talib Zanna didn’t win the men’s basketball team’s opening tip against Fresno State last night. Zanna might not win many tip-offs at all this year because he is 6-foot-9, lean but not slender, and possibly miscast as a center.

When Cameron Wright stripped the ball on defense and quickly unspooled a pass downcourt, Zanna was nearby, but so was James Robinson. Instead of one of the two Panthers gobbling up the pass for an easy two points that would have cut their deficit to 13-9, they looked idly at each other as it scooted out of bounds below the hoop for a turnover — a turnover on a turnover.

Zanna wasn’t the reason the Panthers trailed in the first eight minutes — he and Wright evenly split the team’s first eight points — and at the same time, he wasn’t being a bruising center against a team that looked prone to size mismatches.  

But Zanna eventually took control of the game against the Bulldogs, whose tallest player to see game action was 6-foot-9. Zanna stood out with his 19-point, 10-rebound performance.

“He plays hard,” head coach Jamie Dixon said after the 75-54 win. “[He finished] around the rim, pivoting and powering up and gathering and going up strong.”

Dixon included a lot of dominant descriptions for a player who is not exactly someone who will play the game physically by pushing his weight around and exerting moves against defenders. Zanna did, however, prove he could unleash that type of streak on the court.

With about eight minutes remaining in the first half, Zanna held the ball near the paint, but it was jarred out of his hands by Paul Watson. He wasn’t overmanned, nor was he duped into a turnover. Instead, Zanna’s defender slapped at the ball, which caught a piece of his wrist as the sound of battered skin echoed beyond the court.

Zanna seemed to have had enough after already receiving at least one slap on the wrist this season in the form of the one-game suspension. He stuck his finger out after the foul, possibly pointing at the offender, possibly at the official for recognizing the infraction.

Either way, Zanna was ignited, and the Panthers followed his intensity. The possession reset after the foul and resulted in a layup by Michael Young that put Pitt up, 22-15. The Bulldogs drilled a 3-pointer on the next possession, but went cold the remainder of the half. 

In the next 2:30, Zanna made one basket on a jump shot, grabbed a defensive rebound on the next possession and coughed up an inconsequential turnover. Zanna made the miscue inconsequential by his own hustle when, after Cezar Guerrero forced the steal, he chased down the play and wrestled down the defensive board with one arm.

Then Zanna headed the other direction to join the offensive fast break. Wright pulled up, appearing poised to hoist a jumper, but instead, no-look dished to a sprinting Zanna, who softly received the pass in the middle of the paint and finished with an easy lay in.

After a brisk, 1:30 breather next to Dixon on the bench — and what typical center needs under two minutes to feel refreshed? — Zanna re-entered the action. With under a minute to go in the half, Zanna corralled a rebound, and again hustled down the court, scoring the Panthers’ last basket on a pass from Lamar Patterson. 

Zanna scored six points after the wrist incident, and Pitt finished on a 13-0 run.

The Panthers got hot and Zanna got hot, which led to him frequently receiving the ball in the post. He made it easy for his teammates, sneaking open under the basket en route to shooting 8-for-10 on the night.

“It was a fun time where I just needed the ball, and I needed to score,” Zanna said. “Dixon said just get the ball inside, so we just let the bigs get some touches. It was just that stretch. I had the ball, and then Lamar [Patterson] did a good job passing the ball down low, James [Robinson] and Cam [Wright] too.”

Zanna flourished on the glass and offensively, snaring rebounds with one arm while shielding off defenders with the other. He turned rebounds into quick offense, firing outlet passes, once while being shoved to the ground.

And while Zanna might not be the most imposing force defensively, Wright views his rare athleticism for the position positively, especially on defense.

“I just feel like me, myself and all my teammates are very versatile,” Wright said. “We can play one-on-one defense, we can also play zone and rebound out of the zone, which is really important.”

Dixon said that Zanna played defensively well, but the team’s second half could’ve been better.

“[Fresno State] attacked differently than they had in the film and in the first half,” Dixon said. “You wanna play a perfect 40 minutes, but it’s hard to do.”

But Zanna was close to it Tuesday night.