Pitt crashes Big East bash in Big Apple
by DICK "HOOPS" WEISS, FOXSports.com
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But Pitt ruined the party.
The Panthers stunned the surging, top-seeded Hoyas 74-65 at Madison Square Garden to win the Big East championship, winning their fourth game in four days and bringing Georgetown back to earth.
"Special things happen at the Garden,'' Panthers junior point guard Levance Fields said. "So any chance we get to play here, we're excited about it. This our second home, as Coach (Jamie Dixon) says during shootarounds. We're used to the fans cheering for us and a lot of people coming out.''
Conference tourney roundup
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Sunday's action:
-
ACC championship
- No 1 Tar Heels knock off Clemson
- Chalmers shoots Jayhawks to title
- No. 8 Badgers beat upstart Illini
- Georgia completes improbable run
- UT-Arlington going dancing
Big 12 championship
Big Ten championship
SEC championship
Southland championship
Conference tournament brackets:
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Fields is one of four local kids — along with forward Tyrell Biggs and guards Ronald Ramon and Keith Benjamin — who play major roles on this team, which may have earned a top-4 seed with this emotional victory.
Ramon led the Panthers with 17 points. Springy 6-foot-8 junior forward Sam Young, the tournament MVP, powered his way to 16 points and six rebounds for the Panthers, who won all the hustle stats, out-rebounding the Hoyas 41-29 to overcome the fact they shot an abysmal 22-for-44 from the line.
Young was amazingly calm as the game wound down.
"I think in moments like that, it probably takes quite a while for things to register because it's such a big goal,'' he said. "Once you get there, you think, 'Did this really happen?' I can't believe such good things have happened in such a short period of time.
"Sometimes you sit back and think, and you never would think in a prestigious tournament like this that we could come out and do the thing we did this whole weekend.''
Pitt has been a study in perseverance this year. They were 10-0 when senior Michael Cook, the team's starting small forward, went down for the season with a torn ACL against Duke. The very next game, Fields went down with a broken foot. Fields came back after seven weeks. Cook is through, but he got a chance to hoist the trophy.
"I wish he could have been out there physically,'' said Fields, one of Cook's closest friends. "But we hugged, shed a few tears.''
Pitt coach Jamie Dixon gets credit for holding this team together throughout the season, then taking them to new heights against a team that could be destined to make a run at a national championship.
"I think today they caught us playing our best basketball,'' Dixon said. "You know, this is a team that is better now than it was earlier in the year. We got them at our place in the regular season and we tend to beat people at a pretty high rate at home. If you're looking for a weakness in Georgetown's game, there isn't one.''
Maybe one.
The Hoyas acted like they were ordained to win this tournament during warm-ups. But Pitt wanted it more once the game started, building a 55-42 lead that the Hoyas could never overcome. Perhaps the most surprising thing about this victory was the fact the Panthers never seemed to get fatigued after four grueling days.
"I think to be tired is a mental mindset,'' Young said. "When you go to bed and you're about to get up and you say, 'Oh, I'm tired.' But when you're out here and you have a guy trying to guard you, that's a challenge, and you want to take that challenge. I don't think tiredness or fatigue come into play when you've got so much on the line and so much emotion is involved.''
The Panthers were able to weather a 17-point, six-rebound assault from Georgetown's 7-foot-2 giant, Roy Hibbert. The Hoyas, who set a school record with 17 3-point goals against Villanova in the quarters, shot 25-for-54, but they were only 8-for-24 from beyond the arc against a team that played tenacious perimeter defense and never let them run their offense fluidly.
"No matter what,'' Hibbert said, "we just have to bounce back. Figure things out. Look at stuff from this past game and just move on to the next segment of the year.''
Having said that, there had to be a little remorse.
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