During Pitt's implosion against Miami on the football field, the Panthers' basketball season was kicking off with an exhibition game against Pitt-Johnstown. The Panthers had some slick spots but eventually pulled away for a 95-65 win.
Pitt was up 41-25 at the break.
For the Panthers, it was the first game with the highly-publicized move of forward Jamel Artis to point guard. Artis didn't exactly light things up as a distributor with zero assists, but didn't lose his scoring touch, either, leading the team with 20 points. Ironically, starting center Michael Young led the team with eight assists.
Scoring breakdown for the starters looked like this:
Jamel Artis - 20 points
Cameron Johnson - 18 points
Michael Young - 17 points
Sheldon Jeter - 11 points (also had a double double with 12 boards)
Chris Jones - 11 points
Artis also did a lot of damage from the outside connecting on six of seven three-pointers.
That distribution, obviously, will change going forward and you can't really take too much from this one in terms of stats. Young and Artis should be the team's scoring leaders with Cam, Jeter, and Jones picking up the slack. The totals for everyone except maybe Young could dip as well once Pitt gets other guys involved.
I'm hoping for a good deal from Johnson this year in particular. He's the only one of the starters that will be back next season and they'll surely be relying on him to be a leader.
In all, the five Panthers starters accounted for 77 of the team's 95 points. The balance was much worse earlier on when the game was closer as they had 69 of the first 75 points.
The game wasn't televised and there weren't many people in the stands by the looks of things, which is to be expected with the school playing a football game that was just ready to be wrapping up.
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