Crusaders Fall to Pittsburgh, 58-39

Wednesday, December 24, 2014

GoLocalWorcester Sports Team

malcolm Miller

The Holy Cross Crusaders men's basketball team (5-5) fell 58-39 to the (9-3) Pittsburgh Panthers on Tuesday night in PIttsburgh. After starting the season 3-0, Holy Cross now falls to .500, having lost four of their last five games.

See the five takeaways slideshow below.

Holy Cross was only down one point, 10-9, with 11 minutes left in the first half before the Panthers broke the game open with a 15-2 run to go up 25-11 and lead 27-14 at the half. The Crusaders opened the second half on a mini run but could not get any closer then 10 points the rest of the game. Pittsburgh has now won five straight games.

Malcolm Miller led Holy Cross with 11 points and four rebounds in the game. Miller was the only Crusader to reach double figures in the game.

The Panthers were led by Michael Young and Jamel Artis who netted 13 points each. Artis pulled down nine rebounds in the game as well.

The Crusaders return to action on New Years Eve when they open conference play with a home game against Boston University.

Click here for tickets.

For a further look at the Crusader's loss to Pittsburgh, see the five takeaways slideshow below.

Related Slideshow: Five Takeaways From Holy Cross’s 58-39 Loss to Pittsburgh

The Holy Cross Crusaders men's basketball team (5-5) fell 58-39 to the (9-3) Pittsburgh Panthers on Tuesday night in PIttsburgh.

Here are five takeaways from the game.

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Turnovers

One positive for Holy Cross in this game is that they only turned the ball over ten times on the road against a good Pittsburgh team.

Justin Burrell had two turnovers for the Crusaders but nobody on the team had more then two.

Pittsburgh cashed in for ten points off of the Holy Cross ten turnovers while the Crusaders cashed in for eight points off of 11 Pittsburgh turnovers.

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Rebounding

Anthony Thompson and Malcolm Miller each pulled down four rebounds in the game to lead Holy Cross but overall, the Crusaders got destroyed on the boards.

Pittsburgh out rebounded Holy Cross 45-25 in the game and of their 45 rebounds, 15 of them came on the offensive glass. Pittsburgh 15 offensive rebounds contributed to their 13 second chance points.

By comparison, the Crusaders had five offensive rebounds helping lead them to four second chance points.

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Malcolm Miller

Malcolm Miller led the Crusaders with 11 points and four rebounds in the game. He was the only Crusader in double figures.

Holy Cross only shot 30 percent from the field in the game and Miller had as bad a shooting night as anyone. Miller went four of 14 from the field, including one for eight from beyond the three point arc.

Holy Cross went four for 24 from beyond the three-point arc as a team for a shooting percentage of just under 17 percent.

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Got to get to the free throw line

Holy Cross needed to make more of an effort getting to the free throw line in this game. For the entire game, they only shot seven free throws and made five of them.

That's just not anywhere close to good enough.

Holy Cross needs to drive to the basket more and get themselves to the free throw line and get some easy points.

Pittsburgh was not anything special from the free throw line either as they only shot 12 free throws but made only seven.

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On to Conference Play

The non-conference schedule is over and Holy Cross will go limping into their conference play opener against Boston University on New Years Eve.

The Crusaders started the season 3-0 and with a big win over nationally ranked Harvard but have since fallen to 5-5 and have lost four of their last five games. All of their losses have been blowouts by a substantial margin.

The Crusaders were picked to finish third in the Patriot League in the pre-season and coach Milan Brown will look to turn the season around in the conference.