The Case for...Pitt

As soon as the brackets were unveiled, it was immediately clear that one of the top seeds had been dealt a favorable hand. That team with the easiest path out of its region is Pittsburgh—which is the reason the Panthers will end up hoisting the hardware in Houston.

Standing in the way of a Pitt Final Four berth appear to be Florida, Brigham Young and Wisconsin. The Gators are a team that most pundits consider to be the weakest No. 2 seed after getting thrashed in the SEC championship game by a young Kentucky squad. Brigham Young may be an underdog story, but the suspension of Brandon Davies sent the Cougars into a late-season swoon that has people questioning whether to expect them to be around for the second weekend. And Wisconsin has another rock-solid team led by Bo Ryan, but the grind-it-out Badgers don’t have the firepower to beat Pitt, as demonstrated by their woeful 36-33 loss to Penn State in the Big 10 tournament.

But, beyond the easier competition in their Southeast Region, the Panthers have proven all season long that they can perform on the court too. Finishing with a 27-5 mark overall, which included a 15-3 conference record and Big East regular season championship, Pitt is clearly battle-tested and showed the ability to pull out wins against the nation’s toughest competition. Although the Panthers did get nipped early in their conference tournament by a Kemba Walker buzzer beater, that only means that their legs are going to be fresher for a six-game run.

Like many historic Pitt teams, Jamie Dixon’s squad prides itself on its work on the defensive end. The Panthers rank 21st in the nation in scoring defense, yielding just 61 points per game. With Gary McGhee and a host of other big men on the inside, Pitt excels at protecting the rim. Given that it takes six games to win a title, the Panthers’ prowess on the defensive end gives them the flexibility to absorb an off-night scoring the ball.

Putting the ball in the basket, though, is not a problem that the Panthers have had either. The trio of guards Ashton Gibbs, Brad Wanamaker and forward Gilbert Brown are all double-digit scorers. Gibbs, the team’s leading scorer at just under 17 points an outing, missed three crucial conference games with a knee injury. In his absence, Wanamaker and Brown provided veteran leadership over a stretch that saw the Panthers go 3-0, including road wins over West Virginia and Villanova. These victories are proof that the offense can come from any number of sources, and Pitt will be not be derailed by an injury or foul trouble.

As the old saying goes, defense wins championships, and Ohio State is the only team which has given opponents more trouble scoring this year. Still, Pitt’s interior defense is likely to slow down Jared Sullinger just enough, and the Panthers’ balanced offensive attack will help them pull away late in a low-scoring Monday night win April 4.