Ramon's 3-pointer buzzer-beater lifts Pitt over WVU
PITTSBURGH - In the end, it was Ronald Ramon's dramatic, buzzer-beating 3-pointer that gave Pitt its 55-54 win over West Virginia Thursday night in front of an ecstatic sellout crowd at the Petersen Event Center.
PITTSBURGH - In the end, it was Ronald Ramon's dramatic, buzzer-beating 3-pointer that gave Pitt its 55-54 win over West Virginia Thursday night in front of an ecstatic sellout crowd at the Petersen Event Center.
And while the Mountaineers will kick themselves for the length of their idle week for allowing that, it won't be the only thing that bothers them.
The fact is, West Virginia had plenty of chances to win this one. And they blew every one of them.
"Pitt didn't beat us. We beat ourselves,'' said sophomore guard Joe Mazzulla, whose best scoring game at WVU went for naught. "That's not to take anything away from them or to say they didn't play well. They did. But it was just out mistakes that beat us, mental and physical both.''
Indeed, had the Mountaineers made any of a number of plays in the game's final minutes - even seconds - the result may well have been different. Coach Bob Huggins focused primarily on the end, when in a matter of eight seconds West Virginia's defense inexplicably lost Ramon, one of Pitt's best shooters, and allowed him a wide-open look just before the buzzer.
But the result could just as easily have been different had the Mountaineers not whiffed at the free-throw line. Again. Or if on virtually every occasion when they had a little bit of momentum, they didn't give it right back.
In so many ways, it was just like the Mountaineers' one-point loss to Georgetown less than two weeks ago - a series of missed opportunities followed by a backbreaking 3-pointer.
"I think it's pretty apparent we can beat anyone,'' Huggins said. "But we can also get beat by anyone. Sometimes you depend on guys you shouldn't depend on.''
Huggins was livid over the way the game ended, when his defense had eight seconds to stop Pitt and failed. Playing man-to-man defense, the idea was to switch on every screen to throw the Panthers off. It worked until one defender missed a switch at the end. Wellington Smith dropped off to double-team a penetrator and Ramon was left all alone on the left wing.
"That's one of the guys we talked about,'' Huggins said. "You can't let him beat us and you can't let Sam Young beat us.''
Until that point, West Virginia (16-7, 5-5 Big East) had done just enough to avoid losing for the third time in four games. In a game in which momentum swings allowed WVU to lead by as many as seven points in the second half and Pitt (18-5, 6-4) by as many as six in the first, the Mountaineers overcame a 50-45 deficit in the final four minutes to take leads of 53-50 (on back-to-back shots by Darris Nichols) and 54-52 on one free throw by Alex Ruoff with 9.5 seconds to play.
It was that one free throw, though, that was troubling because it was just one of two. West Virginia, which until recently had been a solid free-throw shooting team, again was awful for a night, missing 10 of 17 for the game. And even when they made two, as Joe Alexander did with just under five minutes to play, they didn't count. Alexander's were wiped out when officials looked at a replay - ironically during a timeout called by Huggins - and ruled that he shouldn't have been at the line. It is a correctable error, and when Cam Thoroughman went to the line, he came up empty.
"I didn't know you could do that,'' Nichols said of taking Alexander's points off the board.
Once it got down to crunch time, West Virginia did a lot right, but just not enough. The Mountaineers did lose Keith Benjamin on an inbounds play under the Pitt basket and he dunked with just under a minute to go to cut the West Virginia lead to 53-52, but with 22 seconds to play WVU did a great job of denying 265-pound DeJaun Blair a chance to muscle his way for a go-ahead basket. Instead, the Mountaineers got the rebound of Blair's miss to send Ruoff to the line.
But his one free throw left the door open. Pitt called time with 8.1 seconds to go, first tried to work the ball inside and then Benjamin kicked it back out to Ramon when he was left open.
"We tried to switch on everything, but I guess somebody lost Ramon,'' said Nichols, who was inside with Blair. "We did a good job keeping track of him all night. But I knew as soon as he shot it it was right on the rim all the way.''
To that point Ramon was 1-for-5 from the floor, all 3-point attempts.
"He made the shot. But Keith made the play, the extra pass,'' said Pitt coach Jamie Dixon. "It was a big-time shot by a big-time player.''
