The Week Ahead: Time for the ACC to meet The Pete

The Pete is known as one of the best home-court advantages in all of college basketball. The Oakland Zoo lends its voice and creativity to Panther home games and has constantly driven Big East basketball opponents crazy. There has been much talk about how ACC teams will handle the Panthers home court, known as The Pete. We finally get to find out starting tonight and it will continue later on in the week with two conference home games.

The Panthers will kick things off tonight at 7:00 p.m. on ESPNU when the Maryland Terrapins invade Oakland to test their road mental game. The Terps come into the game with a 10-5 mark, but they have been tested with teams like Connecticut, Ohio State, and a strong George Washington team. The have experience going up against top competition already, so the Panthers will be tested.

Pitt will then be off until Saturday, where Wake Forest will meet them at noon on ESPN3 (i.e. check your local listings). As of this writing the Demon Deacons have a 11-3 record and have also had some stiff competition with losses to Kansas and Xavier and are coming off a big win over North Carolina.

While evening games are fun to watch at The Pete, it has also always impressed me how much the Zoo gets up for early games as well. The students really do wake the Panthers up early. Can Pitt build on their first ACC win and get two more conference victories this week?

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