Pittsburgh Panthers thump Pennsylvania Quakers 78-58: NCAA Basketball Recap
Friday night witnessed yet another dominating performance by Pittsburgh Panthers, as they overpowered Pennsylvania Quakers 78-58 to improve their record to 4-1 in the NCAA Basketball Tournament 2011.
Ashton Gibbs paced the winners with 16 points including 4 for 6 shooting from the three-point range. Khem Birch was also monumental and completed a double-double with 15 points and 10 rebounds. Nasir Robinson and J.J Moore finished
with 14 and 12 points respectively.
Zack Rosen was the most outstanding player of the night and ended with 22 points on an aggressive 6 for 10 from downtown. He was assisted well by Tyler Bernardini, who pounded 14 points, however unfortunately for the Quakers, no
other player managed to produce a decent tally.
The Panthers were explosive right from the start and constituted a 6 point spurt to get their team ahead. The attack continued for the next few minutes while on the other side, the Quakers were finding it tough to get their shots
going.
Zack Rosen and Tyler however combined to initiate the Quakers revival by reeling off a 7 point burst to reduce the deficit to 14-13. The fight back was short lived though as the Panthers again roared back and completed a 10-2 run
to boost their lead to 24-15.
In the ensuing passage, the balance of the game tilted again as the Quakers launched a 12-6 spree to come within 30-27 with three minutes remaining in the half.
J.J Moore in partnership with Talib Zanna however constituted 5 crucial points just before the final buzzer to ensure Panthers went into the second half with a 35-29 lead.
Rob Belcore struck twice from the line in the early minutes of the second half to reduce the deficit to 35-31 however in the next few minutes, the game started slipping away from the Quakers as Nasir and Birch changed gears to
take Panthers lead to double figures 46-34.
Quakers never managed to recover from the deficit as not only did they fail to find baskets, they were also at a loss on stopping the point leakage.
Nasir drilled a jam just before the final buzzer to make it 78-58 and this was how it ended.
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