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RECAP
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BOX SCORE
NEW YORK (AP) – The odds against Isaac Hawkins making the free
throw were nowhere near the odds of his team being where it is.
|  | | Isaac Hawkins has never been so happy after hitting one of two free throws. |
Hawkins, who entered the game shooting better from the field than the foul line, made one of two free throws with three seconds left in overtime Friday night to give Pittsburgh a 55-54 victory over Syracuse (No. 14 ESPN/USA Today, No. 17 AP) in the semifinals of the Big East tournament.
The Panthers (18-12) will play in their first Big East championship game Saturday night against Boston College, which beat Seton Hall 75-48 in an earlier semifinal.
It will be the second time a team has ever played four games in
the tournament – Connecticut did it last year, losing to St. John's
in the final game.
"I'm not worried at all about being ready. We will be ready," Pittsburgh coach Ben Howland said. "It should be a fun game. We'll come out and give it our best shot. We have nothing to lose."
It also is the second time a team with a losing conference
record has reached the title game – the Panthers went 7-9 in the
league this season. Syracuse was 6-8 in 1981 when it beat Villanova
in triple overtime to win the championship.
"It feels good," Hawkins said. "We worked so hard and never
gave up on ourselves. We really focused to get where we wanted to
go."
Pittsburgh did not play Boston College (25-4), which had an opening-round bye, during the regular season.
Syracuse (24-8), which beat Connecticut and Providence in its
first two games, had to play the final 24 minutes of regulation and
the overtime without Preston Shumpert, its leading scorer (19.8 points) and second-leading rebounder (6.0).
Shumpert was poked in the right eye late in the first half and
sustained a corneal abrasion. He was given eye drops, but his
vision remained blurry and he returned to the bench early in the
second half with a huge patch over the eye. He finished with nine
points after scoring 45 in the first two tournament games.
"A scratched cornea usually heals itself in a few days so
hopefully he'll be better in three, four days," said Dr. Irving
Raphael, the team physician. "He had it once before (in high
school) so he's been through this and that time it was three or four days, so hopefully this will go the same way."
Hawkins, who finished with 17 points and 12 rebounds, gave the Panthers a 50-48 lead with a putback with 1:34 left in regulation.
Allen Griffin, who led the Orangemen with 19 points, made two
free throws with 1:11 left to tie it and each team misfired on two
possessions at the end of regulation.
Griffin hit a 3-pointer with 3:18 left to give Syracuse a 54-51
lead, but Ricardo Greer, who had 12 points, tied it with a 3 with
2:49 to play.
Billy Celuck, Syracuse's 7-footer playing with a broken shooting
hand, missed a long jumper with 29 seconds left. After a timeout,
Pittsburgh spread the floor and Brandin Knight penetrated the 2-3
zone and found Hawkins down low where he was fouled by Damone
Brown.
Hawkins, who entered shooting 54 percent from the field and 52
percent from the line, missed the first, making him 4-for-6 from
the stripe for the game. After a Syracuse timeout, he swished the second.
"I've been in that situation before in high school," Hawkins
said. "I got a lot of encouragement from my teammates and my
coach. I missed the first, but it was good form, though."
Howland said he didn't think the timeout to try and ice Hawkins would work.
"We knew he'd make it and we were designing our defense during that timeout," he said.
Griffin's long pass was batted around in a scramble on the other side of midcourt by Greer, Knight and Brown and went out of bounds as the buzzer sounded.
Donatas Zavackas had 14 points, all but two on 3-pointers, for the Panthers, who beat Miami and No. 19 Notre Dame in the first two games. Knight had nine assists.
Brown had 12 points for Syracuse, which was trying to get career
victory No. 600 for coach Jim Boeheim.
"We made enough defensive stops, we made all the stops we could ever ask our guys to make," Boeheim said. "We just couldn't score."
Shumpert's injury made a seven-man rotation look very thin.
"We've been lucky all year. We just lost Damone for a couple of
games and Billy for a couple of games," Boeheim said. "We're thin
and, obviously, it's tough for us on offense."
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ALSO SEE
Men's College Basketball Scoreboard
Pittsburgh Clubhouse
Syracuse Clubhouse
B.C. closes out Seton Hall with 33-6 run down the stretch
Big East Conference
AUDIO/VIDEO
 Pitt's Ricardo Greer draws the defense and dishes to Isaac Hawkins for the jam.
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RealVideo: 56.6 | ISDN | T1
Pitt's Isaac Hawkins hits the winning free throw in overtime.
avi: 460 k
RealVideo: 56.6 | ISDN | T1
Pitt's Jaron Brown steals the inbound pass and feeds Brandin Knight for the bucket.
avi: 845 k
RealVideo: 56.6 | ISDN | T1
Syracuse's Allen Griffin nails the runner to tie the game with two minutes left in regulation.
avi: 931 k
RealVideo: 56.6 | ISDN | T1
Syracuse's Preston Shumpert posts up on Brandin Knight and gets an easy basket.
avi: 917 k
RealVideo: 56.6 | ISDN | T1
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