The outcome overshadowed a wonderful performance by Mazzulla, who scored a career-high 15 points and made six of his seven shots, including three 3-pointers. Nichols led West Virginia with 16 points.
But the Mountaineers, in addition to their awful free-throw shooting, made just 35.8 percent from the floor after missing nine of their first 10 shots of the game.
Pitt wasn't much better, shooting 40 percent.
West Virginia has a week off before playing host to Rutgers next Thursday and Seton Hall a week from Sunday at the Coliseum.
To contact staff writer Dave Hickman, use e-mail or call 348-1734.
Pitt 55, WVU 54
WEST VIRGINIA (16-7, 5-5)
Player FG FT R A P
Da'Sean Butler 1-9 3-6 5 1 6
Joe Alexander 2-11 0-2 4 3 5
Jamie Smalligan 1-2 0-0 4 1 3
Darris Nichols 6-15 2-4 1 2 16
Alex Ruoff 1-1 2-4 3 1 5
Cam Thoroughman 0-2 0-1 3 1 0
Joe Mazzulla 6-7 0-0 3 0 15
Jarrett Brown 0-1 0-0 1 0 0
Wellington Smith 2-3 0-0 6 0 4
John Flowers 0-2 0-0 0 0 0
TEAM 5
Totals 19-53 7-17 35 9 54
Pittsburgh (18-5, 6-4)
Player FG FT R A P
Gilbert Brown 1-5 3-4 4 3 5
Sam Young 4-6 0-0 6 0 10
DeJuan Blair 3-13 1-3 12 1 7
Keith Benjamin 4-12 2-2 2 2 10
Ronald Ramon 2-6 2-2 2 3 8
Tyrell Biggs 2-3 0-1 6 0 4
Brad Wanamaker 3-4 0-0 2 2 7
Gary McGhee 1-1 2-4 1 0 4
TEAM 4
Totals 20-50 10-16 39 11 55
Halftime: WVU 27-26. 3-point goals: WVU 9-19 (Butler 1-4, Alexander 1-1, Smalligan 1-1, Nichols 2-7, Ruoff 1-1, Mazzulla 3-4, Brown 0-1); Pitt 5-15 (Brown 0-2, Young 2-2, Benjamin 0-4, Ramon 2-6, Wanamaker 1-1). Attendance: 12,508.
PITTSBURGH - In the end, it was Ronald Ramon's dramatic, buzzer-beating 3-pointer that gave Pitt its 55-54 win over West Virginia Thursday night in front of an ecstatic sellout crowd at the Petersen Event Center.
And while the Mountaineers will kick themselves for the length of their idle week for allowing that, it won't be the only thing that bothers them.
While Pitt players and fans celebrate, West Virginia’s Wellington Smith is shocked by the way it ended.
The fact is, West Virginia had plenty of chances to win this one. And they blew every one of them.
"Pitt didn't beat us. We beat ourselves,'' said sophomore guard Joe Mazzulla, whose best scoring game at WVU went for naught. "That's not to take anything away from them or to say they didn't play well. They did. But it was just out mistakes that beat us, mental and physical both.''
Indeed, had the Mountaineers made any of a number of plays in the game's final minutes - even seconds - the result may well have been different. Coach Bob Huggins focused primarily on the end, when in a matter of eight seconds West Virginia's defense inexplicably lost Ramon, one of Pitt's best shooters, and allowed him a wide-open look just before the buzzer.
But the result could just as easily have been different had the Mountaineers not whiffed at the free-throw line. Again. Or if on virtually every occasion when they had a little bit of momentum, they didn't give it right back.
In so many ways, it was just like the Mountaineers' one-point loss to Georgetown less than two weeks ago - a series of missed opportunities followed by a backbreaking 3-pointer.
"I think it's pretty apparent we can beat anyone,'' Huggins said. "But we can also get beat by anyone. Sometimes you depend on guys you shouldn't depend on.''
Huggins was livid over the way the game ended, when his defense had eight seconds to stop Pitt and failed. Playing man-to-man defense, the idea was to switch on every screen to throw the Panthers off. It worked until one defender missed a switch at the end. Wellington Smith dropped off to double-team a penetrator and Ramon was left all alone on the left wing.
"That's one of the guys we talked about,'' Huggins said. "You can't let him beat us and you can't let Sam Young beat us.''
