Pitt's bread and butter was taken away by Syracuse and the Panthers had no recourse to keep up at the Carrier Dome in a 77-61 loss to the Orangemen at the Carrier Dome Tuesday night.
The Panthers looked comfortable attacking Syracuse's zone in the opening minutes as Pitt displayed solid offense in the first half. Between hitting jump shots and finding good looks underneath, the Panthers made 50 percent of their field goals in the first half when they were neck-and-neck with Syracuse down 35-34 on the road at halftime. It appeared that Jeff Capel's team, many of which were facing Syracuse for the first time like John Hugley IV, Jamarius Burton and Mouhammadou Gueye, might have a solid understanding of how to break Jim Boeheim's legendary 2-3 zone defense that's been deployed by the Orangemen since he started coaching the program in 1976.