That’s what the second half came down to. Pitt getting the ball inside and low to Troutman and Taft. The first half, part of the reason for the turnovers was that Pitt had trouble with South Carolina’s zone defense, and could not pass the ball inside.
In the second half, Pitt scored 28 of its 47 points from inside and held South Carolina to 14 from the paint.
“All this other stuff is window dressing,” South Carolina coach Dave Odom said, holding up a stat sheet. “That’s the game.”
And when a team is effective at denying Pitt the ball inside, then they can win. USC was only able to do that for one half.
Chevon Troutman and Pitt’s inside game was the theme for all stories. It wasn’t just the points. USC was not able to get rebounds against Troutman and Taft. South Carolina’s frontcourt duo of Powell and Wallace combined for only 8 rebounds. Troutman had 12 on his own.
It was a frustrating outcome for USC who had lost on the road to Kansas by 4 a couple weeks ago.
“They are the No. 10 team in the nation,” Gonner said. “They are going to find a way to win. We’ve got to find a way to win at some point.”
USC did plenty of things to keep the game close. The Gamecocks shot 50 percent despite making just 2 of 11 3-pointers, and they used their trapping, full-court defense to force the Panthers into 17 turnovers.
Pittsburgh point guard Carl Krauser, after scoring 31 points in a 69-60 win over Richmond last week, made just 2 of 11 field goals to score 14 points.
Still, USC heads into Friday’s game with Wofford, its final nonconference game of the season, lacking a killer instinct against top competition.
“As a coach, the thing I’ve got to be very, very careful about is not allowing them to stick their chests out and say we came close again,” Odom said. “What we’ve got to do is push them where they are not quite ready to go themselves. We’ve got to push them to win on the court of a top-ranked program like Pitt. We’ve got to push them to that. They don’t understand that they are capable of that.”
Pitt made adjustments to what they were facing from the first half. There was not stubbornness of just trying to do things their way. Pitt always wants to get the ball inside — whether for the shot in the paint or just to kick it out. Passing along the perimeter is not what Pitt wants to do. Pitt did that by adjusting to the defense and finding the weak spots.
Ramon and Demetrius hitting open 3s was huge in creating the openings. As long as Pitt can make 35-40% of its 3 point shots, the inside game will be available. This doesn’t mean taking 20 3s in a game. It means taking the clean shot when given. Teams are going to sag inside on Pitt a lot this year. It is still the most effective defense against Pitt, until the team shows real consistency on the outside and mid-range shots.
