For the first 16 minutes of Pitt’s 86-74 victory Wednesday against California, the Panthers were late to loose balls and rebounds, handled the opponent’s defensive pressure like they were wearing gloves and eventually looked up to see a 16-point deficit on the Petersen Events Center scoreboard.
Pitt forward Cam Corhen didn’t notice. He just went to work.
“We were down 16?” he asked rhetorically after the game when apprised of the big deficit. “Didn’t feel like it. We were just chipping away.”
Yet the game really did look like a lost cause for the Panthers, who were playing their first game since an 11-day holiday break and went to battle without leading scorer and top defender Ishmael Leggett, who turned an ankle after stepping on teammate Jaland Lowe’s foot Saturday in practice.
Lowe smiled at Corhen’s selective memory.
“I’m not like Cam. I felt (the deficit),” he said, playfully poking his teammate. “I felt it, for sure. I felt every second of it.”
And he did something about it.
Along with eight assists, Lowe scored 27 points — one off his season high and the eighth time this season he tallied 18 or more — to lead the Panthers (11-2, 2-0 ACC) to what turned into a comfortable victory. At least, based on the final score.
Pitt’s largest lead was 17 in the game’s final minute.
Lowe was the difference, scoring 18 points in the second half to help lift Pitt’s home winning streak to 14 in a row.
“Jaland is as good a guard as there is in college basketball,” Pitt coach Jeff Capel said. “With good players, you just want to put them in position where they can make reads and make plays. At the end, we just wanted to put the ball in Jaland’s hands and (let him) make plays and he was able to do that.”
But he wasn’t alone.
Corhen recorded a double-double with career highs of 19 points and 11 rebounds, and freshman Brandin Cummings started for Leggett and scored 15, with three 3-pointers in five attempts.
Eight players — or everyone who played — scored at least two points. That included backup Jorge Diaz Graham, who scored six points in 56 seconds of the second half — a 3-pointer and three free throws — to balloon a 63-58 Pitt lead to 69-60 with 7 minutes, 54 seconds left in the game.
“Really, really proud of the group effort that we had,” Capel said.
Pitt was down 39-23 with 4:19 left in the first half before players’ emotions started running hot, the crowd of 7,177 got involved and Pitt fought back to trim the California lead to 42-38 at intermission.
Pitt’s 15-3 blitz included technical fouls against California’s D.J. Campbell and Pitt’s Zack Austin when they tossed the basketball back-and-forth at each other. Capel also was called for a technical, although he said didn’t know why.
The sequence began after Guillermo Diaz Graham dunked at the end of a fast break, with an assist from Amsal Delalic. That cut the Cal lead to 41-32 with 1:18 left in the half. All of sudden, The Pete was noisy.
The Golden Bears’ Jeremiah Wilkinson was called for another technical 30 seconds later, and Pitt responded with two free throws by Lowe and a 3-point basket by Austin.
“You could definitely feel the momentum shift, especially with the techs,” Corhen said. “We were sluggish coming out. Energy from the fans really helped us out.”
California coach Mark Madsen didn’t dispute the technical fouls.
“Officials called T’s for a reason,” he said. “Pitt has a good team, and to beat them, we have to have better composure.”
Pitt immediately took command at the outset of the second half, outscoring the Golden Bears, 19-6, in the first seven minutes to all but assure a favorable outcome.
Lowe and Corhen said the technicals were motivational, but Capel wasn’t sure.
“I wasn’t trying to (fire up his team),” he said. “I’m really not sure what I did or said. I was talking to my team. But if that’s what fired us up, then fine.
“I actually thought we were playing well before that. Maybe we took it to another level. We started to play with the type of force and energy that’s necessary to be a good team. I certainly wasn’t trying to get one in that moment when we had had a little bit of momentum.”
Whatever the reason (probably because Pitt was clearly the more talented team), the Panthers were dominant in the second half, finishing with a 48-32 advantage. In those final 20 minutes, Pitt shot 56% from the field (14 of 25), 83.3% from the free-throw line (15 of 18), committed only one turnover and limited Cal to two offensive rebounds (after the Golden Bears had nine in the first half).
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“We got our minds right, and coaches showed us what it takes to win and what our defensive efforts look like when we win,” Lowe said. “We had to go back to that. At the end of the day, it just comes down to rebounding and effort.”
The victory was most impressive because it happened without Leggett, who is also the team’s second-leading rebounder, and, for the sixth game in a row, senior guard Damian Dunn. Capel, who wasn’t sure Leggett wouldn’t play until 90 minutes before tipoff, said “we’ll see” when asked about his availability Saturday against Stanford.
“One guy gets hurt, another guy steps up,” Lowe said. “We are a bunch of fighters. We don’t quit. We’re going to band together every day. That’s all it is. We know we can trust our brothers.”
He said he felt no added burden without Leggett on the floor.
“I just felt like I needed to do what the team needed me to do.”