Pitt plays second fiddle to Syracuse in Big East
Even though the Pittsburgh Panthers are ranked fifth in the nation, they did not qualify for a No. 1 seed in the Big East Basketball Tournament, which begins today at Madison Square Garden in New York City. The Panthers (23-4, 13-3) shared West Division regular-season champion honors with Syracuse (23-4, 13-3), but the Orangemen claimed the top seed in the tournament due to a better division record within the conference than Pittsburgh.
“The Big East Tournament is the greatest college basketball division tournament in the country,” Pittsburgh head coach Ben Howland said. “Madison Square Garden is the Mecca of sports, so for a college basketball player to be able to participate in a tournament there is something special.”
Four first-round games will be played on today. The Panthers and the Orangemen of the West Division, as well as the Boston College Eagles and the Connecticut Huskies of the East Division, earned first round byes and will rest the first day.
“We were real happy to clinch the first round bye this year,” Howland said. “We had to play our last regular-season game on Sunday, and without a bye in the first round, we would be playing just three days later.”
The Panthers are riding a six-game win streak. Their first game is scheduled for Thursday at 2 p.m. against the winner of the Providence-West Virginia game. Pittsburgh point guard, senior Brandin Knight, who earned second team conference honors, pointed out that they cannot afford to look past any team.
“Anybody can beat anybody in this tournament,” Knight said. “If it’s West Virginia we play on Thursday or Providence, we certainly can’t take either team lightly.”
Four Pittsburgh players qualified for post-season conference honors, while no other team in the Big East placed more than two players on the list. Besides Knight, junior Julius Page and red-shirt sophomore Chevon Troutman were named to the third team and senior Ontario Lett earned honorable mention.
If Troutman misses any games, Howland feels confident there is enough depth on the team to help pick up the slack.
“We’ll obviously use more players such as Mark McCarroll if Chevy (Troutman) can’t play,” Howland said. “We have good depth, so even though we would miss Chevy, we should still be able to compete.”
Howland feels depth is his strength due to the number of experienced players on the team.
“It’s just a testament that we have a lot of good players on this team,” Howland said. “I was a little disappointed that Jaron Brown did not make all-conference because we know what he means to us, but when you have so many good players on the team, it’s that much harder for everybody to make the all-conference team.”
Another key Panther player who did not make the All-Big East team was senior forward Donatas Zavackas, but he is not concerned with anything but winning the conference tournament. He remembers the hard times the team faced when he arrived at Pittsburgh four years ago.
“I remember my first year at the tournament when we did not win a game,” Zavackas said. “The next year we came together in the tournament and set the stage to advance to the next level.”
Zavackas credits experience and coaching as being a key in the Panthers’ climb from a bad team to a good one.
“If you want to be smarter you have to read more books,” Zavackas said. “It’s no different with basketball, the more games you play and more experience you get, the better you play.”
Zavackas, Lett, and Knight will be making their final appearance in the Big East Tournament and hope to make the most of their last chance.
“The seniors don’t have too many more games left,” Knight said. “We could either be playing two more games or as many as nine more games, so we obviously want to play nine more games.”
Besides trying to break the championship game-losing streak, the Panthers are also playing for a high seed in the NCAA Tournament, which will begin next week.
“The farther we advance at the Big East, the better seed we will get in the NCAA Tournament,” Howland said. “If we finish with a high seed, our first-round game should be closer to home, which will be more favorable for our fans who will want to travel to see us.”