PITTSBURGH — Ashton Gibbs scored 21 points as Pittsburgh’s balance overcame Kemba Walker’s one-man offense for No. 4 Connecticut, and the No. 6 Panthers easily won the Big East’s first matchup of Top 10 teams by 78-63 on Monday night.
Walker scored 31 points, but missed 17 of 27 shots as Pittsburgh repeatedly limited the Huskies to a single shot in a possession – often a bad one. The Huskies shot 31.7 percent, 19 of 60, and had only two scorers with more than 5 points until the closing minutes in the conference opener.
Brad Wanamaker, who took turns with Gibbs shadowing one of the nation’s leading scorers, added 14 points as Pittsburgh (13-1) beat Connecticut (10-1) for the fourth straight time and the fifth in six games.
Gary McGhee had 11 points and 11 rebounds and Nasir Robinson helped out with 11 points and 10 rebounds for Pitt, which shot 52.1 percent.
Pitt’s experience made a difference as only three players in UConn’s rotation had played before at the Petersen Events Center, where the Panthers are 8-0 against Top 5 teams and 142-11 overall.
The Huskies also played their first road game, and it showed. They had trouble solving Pitt’s man-to-man defense, which repeatedly forced them into taking hurried or low-percentage shots after the shot clock had wound down to a few seconds.
The Huskies fell behind by 10 in the first half, trailed by as many as 15 and never took a determined run despite Walker’s wide variety of baskets, nearly all of them heavily defended.
Walker, most effective when driving the lane against Pitt’s taller but slower defenders, scored at least 20 points for the 10th consecutive game and 30 or more for the fifth time. But the Huskies had no other player in double figures as Walker scored more than half (10) of their 19 baskets.
Pitt, wearing gold uniforms and cheered on by a standing-room crowd of 12,725 that was urged to also wear the color, surged to early leads of 8-2 and 16-7 and never led by fewer than 6 points the rest of the first half.
Coach Jamie Dixon kept rotating defenders against Walker, who missed nine of his first 12 shots – 4 of 5 from 3-point range.
The Panthers took their first 10-point lead at 24-14 when McGhee followed up Robinson’s missed free throw.
Pitt came in outrebounding its opponents by an average of 16 per game, only to have UConn hold a 36-33 advantage. It made no difference as UConn missed 23 of its first 33 shots, including nine of 11 from 3-point range. The eight Connecticut players other than Walker who took shots missed 24 of 33.
Connecticut, unranked before the season began before surging through the ratings after beating Michigan State and Kentucky, has lost five of its last six conference openers.
Pitt is 4-3 against UConn when each team was in the Top 10, but UConn still leads 7-6 when both were nationally ranked. Two-time national champion coach Jim Calhoun is 1-5 at Pitt’s on-campus arena.