NCAA Basketball: Pittsburgh uses defense and late run to win Fort Myers Tipoff

Pittsburgh showed toughness in beating Northwestern in the second annual Rocket Mortgage Fort Myers Tipoff. They used great defense to pull out a 72-59 win.

Pittsburgh struggled to shot the ball Wednesday night, but lucky for them so did Northwestern. In an ugly low scoring game, the Panthers were able to come out on top and win the Fort Myers Tipoff.

After a slow start to the game where Pitt led just 9-6 after eight minutes of gameplay, the Panthers used a barrage of dunks to open a nine-point lead just two minutes later. Unfortunately for Pitt fans, they didn’t see much else the rest of the half.

Northwestern was able to slow down the pace again and held Pitt scoreless for over five minutes as they used a 10-0 run to erase a 21-13 deficit to take the lead.

Xavier Johnson finally stopped the scoring drought when he hit a running layup with 45 seconds left in the half to tie the game. Tre McGowens was able to put Pitt ahead at the break when he hit a late layup. It was an ugly first half that Pitt was lucky to be leading in.

Pitt started the second half on a quick 7-0 run to jump ahead by eight, but the poor shooting continued from both teams as neither team could make much a run. Despite the woeful shooting from Pitt, they were able to keep the lead for most of the half because the Wildcats didn’t shoot much better.

Pitt was led by Justin Champagnie and Xavier Johnson as they scored 21 and 11 respectively. After struggling with his shot for most of the game Champagnie hit two big threes late in the second half to effectively put the game away. Before his two big threes, he was 0-8 from deep, but his first two makes couldn’t have come at a bigger time.

Pat Spencer did all he could to will the Wildcats to victory scoring 16 a game after scoring 23 in their win against Bradley.

In a game when neither team shot over 45% Pitt was able to pull out the ugly win, by using a late run to put the game away. While ugly, its a big step in the right direction for a Pitt program trying to make it back to the NCAA Tournament.

Northwestern may have come up short in the championship game, but beating Bradley handily and playing Pitt tough it showed there is no quit a team that looked awful in losing to Merrimack and Rider earlier in the year.

Both teams have a long way to go to compete with the big dogs of the ACC and Big Ten but for one night they were able to play for a championship.