In Rutgers sweep through of hell with the top-3 teams, playing Pitt was probably their best chance to come away with a win. Pitt had been off for 10 days, and would only be playing their second road game of the season. Rutgers actually matches up well with Pitt, and while the RAC is not the dominating place it had been few teams have won more than 4 straight times there — only Temple and WVU had ever won there 5 or more straight times — until Pitt on Wednesday. Pitt is actually the first team to do so within the context of the Big East with the 78-72 win. So there is that.
After watching the game, it is clear that there is some excellent young talent in Mike Rosario and Greg Echenique for Rutgers. Just as it is clear that their center N’Diaye has not progressed much as a freshman to his junior year (24 minutes, 4 fouls, 4 rebounds, 2 turnovers, 1 block and 0 points). He got that early playing time with the Scarlet Knights instead of siting and learning at Pitt. Rutgers is heavily dependent on the guards hitting shots, and against Pitt they were hitting a lot of jumpers. They were contested, but they were going in. It allowed them to get penetration as well — and got DeJuan Blair into foul trouble.
Pitt shifted to zone for a while in the second half, and as everyone was noting, that made a difference.
In foul trouble and getting beat by Rutgers’ quicker guards, Pitt made the switch and answered with a zone defense-fueled 20-4 run to avenge last year’s shocking home loss and take a perfect record into Saturday’s game at No. 11 Georgetown.
“I probably should have gone to the zone earlier,” Dixon said. “It helped us out.”
Rutgers (9-5), which shot its way to a 43-39 halftime lead, was 10-for-37 (27.0 percent) from the field in the second half against the Panthers’ zone.
“It threw them off,” Pitt senior Sam Young said. “We went to zone … and they couldn’t get a shot off. It threw them out of rhythym. They really couldn’t get anything going after that.”
The Rutgers coaches admitted they were flummoxed all because they had not prepared their team to face a zone versus Pitt. Without getting any space, the guards found their jumpers, uh, fading.
Rutgers became the first team this season to lead Pitt at halftime, using its backcourt of Mike Rosario, Anthony Farmer and Corey Chandler to lead 43-39 at the break. Rosario and Farmer combined to score 27 first-half points on 10-of-14 shooting. But Rosario went 2-for-10 in the second half.
Part of the problem for Rutgers, as well, is the lack of depth catches up to them. Those 3 guards played all but 18 of the available minutes.
“Their defensive intensity was good,” Rutgers guard Mike Rosario said. “They came out with a lot of energy and that’s what teams do when they crawl back after halftime. They just came out with a lot of energy and picked up their defense.”
The Rutgers bench managed just nine points, and was outscored by 22 points by its Pittsburgh counterparts. Wanamaker and Gilbert Brown (11 points) were the main contributors for Pittsburgh’s bench; forward JR Inman led Rutgers’ bench with seven points.
The depth of Pitt’s bench came up huge. Brad Wanamaker had either a career game or potentially a breakout game.
But Wanamaker scored a career-high 15 points and Brown pitched in 11 as the Panthers’ bench outscored Rutgers’ bench, 31-9.
“Gilbert and Brad were unbelievable,” Young said. “Gilbert was getting rebounds and hit some big-time shots. He played a [heck] of a game. In the second half he cooled down and Brad picked up the slack. We knew they had it in them. They picked a fine time to bring it out today because we needed them.”
Wanamaker made some of the biggest plays of the game. Pitt trailed 55-50 with 10 minutes remaining, but the sophomore from Philadelphia scored 13 of his 15 points in the final 9:50. His basket with 8:33 remaining gave Pitt the lead for good. And his back-to-back 3-pointers 52 seconds apart gave Pitt a 68-59 lead with 4:21 remaining.
“I felt like we needed a spark off the bench,” Wanamaker said. “I just came off ready. In previous games I just didn’t shoot. The coaches have been preaching that they want me to shoot the ball. They happened to go down for me.”
In 22 minutes, Wanamaker was 4 for 7 from the field, 5 for 6 from the free-throw line and had five rebounds, four assists and only one turnover.
The confidence Wanamaker had was palpable. Not just with his shot, but the way he carried himself on the court. I think a bit of it, is being relieved of the burden of trying to be a point guard. He’s not. He passes well, can see the court, and plays solid defense. He is not, however, comfortable making the decisions on setting the offense and dictating things. He is so much more comfortable if he can just be part of the team and what they are doing.
Gilbert Brown was vital, especially in the first half. He was able to attack the basket. The foul trouble of Blair opened the lanes for Brown and Jermaine Dixon to attack the basket as Rutgers wasn’t packing it inside as much with Blair out.
I also think that in the shuffle of Wanamaker’s game and Sam Young’s typical performance was how well Tyrell Biggs played. He recorded 10 rebounds, 2 blocks and 6 points on 3-5 shooting. Plus, he was diving on the floor for loose balls and just really putting the effort forth. He really does seem to get that this is his final year and everything needs to be left out there.
Not much time to regroup. Pitt goes to Georgetown for a noon game tomorrow. Sam Young really wants this game.
“We were successful against them last year because we were hungry,” Pitt sophomore Brad Wanamaker said. “We have to be hungry again.”
Young said his hunger will come from the fact that the Panthers have not won in his hometown since he joined the team four years ago.
“Since I’ve been here, they never won at the Petersen, but we never won at Verizon Center,” Young said. “We always seem to lose there. Now I have the opportunity to play in front of friends and family and get the win. I can’t wait.”
Should be fun.
