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Pittsburgh - Oral Roberts Preview
South- Round One
Pittsburgh Panthers (4) Vs. Oral Roberts Golden Eagles (13)
Thursday, March 20 @ 3 pm
Betting
Line From Bookmaker: Pittsburgh -8.5
The 19th ranked Pittsburgh Panthers (10- 8 Big East, 26- 9 overall) come into the post-season having weathered a rash of injuries. Despite all of the adversity, which included losing Mike Cook, a major contributor, to a season-ending knee injury, the team managed to win the conference tournament crown by beating Georgetown 74- 65.
The Panthers are a physical, scrappy, never-say-die club. Point guard Levance Fields (11.1 PPG, 5.4 APG, 3.9 RPG), who is coming off a broken foot he sustained early in the season, is a solid court general. Junior Sam Young, who stepped up after Cook and Fields were injured, led the team in points, averaging 18 PPG. Backup point guard Ronald Ramon did well when Fields was out.
Although Oral Roberts (16- 2 Summit, 24- 8 overall) lost some fine point producers from last year’s squad, they still managed to play strong all season, taking the Summit League regular season and conference titles. This year, there has been added emphasis on defense, with ORU using tough man-to-man coverage. The result—teams are scoring six fewer points versus them than they did last year.
Oral Roberts features four primary contributors. Guard Robert Jarvis, a JUCO transfer, led the club in points, averaging 16.1 PPG. Senior point guard Adam Liberty (9.7 PPG, 3.3 APG) runs a nicely tuned backcourt. Shawn King (9.7 PPG, 6.6 RPG, 2.0 BPG) is solid on both defense and offense. Team leader, Moses Ehambe (11.7 PPG) has a fine shot from downtown, which he hits 40% of the time.
ORU enters the tournament healthy and running on all cylinders, while Pittsburgh comes in beat-up and weary. Still, the Panthers are a never say die team that has survived a lot of adversity. The Golden Eagles will have to be wary of them.
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