PITTSBURGH — When Tray Woodall heard Pittsburgh was playing in the College Basketball Invitational, the junior point guard wondered how the Panthers would respond.

Turns out, better than he hoped.

Woodall scored 17 points and Pitt beat Washington State 71-65 on Friday night to win the CBI title.

“This season wasn’t a great season,” Woodall said. “We just wanted to finish on a high note. We all wanted to play more games. We didn’t want to end our season on a low note.”

Lamar Patterson had 14 points, eight rebounds and five assists while being named the tournament’s Most Valuable Player. Talib Zanna continued his strong postseason by finishing with 12 points and five rebounds for the Panthers (22-17), who salvaged a disappointing year by winning the final two games of the best-of-three series.

“It’s obviously not the tournament we’re used to being in but we battled and the kids wanted to do more this year,” Pitt coach Jamie Dixon said. “They didn’t feel they had done what they set out to do.”

Reggie Moore led Washington State (19-18) with 18 points but the Cougars had trouble stopping Pitt though the Panthers played without star guard Ashton Gibbs.