Pitt's NCAA Tournament Run Ends With Loss to Xavier
GREENSBORO -- The Pitt Panthers earned their two NCAA Tournament wins over Mississippi State and Iowa State on the strength of their defense. But in their Round of 32 matchup, they faced a much more skilled offensive force in Xavier and their defense didn't travel a third time.
Pitt allowed the Musketeers to shoot 47% from the field and assist on 22 of their 30 made field goals in an 84-73 loss that was not nearly as close as the final score would have indicated. The Panthers won two games in the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2009, but their run ended at the hands of a familiar March foe.
In a striking contest to Pitt's last two games, the Panthers and Musketeers got off to a fast offensive start. Xavier opened the game by scoring on three of their first four possessions and taking a 7-2 lead after 2:30 of play. A couple of long turnaround jump shots from Blake Hinson and two layups from Nike Sibande helped Pitt take a 15-14 lead with 13:15 to play in the first half.
The Musketeers proceeded to score seven straight and expand their lead to seven at the 11:21 mark of the first half. Colby Jones scored five of those seven points before Pitt was forced to call timeout.
Out of the break, Jorge Diaz Graham halted the run with a triple from the left corner, but Xavier continued to shoot play easy offense and shoot with confidence. They used another 7-0 run to open up a 10-point lead with 9:30 to play, Pitt's largest deficit of the NCAA Tournament to that point.
Two 3-point plays - a jump shot from Hinson and one earned the old fashioned way by Guillermo Diaz Graham - stabilized things for Pitt but a minute and a half later, the Musketeers had scored seven straight again and expanded their lead to 13. Xavier took a 42-28 advantage into the final media timeout of the half.
Adam Kunkel nailed his fifth 3-pointer of the half with 1:26 left until halftime to put the Musketeers up 19, a new largest lead of the game, before Cummings hit a 3-pointer and Burton made a layup off a cut to make it just a 14-point deficit, 48-34, at halftime.
Coming out of halftime, Hinson and Burton continued to find buckets isolated against their defenders, but Xavier's clean, efficient offense was still too much to handle. Hunter Johnson hit a pair of jumpers to keep the Musketeers separated with a 15-point lead as Pitt called timeout with 14:17 to play.
The Panthers got their traveling fans back on their feet with a layup from Cummings, then a steal and dunk from Guillermo Diaz Graham. But after cutting the deficit to 12 at the 11:28 mark of the second half, Pitt allowed a couple of easy layups to go back down 16.
At the 9:35 mark, Jeff Capel earned a technical foul for arguing with the officials. He thought Pitt deserved a charge call on one end, then got the short end of a foul call against Hinson. The officials had to warn Capel and the rest of Pitt's players and bench to quiet down.
Souley Boum scooped a layup in after completing a smooth crossover to give his team a 74-54 lead with 7:22 left in the game. Pitt scored six in a row, three from a logo-deep shot from Hinson, to make it a 14-point game with 3:18 left in regulation. Then Burton converted an and-1 opportunity to cut the margin to 10 for the first time since the 7:30 mark of the first half.
Elliot hit a triple from the right wing off a kickout from Burton to make it an eight-point game, 68-76, with 1:45 left to play. Desmond Claude missed three of four free throw attempts to help Pitt cut the lead. But the 3-point well ran dry after a 14-3 burst and Boum, Claude and company made six of their final eight attempts from the free throw line to ice the win for Xavier and send Pitt home with a loss in the second round of the NCAA Tournament.
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