WHITE SULPHUR SPRINGS, W.Va. — Pitt (6-0) downed LSU (4-1) in the semifinals of the Greenbrier Tip-Off tournament Friday afternoon. Like in their win over VMI on Monday, the Panthers struggled to shoot early but maintained their poise and dominated the second half for the 74-63 win.
Early, the Panthers didn’t trail until the final seven seconds of the first half when sophomore Pitt guard Jaland Lowe was called for a technical foul after he complained to the officials for not calling a defensive foul on his third turnover of the game.
The Panthers shot 31.3% from the field in the first half and 25% on 3-pointers. The Panthers worked several open looks for their shooters but couldn’t get them to fall and allowed an 8-1 run for LSU to send the Tigers into halftime with a 28-27 lead.
Lowe was visibly frustrated, with only three points in the first half, making just 1 of 5 shots with three rebounds, three assists and three turnovers.
But out of the locker room, he and the Panthers quickly put the frustration behind them.
“When I walked in the locker room, they were already talking,” coach Jeff Capel said of his team’s halftime adjustments. “Jaland and [Ishmael Leggett] had control of everything. I just reiterated that we’re good, but we have to play with more force. We have to be able to play through physicality. We understand how the game is being called right now and we have to fight through it. Jaland got the technical foul — we can’t show that and we can’t do that. We have to adjust, and I thought we did that after.”
“We just needed to play our game and settle down,” Lowe said after the game. “We knew there would be some hot tension and it would be a fight. We knew what we were getting ourselves into at halftime. We knew what we had to do to win.”
Lowe opened the second half with a 3-pointer that kicked off a 15-2 run to break open a 42-30 lead the Panthers wouldn’t relinquish. Lowe led Pitt with a career high of 22 points, making 4 of 7 3-pointers. He also finished with eight rebounds and six assists.
In addition to Lowe, the Panthers got inside help from junior transfer forward Cam Corhen, who finished with 14 points, five rebounds and three assists. Corhen hit all four of his shots in the second half.
“He’s a really good basketball player,” Lowe said of Corhen. “We just had to calm him down and [remind him] to play his game. His shots are going to fall. When he trusted that, he started to hit and played hard on the defensive end. That translated to more offense, and he gave us a big boost.”
On a late possession in the final minute, Lowe hit a mid-range jumper and waved to LSU fans in attendance who had chirped the Panthers in the intimate setting of the Greenbrier hotel ballroom. Lowe indicated afterward he had familial ties to LSU, including his mother, Jamailah, who’s an LSU grad.
“That was just some love,” Lowe said of the moment. “All my family is from Louisiana, so this was a homegrown game for a me a little bit. I just wanted to do a little something for my LSU family back home.”
The Panthers defense showed up throughout the contest, as they held LSU to 37% from the field and forced 15 turnovers. Pitt finished with 10 steals, led by senior guard Leggett’s five. Pitt also finished with six blocks, led by junior forward Guillermo Diaz Graham’s four.
Senior LSU guard Cam Carter came into the game leading the Tigers with 17.5 points per game but was held to just 11 points, making 3 of 12 shots. It was the first time Carter had shot less than 45.5% on the season. Leggett continued to be the Panthers’ ace defender, as he drew the matchup to guard Carter for most of the game.
“We just wanted to apply pressure,” Leggett said of Pitt’s plans to guard Carter. “We knew he was shooting a hot basketball. So we just accepted the challenge as a team. So we keyed in on him, and the results showed.”
Leggett finished with 21 points, six rebounds and an assist. LSU’s head coach agreed with Leggett’s assessment about Pitt’s defense embracing a team approach to slowing down Carter.
“When you’re [scoring a lot], you’re clearly going to be on the scouting report,” LSU coach Matt McMahon said. “I thought they did a good job putting physicality on him and worked hard to deny his catches. I think it’ll be a good learning experience from Cam.”
That defense held the Tigers with only a single made field goal in the first seven minutes of the second half and only one field goal in the final four minutes of the game.
Key stat
Pitt entered Friday with the best assist differential in the ACC, averaging a rate of 8.4 more assists than their opponents per game. But much of those numbers had been tallied against non-power-conference opponents. The LSU matchup was an opportunity for Pitt to show it could maintain its offensive flow while still being able to disrupt the flow of a power-conference opponent, and the Panthers delivered with 13 assists to the Tigers’ nine.
Quotable
Capel talked more about Lowe’s maturity to rebound from a rough first half and finish with a strong second half.
“He’s a good player,” Capel said. “Sometimes good players can get in their own heads. I think the last two games, he’s played with the joy he’s always had and not allowed pressure or missed shots get in his head. He didn’t make shots in the first half. Then, in the second half, he had the composure and confidence to make plays. He did it everywhere — the rebounding, the passing, made 3’s and mid-range. He was terrific.”
Lowe recorded his first collegiate triple-double for Pitt in its win over VMI on Monday.
Up next
Pitt takes on Wisconsin for a 5:30 p.m. Sunday tip-off in the championship game of the Greenbrier Tip-Off tournament.
First Published: November 22, 2024, 10:11 p.m.