Jamarius Burton scored 18 points to lead five players in double figures Tuesday night for host Pittsburgh, which pulled away in the second half and beat Fairleigh Dickinson 83-61.
John Hugley IV scored 17 points while Jorge Diaz Graham, Blake Hinson and Nelly Cummings had 11 points apiece for Pitt (3-3), which outscored Fairleigh Dickinson 48-33 in the second half on its way to winning its second straight game.
Grant Singleton scored 11 points for Fairleigh Dickinson (3-4), which entered Tuesday averaging 86.5 points per game but shot just 36.5 percent (23 of 63) against Pitt.
Heru Bligen and Ansley Almonor had 10 points apiece for Fairleigh Dickinson, a member of the Northeast Conference.
Fairleigh Dickinson hung close in the first half, when the Knights held a trio of small leads and never trailed by more than seven. Pitt, which took the lead for good on a free throw by Hugley with 14:52 left, led 35-28 at the half after the two teams combined to go 0-for-6 with a turnover following a layup by Diaz-Graham with 1:52 left.
Pitt gradually put the game away in the second half. A jumper by Burton gave the Panthers their first double-digit lead at 44-34 with 17:02 left.
Singleton responded with a 3-pointer on Fairleigh Dickinson’s next trip, but Diaz-Graham scored six points in a 12-0 run — a span in which the Knights were 0-for-6 with four turnovers — that gave Pitt a 56-37 lead.
Fairleigh Dickinson cut the gap to 12 on a 3-pointer by Demetre Roberts with 7:24 left, but Nike Sibande hit a 3-pointer on the next possession to start a 7-0 spurt that extended Pitt’s lead to 19 again at 71-52. The Panthers led by as many as 23 down the stretch.
The game was just the teams’ second meeting. The Panthers recorded an 86-63 victory on Nov. 14, 2008.
–Field Level Media
