Just some quick thoughts here and Stephen, who covered the game for us at the Pete, will be in later with a longer recap and maybe some quotes. But I figured a few quick thoughts were worth throwing out there.
Pitt just got outplayed, plain and simple tonight in the 80-65 loss to Duke. The Panthers were adequate from the field but Duke was red hot, shooting about 50% for the game and 52% from three-point range, making 13 of them. Just not much you can really do there. The defense was horrid at times with players getting wide open looks, but other times, Duke was making them even while guarded pretty tightly.
Also, give Duke's defense a lot of credit. They were tenacious all night and really kept Pitt from doing all they wanted to do on offense. Lots of other issues, too. Zanna refused to make a layup, Patterson didn't show up, poor shooting - lots of holes tonight.
There aren't any good excuses here and Pitt didn't deserve to win the game. But while they're still without a marquee win, it's not time to panic right now, either. Pitt has three losses and all were to ranked teams. I think we're just continuing to see that while the Panthers are a good team, they're not elite - right now, anyway.
This was a good example of what happens when Lamar Patterson doesn't show up to save the day. When you factor that in with Duke's hot shooting, you wind up with the comfortable win the Blue Devils had.
Back to the drawing board.
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