The University of Pittsburgh Men’s Basketball program continued their impressive debut in the ACC with two more wins this past week. A dominant home win on Tuesday against Clemson was followed by a hard earned victory Saturday night at Maryland, leaving the Panthers with a 5-1 conference record, with a pivotal, highly anticipated match up against the 18th ranked Duke Blue Devils coming tonight at the Pete.
Though the 20th ranked Panthers have been led by the spectacular play of Lamar Patterson that has many talking of potential ACC Player of the Year and All-American honors, the Panthers have additional weapons doing fantastic work. This includes our most recent recipient of Panther of the Week, Talib Zanna.
The senior forward has been a key cog and critical presence in the Panthers front court. His latest performances against Clemson and Maryland were vital in consecutive wins. Against Clemson, Zanna was a dominant force in a 76-43 blowout. In 21 minutes of play, Zanna was nearly flawless, going 9 of 10 from the field, along with two blocks, two steals and two rebounds. His 22 points led all Panthers.
Zanna followed up one of the better games of his career with another solid effort against Maryland. Zanna once again provided a needed presence inside against a desperate Terrapins squad, scoring 16 points and adding seven rebounds, this included three offensive rebounds.
For the season, Zanna has career highs in both scoring average (13.6 ppg) and rebounding (7.8 rpg) and has continued the tradition of yearly incremental improvement under Jamie Dixon. He currently is among the top 20 in scoring and top five in rebounding in the ACC. With performances like the ones we saw this week, Talib Zanna is making a strong case to join Patterson as an All-ACC performer.
Congrats to Talib Zanna…Pittsburgh Sporting News, Panther of the Week
