Pitt Basketball
Pitt Dominates Boston College as Panthers Tournament Hopes Stay Alive
The Pittsburgh Panthers (19-10, 10-8) walked into the Silvio O. Conte Forum needing a win against Boston College (15-14, 6-12) to keep their NCAA Tournament hopes alive. A win is just what the Panthers delivered as they demolished the Eagles by the score of 90-65.
The Panthers started the game red hot from behind the arc as the first shot of the game was a logo three by Blake Hinson. This was followed by a three by Bub Carrington. In fact, the Panthers first five buckets of the game came from three-point range and they started 6 of 7 overall from three which gave them a comfortable lead of 21-9.
The problem for the Panthers early on was that Hinson ran into foul issues early as he picked up his second with 13:43 left in the opening half which sent him to the bench for the remainder of the first half.
From that point, the Eagles needed to change a few things and began to feed the 7-footer Quinten Post. After a personal 7-0 run from Post and the Panthers missing six straight shots, the lead dwindled down to just 2 points as the score was 23-21.
Post led all scorers with 30 points on a very effective 14 of 22 shooting day. In addition to leading all scorers, Post had a game-high 12 rebounds.
Guillermo Diaz-Graham stopped the bleeding for the Panthers as he hit his first of two first half three-pointers. Post answered with another layup of his own but that would be the last points that the Eagles scored for nearly three minutes as the Panthers scored the next 7 points and extended their lead to 35-23.
Diaz-Graham finished the game with 8 points off of the bench for the Panthers.
The Panthers and Eagles closed the first half out by trading baskets and Pitt entered halftime with a 15 point advantage as they led by the score of 47-32.
Both teams started the second half slowly on offense as the Panthers only made one of their first eight shots. While the Panthers struggled to start the half, so did the Eagles as they started the second half making only two of their first nine shots.
Zack Austin kickstarted the Panthers’ second-half offense by making a great defensive play and then followed it up with the Panthers’ 10th three-point field goal of the game. Hinson followed this up with a dunk and-one which pushed the Panthers’ lead to 19 points. Minutes later, Hinson hit a deep three that gave the Panthers a 24-point advantage as the score was 69-45 with 9:12 left in the game.
After going up by 24 points, the Panthers stayed hot and cruised to a 25-point victory behind 16 three-pointers which tied a season-high for the team.
In total, the Panthers finished with four double-digit scorers as Hinson scored 19 points, Lowe ended with 12 points and Austin notched 10 points. The leading scorer for the Panthers was Carrington as he finished with a career-high and team-high 27 points on 10 of 18 shooting and 7 of 12 from behind the arc.
The Panthers have two regular season games remaining and return home to take on Florida State on Tuesday night. The Eagles will travel to Coral Gables to take on Miami on Wednesday evening.
20 assists and 4 TOs !!! A good game.
A must win game for the Panthers and they did it. Now just need to win the last 2 regular season games at home. Let’s go Pitt we can do this! H2P!
Fede and Diaz-Graham both playing in same lineup was very effective. Bub was lights out💪
They are up to 44 in the latest NET rankings after blowing out BC last night. A few Bracketology sites have them in the tournament now, especially after the blowout loss Virginia had last night. Win the next two and they should be in a good position to get in the big dance.
I think they need to decisively win the next two as well. Likely even a tournament game or two to have a fighting chance. And/or hope the committee sees Virginia as trending down, and Pitt as trending up. It’s looking like it’s trending positively though, that’s for sure.
I don’t like Syracuse weaseling their way into 4th place. That home loss to them hurts.
yeah, that one hurt. lost tiebreakers to them and Clemson will make it tough to sneak into double-bye. H2P !
Syracuse is at Clemson on Tuesday. My guess is Clemson wins af home. That would give then 9 losses. Just need to win the next two and do well in the conference tourney
that was only the first time I saw BC play but, they didn’t look that good. D was lacking and O was almost just Post. Not sure that it was because we locked them down. regardless, great win. let’s keep it going. H2P !