Panthers get their 1st win
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In the midst of that second half surge, a team that had been unexpectedly dependent on two players to score in its first two games found a much greater sense of balance on its way to ahigh much-needed victory. In all, five Pitt players finished with at least 11 points, a group led by Milligan and his career-high 14 points on 4-of-5 shooting, a spike in production from a player who had 77 points in his entire Pitt career entering the night.
That spread-out scoring did the team little good early. The Panthers left off where they did defensively against Montana, struggling to contain or even stay in front of a smaller-conference opponent with lesser-heralded players.
As opposed to Monday night, when they allowed the Grizzlies to get to the rim and convert, UC-Santa Barbara’s guards would slice past the Pitt perimeter and would find open shooters lingering outside the 3-point line. The Gauchos shot just 41.9 percent from the field in the opening 20 minutes, but they were eight of 15 (53.3 percent) from 3 and averaged an impressive 1.19 points per possession.
Due in large part to that potency from deep, Pitt led for just 20 seconds in the first half.
After halftime, and spurred by their assistant coach’s message, the Panthers didn’t make any wholesale defensive adjustments, aside from a little extra pressing. As their coach and players said, they simply competed harder, primarily closing out quicker and more effectively on the players who got clean looks early. In the second half, the Gauchos shot just 23.5 percent, including a 13.3 percent clip from 3-point range (2 of 15).
“If we want somebody to come in here and play with more energy than us, then we should be OK with getting beat,” Stallings said. “But I don’t raise my voice too much with these guys. That’s not what they need. They need support and confidence.”
Those defensive clamps helped get Pitt back in a game that, for extended stretches, looked like it may devolve into another dispiriting loss. Trailing, 57-56, with 2:40 remaining, Ryan Luther tipped in a missed shot to give his team the lead. Then, on back-to-back possessions, Wilson-Frame put the game out of reach, getting a layup off an offensive rebound on one and an emphatic 3 on the other that doubled Pitt’s advantage to six with 54 seconds left.
As the Panthers wait five days until the next game — a matchup next Monday against Penn State in Brooklyn — they won’t have to stew in disappointment and regret. The Panthers can, at last, exhale.