Pitt crushes New Orleans 99-57
With one game remaining before breaking for a few days over the holidays, Thursday’s game with New Orleans could have been a tricky one for Jeff Capel’s young team. Pitt recently lost two players to transfer, and backup point guard Sidy N’dir is out for a month with an injury leaving Pitt with just nine scholarship players. In the face of all of that, the Panthers made easy work of New Orleans by knocking off the Privateers 99-57 in dominating fashion.
The win moves Pitt to 9-3 on the season, and the Panthers have officially eclipsed last season’s win total of eight. Pitt has one more game in the non-conference portion of the schedule before beginning ACC play against North Carolina on January 5th.
Pitt’s freshmen trio of Xavier Johnson, Trey McGowens, and Au’Diese Toney all finished with over 20 points. McGowens led with 24 points on 9-12 shooting from the floor, Johnson supplied 21 points while issuing six assists. Toney added a career-high 20 points while grabbing right rebounds. Toney was also 8-of-8 from the free-throw line, and Pitt shot 22-of-23 as a team.
New Orleans cut Pitt’s lead to 27-20 with 8:38 left in the first half on a Bryson Robinson layup. From there, however, it was all Pitt. The Panthers closed the first half on a 29-6 run over the final eight minutes. The Pitt freshmen trio were all in double-figures at the break.
Pitt made a change to the starting lineup in this one as Jeff Capel inserted Jared Wilson-Frame into the starting five, and brought Malik Ellison off the bench. Ellison is now serving as a the team’s backup point guard in the absence of N’dir and he finished with 9 points, 4 rebounds, and 4 assists off the bench.
Despite the light bench now, Pitt held together a pretty standard eight-man rotation, but as the game got out of hand the entire bench emptied with Samson George and the walk-ons getting to see some action in the game’s final minutes. Freshman guard Onye Ezeakudo saw game action after only joining the team on Tuesday as a walk-on.
Pitt will be off over the Christmas holiday and will return to action on Saturday December 29th at the Petersen Events Center to take on Colgate at 4:00 p.m. The Raiders will carry an 8-4 record into the game and currently sit at No. 151 in the KenPom.com rankings.