The Oakland Zoo is one of the better, wilder environments in college basketball. Virginia turned the zoo into a library.
“You can tell the crowd wanted to get into it, and they did at stretches, but for the most part we kept them at bay,” Virginia coach Tony Bennett said after his ninth-ranked Cavs had dispatched Pitt, 64-50, on Saturday.
This was a UVA team that hadn’t won on the road in the ACC until 11 days ago, and needed a historic comeback to get that win, at lowly Wake Forest, on a buzzer-beating banked three-pointer.
That answered prayer broke some sort of packaging seal for the Cavs, who were dominant in a 16-point road win at Louisville last Saturday, and equally impressive at Pitt today.
The Panthers were 13-2 at home entering the weekend, with a zoo and a blackout ready to greet Virginia for the noon tip.
“Our fans are great, especially with the zoo and the blackout. Marketing and everybody did a great job, and it’s disappointing to play like we did,” Pitt coach Jamie Dixon said.
The zoo was a factor when Pitt cut an eight-point deficit to two at the half, and tied the game a minute into the second half.
A 12-0 UVA run that followed took the crowd out of the game, though Virginia point guard London Perrantes thinks the impact of fans can be overstated.
“We’re not worried about the crowd. The crowd doesn’t play basketball. They just sit around and cheer for them,” Perrantes said. “We knew coming in that it was going to be a hostile crowd, but we just know we had to come in and play our game, and that’s what we did.”
– Story by Chris Graham
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