SLIPPERY ROCK, Pa. – The Slippery Rock University men's basketball team led for more than 35 minutes and upset the fourth ranked team in the latest Atlantic Region rankings with a 78-75 win over the University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown Wednesday night in a Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference Western Division game from Morrow Field House.
 
Slippery Rock never trailed over the final 34:28 of the game on the way to improving its records to 12-12 overall and 8-10 in PSAC games, almost certainly guaranteeing a playoff berth. The Rock can lock up a spot in the PSAC playoffs with one more win in any of its final four regular season games, or one more loss by Seton Hill in any of its five remaining games. Coincidentally, Seton Hill will visit The Rock this Saturday. Pitt-Johnstown drops to 19-6 overall and 13-5 in PSAC games with the loss, sliding into a tie with Mercyhurst for second in the PSAC West standings.
 
The Rock opened the game strong and built a 12-point lead with 3:56 to play in the first half before Pitt-Johnstown put together an 11-2 run and trimmed the deficit to 42-37 at the break.
 
Slippery Rock opened the second half on an 8-0 run and built the lead up to a game-high 14 points at 61-47 with 12:38 to play, but the Mountain Cats recovered again and put together a 15-4 run to get it back to a one-possession game at 65-62 with 8:29 to play.
 
The Rock extended the advantage back out to seven points at 73-66 with 3:01 to play, but UPJ took advantage of four missed free throws, one turnover and two personal fouls by SRU to claw back to within just one-point, 76-75, with 12 seconds to play.
 
Slippery Rock caught UPJ on its heels on the ensuing in-bounds play when Deontae Robertson threw a long pass to a streaking Micah Till behind the defense for an emphatic slam with nine seconds left.
 
Robertson then rose up and blocked the game-tying 3-point attempt by Josh Wise in the final seconds to seal the victory.
 
Slippery Rock limited the best-shooting offense in the PSAC to under its season average in both halves Wednesday night. The Mountain Cats entered the game shooting 51.4 percent for the season, but finished the night 45.8 percent from the field (27-of-59), 30.8 percent from 3-point (4-of-13) and 81.0 percent at the free throw line (17-of-21).
 
The Rock rebounded from a tough performance on the road at No. 9 Indiana (Pa.) last Saturday and did so without the services of second-leading scorer and leading rebounder Will Robinson Jr., who was injured at IUP. SRU finished the night shooting 46.3 percent from the field (31-of-67), 25.0 percent from 3-point (6-of-24) and 52.6 percent from the free throw line (10-of-19). Slippery Rock was +14 on the glass with a 44-30 advantage in rebounds and outscored UPJ 17-4 in second chance points.
 
Till was the leading scorer in the game with 23 points on 11-of-18 shooting. He also pulled down a game-high 10 rebounds for his third double-double this season.
 
Lashon Lindsey made his second career start with Robinson out of the lineup and put up a career-high 16 points to go along with eight rebounds, three assists and one blocked shot.
 
Donovan Walker added 11 points and five assists and Jared Armstrong scored seven points off the bench. Robertson put up six points and four assists and Revelinio Tholel added six points as well.
 
Pitt-Johnstown was paced by Wise and John Paul Kromka with 14 points each. Caiden Landis added 11 points and Marcin Wiszomirski scored 10 points off the bench.  
 
Wednesday night marked the seventh straight game and the 12th time in the last 13 meetings between Slippery Rock and Pitt-Johnstown that the home team came away as the winner. The only time during that stretch that a road team picked up the win was a one-point victory by UPJ at SRU in 2017.
 
The Rock will now shift their focus to locking up a PSAC playoff spot when Seton Hill visits Saturday for a 3 p.m. tip.



To stay up to date with all that happens at The Rock, follow our official athletic communication accounts on Twitter (@Rock_Athletics), Facebook (RockAthletics), Instagram (RockAthletics) and Snapchat (@RockAthletics).