Pitt (12-1) ended its non-conference basketball season with an exclamation point, cruising past Maryland Eastern Shore on Saturday, 92-58. For a while, the Hawks appeared like they might give the Panthers a run.
Pitt led by only five early in the second quarter before going on a 14-2 run after a timeout.
The Panthers had 14 points each from Jamel Artis and Michael Young before they sat out quite a bit as the game got out of hand. As a result the bench got a chance to shine and Pitt got 44 points from their reserves, led by Sheldon Jeter, who had 13. Maryland Eastern Shore had a problem with turnovers as the Panthers forced 17 of them. I don't know what they finished with, but late in the game, the Pitt basketball Twitter account said they had scored 25 points off of them to that point.
One nice thing in a pretty unforgettable game was that it was nice watching the starting guards rebound from a poor shooting night against Syracuse. James Robinson and Sterling Smith had 20 points (Smith with 12 and Robinson with eight) on 7-12 shooting.
Overall, not much to see here. Outside of a slow start, it was good to see Pitt play pretty well and avoid a very possible letdown after the Syracuse win. The Panthers did still struggle from three-point range (4-15) and missed more free throws than we've seen them do this year (made 24-36), but hard to take too much away here since the bench players got so much time and some guys were probably looking ahead a little.
Pitt now gets a few days off before facing Georgia Tech at home on Wednesday.
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