You aren’t going to win many games when you can’t stop the opposition and the Pitt Panthers found that stopping the Louisville Cardinals on Sunday was a near impossible task.
The Cardinals made a whopping 71 percent of their field goal attempts in the first half and cruised to an 80-68 victory, dropping the Panthers to 3-4 in ACC play on the season.
The No. 10 ranked Cardinals are one team that hasn’t found trouble winning at the Petersen Events Center as they improved to 4-1 on the Panthers home floor and have defeated Pitt five consecutive times overall.
“We usually win with defense, but tonight we won with offense,” said Louisville head coach Rick Pitino. “Our offense was special and great shooting percentages are a result of great passing, and we did a terrific job of passing against a very good defensive team. I am really proud of our guys; we needed to get this road win because we are at Boston College, at Miami and Virginia coming up. We needed to play well tonight to get our confidence back after the Duke loss.”
Louisville’s (16-3, 4-2 ACC) Terry Rozier made his first six shots from the floor and scored 18 of his game-high 26 points in the first half as the Cardinals built up a 40-30 halftime lead.
Pitt (13-7, 3-4 ACC) nearly survived Louisville’s hot start as at one point Louisville made 11 of their first 12 attempts from the floor.
“Rozier scored a little bit in transition, but it wasn’t so much that,” said Pitt head coach Jamie Dixon. “We played zone and he got open looks in the zone. We played man, and he got some tough shots against the man, some fall-aways. Obviously, he had 26 on us – it wasn’t hard to figure out that he’s a scorer, a big factor. He just got going. He’s a very good player, but zone, man, press, we guarded the ball screens different ways, and nothing seemed to be effective in what we did.”
A pair of free throws from Chris Jones pulled Pitt to within 28-26 with just 4:32 remaining in the first half. But the Cardinals full-court press starting forcing Pitt turnovers and Louisville closed the half with a 12-4 run to take a 10-point lead into the locker room.
It didn’t help matters much that the Panthers went through another one of their scoring droughts.
The Panthers made just two of their final 11 field goal attempts in the first half, covering a span of 7:08.
“We were making mistakes,” said Pitt forward Michael Young. “We were trying to beat their press and we had three turnovers in a row. That got [Louisville] going and they converted on that.”
The second half was a different story as the Cardinals missed their first seven shot attempts to begin the half, but Pitt couldn’t capitalize. The Panthers had plenty of chances, but could only shave three points off the Louisville lead.
After a Louisville timeout, Pitt went cold, making just 1-of-7 attempts from the floor. Meanwhile the Cardinals extended their lead to 13 and all but put the game away.
Louisville went on a stretch in the second half where they made 10 consecutive shot attempts. In the same span Pitt went 3-14 from the floor as the Cardinals lead ballooned to 18.
Pitt cut the deficit to 10 on a three by Jones with 5:01 remaining, and minutes later Jamel Artis hit a jumper from the foul line to pull the Panthers within eight. But after a Louisville turnover, Cameron Wright, who went 1-for-8 on the afternoon, airballed a three from the corner to end the Pitt threat.
Every time Pitt seemed to close the gap and get within striking distance, they did something that swung the momentum right back in Louisville’s favor.
“We had a lot of opportunities to come back, bring the lead within striking distance and try to win this game,” said Young. “I don’t think we capitalized on a lot of opportunities we had in the second half.”
The difference was as simple as one team made shots and the other didn’t.
Louisville shot a whopping 65 percent (30-for-46) on the afternoon and knocked down 6-of-12 attempts from behind the arc. Meanwhile Pitt made only 22-of-59 (37 percent) attempts on the day, including just 6-of-23 (26 percent) three-point attempts.
“Louisville’s a very good team and they played well tonight,” said Dixon. “They shot it well. If you told me we were going to outrebound them by six and have less turnovers than them, I’d feel good about it. Sixty-five percent from the field obviously stands out to our 37. We’ve got to do things better. We had some guys play, we battled, cut it down, were in position, but we don’t make the right play at the right time so it gets away from us again.”
Part of the Panthers troubles came from their guards as Wright and Josh Newkirk combined to go just 2-of-15 on the afternoon.
Artis lead the Panthers with 18 points. James Robinson added 16 with six assists, while Michael Young added 14 with nine rebounds. Chris Jones chipped in 12 for Pitt.
In addition to the big game from Rozier, Montrezl Harrell (18), Chris Jones (17) and Mangok Mathiang (11) all scored in double figures for the Cardinals.
Pitt will be back in action on Tuesday when they travel to Virginia Tech.
“We’re extremely disappointed,” said Dixon. “I thought our fans, our crowd was unbelievable. I thought they were great. For me, it’s very disheartening to come up short in front of our fans like that. We’ve got to get ready for Virginia Tech. We’ve got a quick turnaround. We’ve got to go find a way to get ready for Tuesday.”
Photo Credit: USA Today Sports
