Pitt's 91-57 win over Louisville Tuesday night was an impressive one. Here's a look at three things that stood out.
Dominance
That word kept coming to mind on Tuesday night:
Dominance.
Because that’s what Pitt did against Louisville in its 91-57 win at the Petersen Events Center:
Dominate.
The Panthers owned the Cardinals, toying with them for the first four minutes or so before settling in, playing tough defense and knocking down virtually every shot they took. Pitt literally couldn’t be stopped, with the dominance extending to things like Nate Santos converting a four-point play or Nike Sibande blowing a fast-break dunk only to get a pass off the rebound and sink a three.
It was that kind of night for the Panthers (and that kind of night for the Cardinals), and it was the kind of thing we haven’t seen happen very often. There haven’t been many nights when Pitt treated an ACC opponent like a mid-major non-conference foe. In fact, it’s been so long since the Panthers had a game like that against an ACC team that we had to go to the record books to find the only other time Pitt won a conference game by 30-plus points.
It was nine years ago. The Panthers were playing in their first season as members of the ACC, still bright-eyed and optimistic about their future in the new league. They hosted Clemson on Jan. 21, 2014, and beat the Tigers 76-43, a 33-point scoring margin that stood as Pitt’s high-water mark in an ACC game for nine years and 17 days.
Until Tuesday night.
Now the Panthers have a new record for margin of victory in an ACC game, and they have their first season with double-digit conference wins since that inaugural year in the league, too. They’re 10-3 in ACC play this season and look every bit the part of a team that can compete for the conference regular-season title, compete for the conference tournament championship and make some noise in March.
Louisville is the worst team in the ACC; of that, there is no question. What Pitt did on Tuesday night is exactly what a top team in the conference is supposed to do against the bottom of the league. And the Panthers very much looked the part.
A different kind of win
Tuesday night was quite a departure from the previous three victories. Pitt came into the Louisville game having beaten Wake Forest, Miami and North Carolina by a combined total of six points, with each of those wins coming right down to the wire.
There would be no last-possession theatrics on Tuesday night, no breath-holding like there was during Jamarius Burton’s defensive stand against Isaiah Wong or Burton’s free throws at North Carolina.
Tuesday night’s game wasn’t close after about four minutes, as it was clear that Pitt was far ahead of Louisville and the Panthers would likely have a smooth-sailing victory after that trio of heart-stoppers.
And yet, Pitt’s performance never seemed to be affected by how the game was going. The Panthers may have been aware that they had the game in hand pretty early on, but they never showed it and they never changed their approach, their urgency or their mindset.
If anything, Pitt’s players seemed to feed off of their dominance and used it to spur them to even more success.
Consider the assist numbers, arguably the most impressive stat of the night:
23 assists on 28 made field goals
In a game that saw Pitt hold a lead of at least 20 points for the final 22 minutes and 30-plus points for the final nine, the Panthers never wavered from that commitment to sharing the basketball.
It certainly would have been easy for individual play to take over. With such a large and comfortable lead, the players could have loosened up, slid out of the game plan and just had fun on the court. And I don’t think anyone would have had too big of an issue with that.
But they didn’t do it. They played just as hard in the final nine minutes with a 30-point lead as they did in the first nine minutes when they were trying to take control of the game.
It says a lot about a team when it can win close games like Pitt did against Wake Forest, Miami and North Carolina. But it says quite a bit as well when a team can do what the Panthers did on Tuesday night.
The bench
The assists were the most impressive stat of the night, but the bench production wasn’t far behind.
The Panthers got 41 points, 16 rebounds, 10 blocks, five assists, four steals and just three turnovers from the bench, with the reserve players seeing more than 80 minutes in the win.
Nike Sibande led the way with 15 points, but Guillermo Diaz Graham scored a career-high 11 points with 2-of-3 shooting from outside, his twin brother Jorge scored eight with a 6-of-6 mark from the free throw line and Santos complemented his four-point play by converting three free throws when he got fouled shooting a three.
Santos also recorded three steals, Sibande and Guillermo had five rebounds each and the twins put up a combined nine blocks.
All of this allowed Pitt’s starters to have a relatively easy game. Jamarius Burton played just nine minutes in the second half Tuesday night. Greg Elliott played eight. Blake Hinson played seven. Federiko Federiko played three. Nelly Cummings led the starters with 11 minutes after halftime.
Granted, the Panthers came into Tuesday night’s game fresh off a six-day break, but the circumstances of the win allowed Jeff Capel to give those starters even more rest, particularly in the second half, due to the play of the bench.
