Men’s Basketball: Pitt struggles in first exhibition

Less than 30 seconds are left on the clock as Pitt’s James Robinson dribbles down the court. One swift  pass to junior Aron Nwankwo, who sinks a three-pointer–secures a 72-59 Pitt win over the University of California-San Diego.

    These last few moments were the highlight of the sub-par exhibition game played Friday.

“Nobody in the locker room feels real good about how we played but that’s good,” head coach Jamie Dixon said. “We’re definitely not over-confident after tonight.”

    Despite a Panther win, the squad made only 23-of-51 field goal attempts and shot 6-for-11 at the free throw line, statistics worth improving as noted by Dixon and the players.

    “We have to rebound better. We missed a lot of lay-ups and too many free throws,”  Dixon said. “Our shot selection was good– not great.”

   Redshirt senior Lamar Patterson acknowledged these flaws within the team and is optimistic about their upcoming season.

“Little stuff, that’s all we have to work on,” Patterson said. “They are definitely things that are fixable.”

Patterson was one of four players who played over 30 minutes and reached double-digits in scoring. Redshirt senior Talib Zanna led the Panthers with 17 points, followed by Patterson (16), Robinson (10), and freshman Michael Young (11).

    The subpar performance by the Panthers is due partly to the early game date. Oct. 25 was the earliest exhibition game Pitt has ever played in (previously the earliest game was played on October 26th).

UCSD Head Coach Eric Olen attributed his team’s lack of success to inexperience at each position.

“We’re a relatively young team, of the thirteen guys on the team, we have nine freshmen and sophomores,” said Olen. “But we can shoot the ball.”

The Tritons made 82 percent of their free throws throughout the game and  senior guards James McCann and MacKenzie McCullough both scored in the double digits with 13 points apiece. The Tritons also out-rebounded the Panthers defensively 14 to 11.

Not only are the UCSD  players new to the system, but Olen himself has only been head coach for two weeks.

He replaces former head coach Chris Carlson, who stepped down from his coaching position to become the West Coast Conference’s associate commissioner of men’s basketball.

Carlson’s deep connection to Pitt reaches back to when he was the former Director of Operations under of Ben Howland (and at the time assistant coaching of Dixon) and Carlson then followed Howland to UCLA. Carlson’s connection to the University led to this exhibition game being played.

“We just appreciate the opportunity to come all the way out here. It’s a great experience for our guys,” commented Olen, “Pitt’s a really good team to go against.”

    The Panthers were recently ranked sixth in an Atlantic Coast Conference preseason media poll. In order to live up to its ranking, the team must first make adjustments to improve lacking skills.

“Mistakes are expected. It’s only October,” Patterson said.

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