Two decades removed from nearly stunning the college basketball world, the ETSU men’s basketball team took another shot at a No. 1 seed and once again the Buccaneers gave the giant a scare.
Having lost to No. 1-seeded Oklahoma 72-71 back in 1989, the Buccaneers have a history of making things interesting in the NCAA Tournament, and Friday afternoon inside the University of Dayton Arena, ETSU found itself trailing the No. 1 seed and Big East Conference’s Pittsburgh 59-57 with just over four minutes left in regulation.
However, the Bucs were unable to complete the upset bid, ultimately falling to the Panthers 72-62.
With the loss, the Bucs’ season comes to an end while Pittsburgh, after beating Oklahoma State 84-76 on Sunday, advances to the Sweet 16 in Boston.
“I’m very proud of our guys – they fought incredibly hard,” said ETSU head coach Murry Bartow, whose team finishes the season as the Atlantic Sun Conference champions with a 23-11 record.
“Pittsburgh is a heck of a team, but we’re disappointed because we thought we were going to win. We came here to win and we believed that we could.”
ETSU forced 18 Pittsburgh turnovers and dominated the offensive glass en route to a 25-7 advantage in second chance points.
While the competitiveness was there, the Bucs struggled offensively as ETSU shot just 31 percent from the floor (23-of-75) and 50 percent from the foul line (12-of-24) for the game.
Despite the poor shooting effort, the Bucs full court press and man-to-man defense caused Pittsburgh problems and kept ETSU in the game. In fact, the Bucs tied the game five times in the second half and pulled to within two at 59-57 with 4:27 left.
At that point, ETSU forced yet another turnover and had a shot to tie the game. However, a turnover by senior forward Kevin Tiggs led to a 3-point play by Pittsburgh’s 6-foot-7, 265-pound center Dejuan Blair to make it 62-57.
From there, Tiggs hit a pair of free throws to make it 62-59, but that was as close as the Bucs could get the rest of the way, as they were forced to foul and Pittsburgh pushed the lead out to the final 10-point deficit by hitting its free throws.
ETSU shot just 24 percent in the first 20 minutes and did not have a field goal for the final 8:04 of the half. The Bucs’ 23 points in the half matched their lowest first-half output of the season.
However, forcing 13 Pittsburgh turnovers on five steals and staying in the rebound battle bolstered the Bucs, who never trailed by more than six and had the game tied at 20-20 with 6:35 left in the half before ultimately going to the intermission with the score 26-23.
For the game, Tiggs led ETSU with a team-high 21 points, fellow senior Courtney Pigram pitched in 17 and senior Greg Hamlin led the Bucs with 10 rebounds.
For Pittsburgh, Blair posted a double-double with 27 points and 16 rebounds, while teammates Sam Young and Ashton Gibbs pitched in 14 and 10 points, respectively.

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