Pitt Basketball: Panthers miserable season finally ends in South Bend
By Derek Snyder
The Pitt basketball team saw their 2017-2018 season end on Wednesday night in South Bend, Indiana. Take a look at the postgame reactions.
The 2017-2018 season is finally over for the Pitt basketball program, as they took a 73-56 loss in South Bend, Indiana on Wednesday night. We knew the Fighting Irish would come to play, still trying to get an invite to the NCAA Tournament. Needless to say, the return of Bonzie Colson made the gap between these two squads far too wide.
Per usual, the Panthers seemed outmatched from the very start. Not only was the Notre Dame crowd into the game, but the Irish were basically making everything.
It’s tough to win on the road in the ACC, but it’s even tougher when the home team nearly puts up a 40 spot in the first half. Unfortunately for the Panthers, that was too much to overcome, even in their last game of the season.
The encouraging thing for the Panthers was that they only turned the basketball over a total of seven times. Not to mention, Pitt actually had less turnovers in this match-up than the Fighting Irish. Normally that type of discipline keeps the game close, but it was rebounding which put this game out of reach.
According to ESPN, Notre Dame finished the night with 51 total rebounds, whereas the Panthers only had 35. Again, it’s tough to win a conference game away from home, but dropping the rebounding battle by 16 is phenomenally tough to overcome.
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As much as this last loss of the season stings, we don’t have to watch in misery anymore. With some experience under their belts and maybe some coaching changes on the way, this Panthers squad could get back to relevancy in 2018-2019.