Until that point, West Virginia (16-7, 5-5 Big East) had done just enough to avoid losing for the third time in four games. In a game in which momentum swings allowed WVU to lead by as many as seven points in the second half and Pitt (18-5, 6-4) by as many as six in the first, the Mountaineers overcame a 50-45 deficit in the final four minutes to take leads of 53-50 (on back-to-back shots by Darris Nichols) and 54-52 on one free throw by Alex Ruoff with 9.5 seconds to play.
It was that one free throw, though, that was troubling because it was just one of two. West Virginia, which until recently had been a solid free-throw shooting team, again was awful for a night, missing 10 of 17 for the game. And even when they made two, as Joe Alexander did with just under five minutes to play, they didn't count. Alexander's were wiped out when officials looked at a replay - ironically during a timeout called by Huggins - and ruled that he shouldn't have been at the line. It is a correctable error, and when Cam Thoroughman went to the line, he came up empty.
"I didn't know you could do that,'' Nichols said of taking Alexander's points off the board.
Once it got down to crunch time, West Virginia did a lot right, but just not enough. The Mountaineers did lose Keith Benjamin on an inbounds play under the Pitt basket and he dunked with just under a minute to go to cut the West Virginia lead to 53-52, but with 22 seconds to play WVU did a great job of denying 265-pound DeJaun Blair a chance to muscle his way for a go-ahead basket. Instead, the Mountaineers got the rebound of Blair's miss to send Ruoff to the line.
But his one free throw left the door open. Pitt called time with 8.1 seconds to go, first tried to work the ball inside and then Benjamin kicked it back out to Ramon when he was left open.
"We tried to switch on everything, but I guess somebody lost Ramon,'' said Nichols, who was inside with Blair. "We did a good job keeping track of him all night. But I knew as soon as he shot it it was right on the rim all the way.''
To that point Ramon was 1-for-5 from the floor, all 3-point attempts.
"He made the shot. But Keith made the play, the extra pass,'' said Pitt coach Jamie Dixon. "It was a big-time shot by a big-time player.''
The outcome overshadowed a wonderful performance by Mazzulla, who scored a career-high 15 points and made six of his seven shots, including three 3-pointers. Nichols led West Virginia with 16 points.
But the Mountaineers, in addition to their awful free-throw shooting, made just 35.8 percent from the floor after missing nine of their first 10 shots of the game.
Pitt wasn't much better, shooting 40 percent.
West Virginia has a week off before playing host to Rutgers next Thursday and Seton Hall a week from Sunday at the Coliseum.
To contact staff writer Dave Hickman, use e-mail or call 348-1734.
Pitt 55, WVU 54
WEST VIRGINIA (16-7, 5-5)
Player FG FT R A P
Da'Sean Butler 1-9 3-6 5 1 6
Joe Alexander 2-11 0-2 4 3 5
Jamie Smalligan 1-2 0-0 4 1 3
Darris Nichols 6-15 2-4 1 2 16
Alex Ruoff 1-1 2-4 3 1 5
Cam Thoroughman 0-2 0-1 3 1 0
Joe Mazzulla 6-7 0-0 3 0 15
Jarrett Brown 0-1 0-0 1 0 0
Wellington Smith 2-3 0-0 6 0 4
John Flowers 0-2 0-0 0 0 0
TEAM 5
Totals 19-53 7-17 35 9 54
Pittsburgh (18-5, 6-4)
Player FG FT R A P
Gilbert Brown 1-5 3-4 4 3 5
Sam Young 4-6 0-0 6 0 10
DeJuan Blair 3-13 1-3 12 1 7
Keith Benjamin 4-12 2-2 2 2 10
Ronald Ramon 2-6 2-2 2 3 8
Tyrell Biggs 2-3 0-1 6 0 4
Brad Wanamaker 3-4 0-0 2 2 7
Gary McGhee 1-1 2-4 1 0 4
TEAM 4
Totals 20-50 10-16 39 11 55
Halftime: WVU 27-26. 3-point goals: WVU 9-19 (Butler 1-4, Alexander 1-1, Smalligan 1-1, Nichols 2-7, Ruoff 1-1, Mazzulla 3-4, Brown 0-1); Pitt 5-15 (Brown 0-2, Young 2-2, Benjamin 0-4, Ramon 2-6, Wanamaker 1-1). Attendance: 12,508.
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