Fresh off a season-opening win over Florida State on Wednesday night, Pitt walked into Saturday’s noon tip-off against Nicholls State looking to notch a nonconference win to complement its conference victory.
But the Colonels from the Southland Conference weren’t willing to fill that role in the Panthers’ record, as a hot-shooting first half and a resilient second turned into a 75-70 win for Nicholls State.
Nicholls State made its biggest strides in the first half shooting three-pointers. After hitting 8-of-20 in the Colonels’ season-opening overtime loss at Illinois, Austin Claunch’s squad nailed seven in the first half against Pitt, taking advantage of the Panthers’ zone and man defenses.
Ryan Murphy was Pitt’s lone bright spot in the first half. The JUCO transfer scored a game-high 11 in the opening frame, connecting on 4-of-8 from the floor and driving in addition to a three-point shot. Meanwhile, Xavier Johnson didn’t do much at all; the sophomore guard scored just four points on 2-of-7 shooting as his layups didn’t fall and he wasn’t able to draw enough contact to get to the line (Johnson shot just one free throw in the first half).
Even more troubling was Johnson’s foul situation: he committed two in the first half, picked up his third just over two minutes into the second half and then got called for No. 4 - an offensive foul - just a minute after returning to the floor following a lengthy stretch on the bench.
But without Johnson, Pitt’s lineup battled. After Nicholls State took a 47-36 lead two minutes into the half, the Panthers played the Colonels basket-for-basket, chipping away at the lead and not letting the visitors hit consecutive field goals.
Nicholls State pushed its lead to five points at 58-53 with 6:55 on the clock, but Pitt’s defense stepped up with three steals that turned into baskets, and as the game clock ticked under four minutes, the Panthers were down by one.
But the Colonels didn’t stay down for long. After calling a timeout, they survived a tough defensive possession by the Panthers to get a late-in-the-shot-clock possession. Then Johnson was stripped in the paint and Nicholls State turned it into a pair of free throws. And after a Johnson-to-Murphy pass went over the timeline, the Colonels made a three-pointer to extend the lead to eight points.
A pull-up three from Murphy and a put-back by Terrell Brown cut the lead, and a one-and-one conversion by Murphy drew the Panthers within one point in the final 32 seconds, but a travel by Au’Diese Toney ended Pitt’s second-to-last possession and the Colonels stole the ball from Murphy to put a close to the Panthers’ last prayer.
Murphy had a game-high 28 points on 10-of-17 shooting, including 4-of-7 from deep. But it wasn’t good enough to overcome Nicholls State’s 11-of-24 from three. Johnson managed 10 points on 5-of-10 shooting, but he played just 24 minutes - the fourth game in his career that he logged fewer than 25 minutes.
The Panthers, who outrebounded Florida State on Wednesday night, were even on the glass with the Colonels Saturday afternoon, but they did give up 19 offensive rebounds, and Nicholls State turned those boards into 26 points. Pitt also committed 21 turnovers, and those mistakes resulted in 26 points for the Colonels.
Pitt has another quick turnaround from Saturday afternoon, as the Panthers will be back in action Tuesday night for a 6 pm tipoff against Robert Morris at the Colonials’ new UPMC Events Center.
