The Pitt basketball team won its fifth straight game with a 70-55 victory over Miami on Wednesday evening. Pitt improves to 5-1 on the season and starts ACC play 1-0 for the second consecutive season. It also gives Pitt its second road victory on the young 2020-21 season.
The team received a stellar performance from sophomore guard Ithiel Horton, as his 18 points led the way on offense. After some struggles in recent games, Horton started to find his shooting stroke in the second half. He scored all of his points after the break on 6-of-11 shooting.
The Panthers also received another impressive outing for junior forward, Au'Diese Toney, who finished with 15 points and 5 rebounds, including 11 points in the second half.
The main storyline from this game was the roster status of Miami. The Hurricanes were without star player Chris Lykes, along with a number of other key players, leaving them with just six healthy scholarship players entering the game on Wednesday.
It took some time for Pitt to pull away from Miami, but an 11-0 run in the second half took it from a 42-37 Pitt lead up to 53-37 when Horton drilled a 3-pointer with 9:14 remaining. That run helped create some separation and Pitt never looked back from there and kept a double-digit lead for the remainder of the game
The Panthers once again had a strong team defensive output. Pitt held a significant 43-29 rebounding average and limited the Hurricanes to just 32.7% shooting from the field. Miami leading-scorer Isaiah Wong did have success and finished with 21 points, but his supporting cast was mostly held in check.
Pitt's advantage on Wednesday was of course the benefit of having a full compliment of players, but the Panthers had multiple players in foul trouble in the first which certainly leveled the playing field considerably.
Pitt's normally reliable duo of Xavier Johnson and Justin Champagnie were mostly held in check as they combined for just 17 points. After two monster performances, Champagnie was whistled for two early fouls and never got a rhythm from there.He finished with 10 points and nine rebounds, breaking his three-game streak of double-doubles.
That fouls also mounted for junior point guard Xavier Johnson in the second half. He paced Pitt in the first half with 7 points, but after picking up a fourth foul with 13:15 remaining in the second half, he sat for a long stretch while Pitt made its run with him on the bench.
Pitt found out prior to tip-off that Nike Sibande had been granted immediately eligibility based on a waiver by the NCAA allowing all new transfer to play right away. He connected on his first shot as a Panther - a three-pointer in the first half. That was his only basket of the game while logging 8 total minutes. Freshman center John Hugley had one of the best performances of his young career as well. Hugley scored 9 points on the night.
Pitt will return to action on Tuesday when No. 23 Louisville comes to the Petersen Events Center for a 7:00 p.m. tip-off.
