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Pitt's loss no upset
- Frustration hits home
- Technical foul changed momentum
- Pitt notebook: Krauser finishes ninth in career scoring
Joe Starkey can be reached via e-mail or at 412-320-7810.
Antonio Graves shot 0 for 8. That's one. If Graves could have converted any of a number of open looks, the outcome might have been different.
Referee Scott Thornley's ticky tacky technical-foul call on Pitt's Aaron Gray was another. It happened early in the second half with the Panthers leading 35-34 and completely turned momentum.
As an NCAA spokesman later explained, spiking the ball -- as Gray did -- is not an automatic technical. Thornley should have used better judgment and let it go. It was a rotten way to slap a third personal foul on Gray, who was obviously agitated with teammate Ronald Ramon and not trying to show up the referees.
Let the players determine the outcome.
Then again, if not for Carl Krauser's rushed jump shot with Pitt leading, 33-30, the Gray incident might never have happened. What a terrible shot. There was no reason for Krauser to pull up for a 3-pointer early in a possession after Pitt had seized momentum.
Krauser had a miserable afternoon, with a game-high six turnovers. He simply couldn't shake Bradley's quicker defenders.
Gray's inside misses and Pitt's slow start -- the team missed its first seven shots two days after setting a school record for field-goal percentage -- also could be blamed. The Panthers' reputation for physical play might hurt them in this kind of setting. They sure did draw some quick whistles.
Keith Benjamin's illness was a factor, too. Pitt had nobody to guard Bradley's Lawrence Wright, who had 14 points and seven offensive rebounds. Benjamin would have drawn that assignment.
But that's just looking at one side of the equation.
If memory serves, there were two teams on the court -- and anybody who doesn't believe Bradley is every bit as good as Pitt is either delusional or dense.
Or just doesn't watch enough college basketball.
Start in the middle. Bradley's 7-foot center, Patrick O'Bryant, is at least the equal of Gray, if not better. He's certainly more athletic. O'Bryant had a game-high 28 points. Like Gray, he's a future first-round draft pick.
Maybe a lottery pick.
Some will ask, "How could Pitt lose to the fifth-place team from the Missouri Valley Conference?"
Two answers:
1. Don't knock the MVC. It has two teams in the Sweet 16.
2. O'Bryant didn't play in the first eight games and was benched with foul trouble in the second half of a conference title-game loss to Southern Illinois.
Move away from the center matchup and ask yourself this: Who was the best player on the court?
If your answer isn't "Marcellus Sommerville," try again. Sommerville, a 6-foot-7, 225-pound senior forward, killed Kansas on Friday and had 14 second-half points yesterday. He scored nine during a 19-4 run in which Bradley took control.
According to Dick Vitale, Sommerville was one of the top five junior-college recruits in the country two years ago, but you didn't need Vitale or anyone else to tell you he was the most talented player on the court yesterday.
You just needed your eyes.
Pitt has better shooters than Bradley, and maybe more depth, but it had no answer for Wright, a 6-4 reserve with a 44-inch vertical leap. When coach Jim Less spotted the 6-foot Krauser or Graves guarding Wright, he immediately exploited the matchup for easy points.
Why the mismatches if fifth-seeded Pitt is so superior?
As Wright put it, "We knew they (were at a) disadvantage down low."
If these teams played 20 times, they'd probably split. Whichever team's big man got into foul trouble would likely lose.
Seeds be darned. This was no upset.
