The University of Pittsburgh Men’s Basketball team entered the 2012-2013 season with high hope, but not a lot was expected out of them. But now they have a chance to erase that horrid 2011-2012 season from their fans’ memories. They are currently 24-7 and have earned the 4th seed in their final Big East Tournament.
The Panthers are coming off a 81-66 win over Depaul, and have won their final 4 games of the season. They could be getting hot at just the right time. If you recall not too long ago the University of Connecticut came out of nowhere to win the Big East Title and then stayed hot in the National Tournament and won the whole. This could be very similar if the Panthers stay hot and Coach Jamie Dixon can finally get over the hump and make the Final Four.
Over Dixon’s tenure the closest the Panthers have come to the coveted Final Four was in 2009 when Scottie Reynolds went coast-coast and ended Pitt’s run. He has had promising teams since then but they have all underachieved; so maybe with a team that wasn’t expected to be this good, they can get over that hump.
This Panthers team has had some good game, and big wins over big time teams, and only have one really questionable loss. They have beaten a Georgetown team that is now a possible number one seed in the National Tournament; Syracuse was the 6th best team in the country when they came to the Peterson Events Center and left with a loss, and they also beat Cincinnati who was ranked 17th. Out of their seven losses only one of them came to an unranked team; which was Rutgers. All their other losses were to number four Michigan, number 14 Cincinnati, Marquette twice, they are now one of the hottest teams in the country, number 12 Louisville, and finally the 25th best team in Notre Dame.
Their resume isn’t bad for a team that was unranked coming into the season. They almost burst onto the scene when in mid-November they almost took down one of the top teams in the nation in Michigan. They lead almost the whole game but just couldn’t hold on and ended up losing by 5. Even with a loss that showed the team that they could compete with just about anyone and if they were playing their game they could beat anyone.
So who knows where this next week will take the Panthers, but if they could win a couple games in the Big East Tournament; that would vastly improve their seeding in the National Tournament. Right now they are expected to get a four or five seed, so with a couple wins or maybe even a title that could move them up to a two or three seed. But needless to say, this next week at Madison Square garden is a big one for the Pittsburgh Panthers.
