Pittsburgh Panthers Mens Basketball Tickets
The Pittsburgh Panthers men’s basketball team is a Division I program for the University of Pittsburgh. The team is located in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and plays their home games at the Petersen Events Center. The Petersen Events Center has a capacity of 12,508 people and opened in 2002. The student section is known as the Oakland Zoo, and due to the raucous crowds seated in the section, makes “The Pete” one of the toughest places to play in the country. The team plays in the Big East Conference. The team is currently coached by Jamie Dixon. Dixon has led the Panthers over the past nine seasons to a record of 238-77 including eight straight NCAA Tournament appearances and postseason appearances in each of his nine seasons. In that time, he has reached the Sweet Sixteen three times and the Elite Eight once.
The team played its inaugural games in 1905, and since then, has been quite successful on a national level. Under “Doc” Carlson, who coached for more than thirty years, led the team to Helms national championships in 1928 and 1930. He also leads the team to their first NCAA Tournament appearance, where they would end up making the team’s first and only Final Four appearance in 1941. After making the Sweet Sixteen in 1957, the team’s next run of success came in 1974, where they made it to their first Elite Eight since 1941. The team went on to make it to the NCAA Tournament six times in the 1980s, and twice more in the 1990s under Roy Chipman and Paul Evans.
Throughout their history, the team has received fifteen first team All-American selections. The team has featured one National Player of the Year award winner in Charley Hyatt in 1930. Ben Howland and Jamie Dixon have each won National Coach of the Year honors at Pittsburgh, with Dixon winning three separate years. 26 players have been selected in the NBA Draft out of Pittsburgh, most recently DeJuan Blair in 2009 by the San Antonio Spurs. Of those, six have been selected in the first round.
Pittsburgh shares many rivalry games; however, none are as fierce as their matchup with West Virginia. The game, known as the Backyard Brawl, is an intense rivalry between the two teams and they have been in the same conference for much of the last few decades. The Panthers also have an in-state rivalry game between the them and Duquesne. They also have in-conference rivalry games between the Panthers and Villanova, Connecticut, and Syracuse.
