Pitt Stops Skid with win at BC 83-72

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Two teams that have been struggling to find a win met at Conte Forum on Wednesday night. The Pittsburgh Panthers, losers of eight in a row, came to BC to play an Eagles team that was riding a seven-game slide. In the end, it was Michael Young to the rescue for the Panthers with 30 points on 11 of 19 shooting to help Pitt get a win. After the game, Pitt head coach Kevin Stallings said his team really needed the 83-72 over the Eagles.

It did not get off to a great start for the visitors as ACC leading scorer Jamel Artis injured his ankle driving to the basket :19 into the game. He would leave the game, come back later on but, was never really himself for the rest of the night finishing with six points on just six shots.

A 10-2 run by the Eagles gave them a 25-17 lead with 8:23 left in first half. The run was sparked by four points from Jerome Robinson who finished with 22 on the night. Three-point makes from Ervins Meznieks, who is starting to get regular minutes of late, and Ky Bowman who tallied 15 on the night, had the Eagles in great shape to snap the losing streak.

But a 14-2 run by the Panthers late in the half sent the teams to the locker room tied at 31 apiece. Young had five points during that run, Chris Jones added five himself including a three-point play. He ended the night with 14 points of his own. A killer three-point bomb from Justice Kithcart, who hit three of them in the half, had Pitt feeling good about themselves coming out of the break.

The second half started the way the first twenty minutes ended, with Panthers on a run. This time a 6-2 spurt gave the visitors a seven-point lead at 40-33 not even two minutes in. A quick four on two buckets by Robinson brought the Eagles back to within six at 43-37.

Pittsburgh would then put the game out of reach with a killer 11-3 outburst sparked by some good outside shooting. They would shoot 68% in the second half alone and it would give them their first double-digit lead of the night at 51-40. Robinson would try to keep the Eagles in the game by knocking down three’s but in the end, it was too much Pittsburgh as they improved to 13-11 and 2-9 in league play.

After the game Head Coach, Jim Christian was not happy with his team’s overall team defense saying his team got ” beat on drives to the basket”. He also was unhappy with his team inability to take advantage of a game that was tied at the half.

With the loss, the Eagles fall to 9-16 and 2-10 in the conference and will look to turn things around on Saturday at Georgia Tech.