The Eagles knew Pitt would be as physical as any team they had faced this year, but the Panthers dominated them for the better part of 40 minutes and especially in the second half.
A 28-25 Pitt advantage at the half quickly ballooned as the Panthers got out to a 11-0 run in the second half after BC closed the gap to two at 34-32 and never looked back.
“They came in here and humbled us. Men against boys," said junior forward Craig Smith.
"They came into our house and bullied us. We have to make sure that doesn’t happen again.”
The most telling statistic from this game was the rebounding margin. Pittsburgh posted a 27-10 second half edge in that category. For a team that prides itself on physical play and out-muscling its opponent, the Eagles looked a lot like a the 1988 Chicago Bulls facing the Detroit Pistons Bad Boys, getting taken out of their game and pushed around for the first time this season.
The Panthers took advantage of the laissez-faire policy of the officials, who whistled little of the constantly physical play underneath. While Jaime Dixon’s team tends to play basketball's version of the neutral zone trap- a grabbing. defensive style- Al Skinner’s squad should have welcomed this challenge. Instead, they backed away from it, as though constantly aware of their five straight losses to Pittsburgh following a win in the championship game of the Big East Tournament in 2001.
Outside of Smith, who scored 22 points on 8-20 shooting and grabbed 6 rebounds, it’s nearly impossible to find another Eagle who had a decent game. Usually either Nate Doornekamp or freshman Sean Williams plays well from the center position, but Doornekamp allowed himself to get pushed around by the physical frontcourt of Chevon Troutman, Chris Taft, and Mark McCarroll, and Williams looked, for the first time, completely lost on both ends of the floor. Neither big man could convert offensively due to physical defense and neither could stop the Panthers from getting easy second-chance points.
Jared Dudley, long the Eagles most consistent player, had perhaps his worst game since coming to the Heights. He scored 4 points on 1-8 shooting and went long stretches without touching the ball or getting a rebound.
“They just wanted it more. They executed better than any other team [we’ve faced this season],” said Dudley. “We didn’t match their intensity. They had more at stake than we did and they played like it. They pushed us around and we really didn’t respond to it.”
Jermaine Watson was similarly unable to respond for the Eagles on his Senior Night. Normally a spark off the bench on defense and a creator able to score badly needed points, he could only manage 7 points on 3-4 shooting.
Watson issued the definitive statement for the team and its fans who felt the Eagles were victims of poor officiating in its previous two losses: “This game was no matter of opinion. They beat us. They came out like they didn’t have anything to lose. They just came out and played like they were in a fight…and they won.”
The loss snaps the Eagles’ 19-game home winning streak and forces the Eagles to win Saturday against Rutgers to ensure that two possible Connecticut home victories over Georgetown and Syracuse doesn’t give the Huskies the title outright.