MIDWEST
Marquette 77
Pittsburgh 74
MINNEAPOLIS – The final gasp was a heave, a prayer, and when it left Carl Krauser’s hands the only sound you could hear inside the Metrodome was a desperate voice crying out from the Pittsburgh Panthers’ fan section.
“Oh, God!” he said. “It’s got a chance!”
No, it didn’t. And no, they didn’t.
Pitt’s magical ride across this basketball winter ended with an ugly thud last night, ended when Krauser’s wishful half-court shot sailed high over the backboard and bounced harmlessly against the basket standard, clinching a 77-74 upset for Marquette.
The win secured for the Golden Eagles a spot in the NCAA Midwest Regional, the first time they’ve advanced this far in the tournament since winning the 1977 national title.
For Pitt, which finishes its season 28-5, it was a bitter conclusion to a sweet adventure, one that carried the Panthers to their first-ever Big East tournament championship. All along, it seemed that Pitt was the perfect foe to trip up Kentucky before the Final Four, given the Panthers’ close-knit offense and relentless defense that their coach, Ben Howland, had likened to a basketball version of the Steelers’ old Steel Curtain.
“This is a devastating loss for a lot of people,” Howland said. “There are a lot of sad players and coaches in our locker room, because I felt – we all felt – that we were in great position to make a serious run at the Final Four and at the national championship. But we just ran into a very hot team. We thought we would find a way to pull it out.”
But Pitt never did find an answer for Dwayne Wade, who went on a scorching one-man run in the second half. Held to two points in the first half, the 6-5 junior made nine of the 14 shots he attempted in the second, some of them from absurd angles, and scored 20 of his game-high 22 points after halftime.
Brandin Knight closed out his brilliant collegiate career by scoring 16 points and handing out 11 assists for the Panthers. His two free throws narrowed Marquette’s lead – which had been as wide as 70-59 with just 4½ minutes left – to 75-74 with 15 seconds left in the game.
But Scott Merritt calmly drilled a pair of free throws with 11.2 seconds left – after nearly being called for traveling in front of his own bench – and Knight missed a 3-pointer with under five seconds left that would have tied the game.
“I thought about trying to get my man [Wade] in the air and drawing a foul there,” Knight said. “But I didn’t think the refs would call that. No ref wants a game decided on a call that far from the basket. I had a good look. I just missed it.”
Marquette’s Travis Diener allowed the desperate voices in the Pitt cheering section a sliver of hope by missing a pair of free throws with 2.3 seconds left, but Howland had used both of his remaining timeouts trying to set up Knight’s missed 3, and so the best Pitt could manage after Diener’s second miss was Krauser’s desperate toss.
Chevon Troutman added 15 points for Pitt, while Jaron Brown (14) and Julius Page (12) also reached double figures. Merritt’s 17 (including 9 of 11 from the foul line) and Robert Jackson’s 16 paced the Golden Eagles (26-5), who will play Kentucky tomorrow afternoon for the right to advance to New Orleans.
