Monday, March 30, 2009
ASSOCIATED PRESS
This was the season Pitt did so much more than it had done before.
The Panthers reached No. 1 in the AP college basketball poll for the first time, and did it twice. They beat a No. 1-ranked team for the first time, and did it twice. For the first time since beginning their eight-season run with 20 or more wins in 2002, they finally surpassed a major hurdle by reaching an NCAA regional championship game.
In the so-called Season of the Big East, they were the Big East’s beast for much of the season.
Except at the end where, this time, there were no firsts — and no Final Four. Once again, the Panthers saved their worst for last, despite playing one of college basketball’s best games of recent vintage while doing so.
When March arrives, there doesn’t seem to be enough beast in these Panthers.
A team that went an entire regular season without playing a bad game, save for a loss at Providence after reaching No. 1, the Panthers seemed to lose some of their confidence and began playing tentatively — not to lose, rather than to win — during the postseason.
They had played in seven of the previous eight Big East finals, only to go out in the quarterfinals against West Virginia, a team they handled twice during the regular season. Then, as a No. 1 seed for the first time in school history, the Panthers (31-5) followed with unimpressive, tougher-than-expected NCAA wins against East Tennessee State, Oklahoma State and Xavier.
Then came Villanova, and the game the Panthers will remember, and regret, for a lifetime.
They were down early, came back, went ahead, fell behind, surged back during an exhausting and ever-shifting 78-76 loss in the Eastern regional final on Saturday night.
Coach Jamie Dixon credited “courage, guts and big-game plays.” But Villanova made one more play than they did.
For Panthers fans, the image of Scottie Reynolds pinballing his way through Pitt’s defense to score the decisive layup with a half-second remaining will be as indelible as that of Atlanta pinch-hitter Francisco Cabrera’s game-winning hit in Game 7 of the 1992 NL playoffs is to Pirates fans.