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NCAA - Midwest
March 24, 2003
BOSTON -- Pittsburgh has a Steel Curtain defense again, thanks to coach Ben Howland.
His Panthers wore down Indiana in a 74-52 victory Sunday to reach the round of 16 for the second straight season.
Pitt didn't have much of a basketball tradition before Howland arrived, so he had to find his inspiration elsewhere in the city's sporting lore.
"Pittsburgh Steelers basketball," Howland called it after becoming the school's most successful NCAA Tournament coach with four wins.
"We're not tall. We're burly. We want kids that are tough. That's what wins."
Jaron Brown scored 20 and Brandin Knight added 17 points and seven assists for second-seeded Pittsburgh, which will play No. 3 seed Marquette in the region semifinals Thursday in Minneapolis.
Knight also had five steals, and Chevon Troutman grabbed nine rebounds to go with 10 points as the Panthers (28-4) did most of their damage on defense.
Drawing on the Steel Curtain defense that brought the city four Super Bowl titles in the 1970s, Howland used a bulky frontcourt rotation of Ontario Lett, Donatas Zavackas and Troutman.
Listed at an average of 6-foot-7 and 246 pounds, but probably heavier, they pushed around Indiana's taller but spindly George Leach (6-11, 240) and Jeff Newton (6-9, 225).
Indiana (21-13) trailed by one before going scoreless for the last 6:33 of the first half, committing five turnovers during that the span while missing five shots, mostly long, contested 3-pointers. At the same time, Brown had a blocked shot and a 3-pointer, and Knight added two steals and two 3s to give Pitt a 31-21 halftime lead.
Indiana, a seventh seed, had a similar stumble at a similar time of its opening-round game against Alabama before overcoming an 11-point halftime deficit to beat the Crimson Tide 67-62.
This time, the deficit was more than a temporary setback for the Hoosiers, who lost in the championship game to Maryland last season.
"It's hard to think back right now," senior Tom Coverdale said when asked to assess his career. "I'm just thinking about what we could have done."
KENTUCKY 74, UTAH 54: The preliminaries are over. Now, the Wildcats can get down to business.
Top-seeded Kentucky cruised into the round of 16 for the ninth time in 11 years.
The way Kentucky is playing, there wasn't much need to spend the weekend in Nashville. The Wildcats (31-3) cruised through the first two rounds by a combined 52 points, stretching the nation's longest winning streak to 25 games.
They don't plan on stopping at Minneapolis, where they'll meet Wisconsin in the region semifinals Thursday night.
"Reaching the Sweet 16 doesn't do it for me," Cliff Hawkins said, knowing that's where his team was knocked out the past two years. "I want more."
Teammate Gerald Fitch agreed.
"We still have four games to go," he said. "We don't have any reason to be happy yet."
Keith Bogans and Marquis Estill scored 18 each in a convincing display of Kentucky's myriad options. No. 9 seed Utah (25-8) couldn't do much against the Wildcats' in-your-face defense, which held the Utes to 39.6 percent shooting.