February 26, 2003

Pittsburgh guard Brandin Knight came into Wednesday night's game against Virginia Tech shooting just 34 percent from the floor and 27.4 percent from beyond the 3-point arc.

Those numbers increased significantly after the game.

That's because Knight scored a game-high 25 points and tied his career high by making six 3-pointers as the eighth-ranked Pittsburgh Panthers knocked off the Hokies 75-62 in front of 4,493 fans at Cassell Coliseum.

The loss marked Tech's fifth straight as the Hokies fell to 10-16 overall on the season, 3-10 in the BIG EAST. The Panthers' win marked their 20th of the season, giving them back-to-back 20-win seasons for the first time in 15 years. Pittsburgh is now 20-4, 10-3 in the league.

Tech led in the early going, but the Panthers went on a 26-12 run over an 11-minute span to take a 13-point lead with about two minutes left in the first half. Pittsburgh hit four 3-pointers in that run, with Knight hitting two of them, and the Panthers ended up taking an 11-point lead into the locker room.

Knight - who hit 7-of-10 from the floor, 6-of-8 from beyond the 3-point arc - continued his torrid shooting in the second half, hitting two 3-pointers in the first four minutes of the half. He and Donatas Zavackus hit back-to-back 3-pointers early in the second half, and those, combined with Chevon Troutman's 3-point play with 13:53 left in the game gave the Panthers a 17-point lead, 54-37.

Tech tried to climb back into it, going on a 13-4 run midway through the second half. The Hokies cut the lead to 58-50 on a basket by Terry Taylor with 6:08 remaining and appeared to be on the verge of making a run.

But Knight canned another 3-pointer, this one with 5:36 left, giving the Panthers a 61-50 bulge. After Tech's Allen Calloway missed on a turnaround jumper, Pittsburgh got another 3 when Julius Page buried one with 4:46 left. Tech got a hoop from Taylor with 4:17 to go that cut the lead 64-52, but Knight then came down and drilled his final 3-pointer of the game and that one put Tech away.

"Knight had been struggling," Tech head coach Ricky Stokes said. "But he had a good game tonight. I thought that one shot, after we had cut the lead to eight, was a big shot. He's a good player and good players make good plays."

"That's what you want," Pittsburgh coach Ben Howland said of Knight. "A senior on the road leading you to a victory. They played a lot of zone and I thought we attacked their zone very well. When they pack it in like that, you have to make some 3's and we did."

Pittsburgh finished with 11 3-pointers in the game, hitting 11-of-25. Page hit three 3-pointers and finished with 11 points, while Zavackus added two 3's and ended up with eight points. The Panthers shot 52.9 percent from the floor for the game.

"They do a great job of passing [Pittsburgh had 19 assists]," said Tech's Taylor, who, along with Bryant Matthews, led the Hokies with 17 points. "They swing it around, run some time off the clock and then take a shot.

"When we played zone against UConn, they didn't do a good job of passing. And we knew who their scorers were. Against Pittsburgh, they've got six guys in double figures and they like to share the ball. They pass it so much that you're never sure who to guard."

Tech struggled on the offensive end as well, shooting just 39.6 percent against Pittsburgh's man-to-man defense. The Panthers came into the game allowing just 59.3 points per game and allowing opponents to shoot just 38 percent from the floor - both at the top of the BIG EAST statistical standings.

Tech will try to snap its five-game losing streak this Saturday when Villanova comes to Blacksburg. Tip-off is slated for noon.