Sam Young dominated one of this season's biggest games with 31 points
and No. 3 Pittsburgh likely secured one of the top seeds in the NCAA
tournament, opening up a 14-point lead early in the second half before
holding off top-ranked Connecticut 70-60 on Saturday in Pittsburgh
Pitt (28-3,
15-3 Big East) had never beaten a No. 1-ranked team in school history,
only to accomplish it twice in less than a month — both times against
Connecticut (27-3, 15-3), which still hasn't figured out how to slow
down Young. Pitt becomes the seventh school to beat a top-ranked team
twice in a season, the last North Carolina over Duke in 1998.
The
Panthers had to wait for the outcome of Saturday night's game between
No. 6 Louisville and West Virginia to see if they would win a share of
the Big East regular season title. If West Virginia won, Pittsburgh and
Louisville would be tied with the Panthers getting the No. 1 seed in
next week's tournament. A Louisville win and Pitt would get the
tiebreaker over UConn and the No. 2 seed.
Young scored 56 points in the wins over UConn, getting 25 in the 76-68 victory on Feb. 16.
Still,
the Panthers did it a different way than they did in winning at UConn,
when 6-foot-7 DeJuan Blair pushed around 7-3 Hasheem Thabeet for 22
points and 23 rebounds and Thabeet ended with only five points and four
rebounds. This time, Blair had eight points and eight rebounds in a
relatively quiet performance and Thabeet had all 14 of his points in
the first half.
Young scored the two biggest baskets of the game
after Connecticut went on a 12-0 run, keyed by A.J. Price's eight
points, to close within 52-50 with 8:24 remaining.
Young, a
senior playing his final home game, hit a driving layup through traffic
to make it 54-50, then went above the rim to put down Levance Fields'
high lob pass — a dunk that drew the loudest roar of the game from the
standing-room crowd of 12,908 and seemed to take the life out of
UConn's rally.
Price responded with another 3 — he ended with 19
points — but Jermaine Dixon drove the lane after a frustrated Thabeet,
who twice couldn't score from in close, swatted the ball downcourt in
an attempt to maintain UConn's possession.
Young dunked again on
Pitt's next possession and added a free throw to finish off a
three-point play created when Blair tapped the ball away in the
backcourt to force a turnover, giving Pitt a 61-53 lead with 4:42
remaining.
With Thabeet not scoring inside, UConn didn't have
enough to come back in its first loss in 10 road games this season
despite Jeff Adrien's 11 points and 10 from Kemba Walker.
Pitt
finished 19-0 at home, the second time since the Petersen Events Center
opened in 2002 that it swept every home game. The Panthers did it in
2002-03.
Reserve Brad Wanamaker scored 13 points and Fields,
playing despite a bruised lower back, added 10 despite missing 10 of 14
shots.
Pitt, which held a 48-31 rebounding edge in the first
game, led 41-40 this time as Young had 10 rebounds. Thabeet had 13 and
Stanley Robinson had 12.
Young was such a factor that at, one
point, Blair went 18 minutes without scoring, yet Pitt still increased
its lead from three points to 14 during that time.
UConn coach
Jim Calhoun tried matching the 6-7 Adrien on Young at times to try to
create a mismatch, but that allowed Young to use his advantage in
quickness. In the second half, Young began stepping back to take
jumpers, hitting 3-pointers for successive Pitt baskets to make it
48-36 after UConn had scored six consecutive points to close what had
been a 14-point deficit.
Pitt hadn't swept UConn during the
season — the teams haven't always met twice in a season — since
1996-97, when Pitt also beat the Huskies in the Big East tournament.
-- The Associated Press
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