Lot to do this morning to get the time-block necessary to listen to the game on the internet (I just missed being able to order the game on TV, at a store with my wife if she had taken 5 more minutes it would have allowed me to get the game as a reward). Anyways, quick summary of stories today:

Pitt has been getting off to bad starts. Digging holes they have to climb out of, just to get to a tie game. The last time Pitt lost 3 games in a row was February 2001.

The perimeter defense has to be a priority:

An area of concern has been the Panthers’ perimeter defense, which is nowhere close to what it was when Julius Page and Jaron Brown were still with the team. The Panthers – led by Carl Krauser, Yuri Demetris, Ronald Ramon and Graves on the perimeter — watched Georgetown go 6 for 6 on 3-pointers at the outset of Wednesday night’s game, and allowed Bucknell to go 7 of 18 from beyond the arc last Sunday. Rutgers is hitting at a 36 percent clip from long range.

Moreover, Pitt’s past three opponents have shot better than 50 percent from the field. That happened only once last season, when Miami connected on 50.8 percent of its shots in a double-overtime victory for the Panthers.

“I just think we’re being overly aggressive on defense right now, not staying with our man as long as we should,” Graves said. “It’s something we’ll correct. It’s going to start in this game. We know how to play defense, we just have to get it together.”

At least they know they need this game:

There has been no chest-thumping for these Panthers of late, no in-your-face domination, no nothing during an uncharacteristic two-game swoon, which hasn’t happened in three years.

“We need to get it together,” sophomore center Chris Taft said.
…
“This game is big,” sophomore guard Antonio Graves said. “We need to get this win on the road, then come back home and keep it going. We know how important this game is.”

As for Rutgers, some are looking at home losses by Pitt and UConn to open BE play and wondering if Rutgers might not be able to make some noise. Of course, as much as Pitt has had a stellar homecourt advantage, so as Rutgers at the RAC, except where Pitt is concerned.

Rutgers, 6-4 overall and freshened by a week off, has generally held its own against Big East teams at home, however.

All except Pittsburgh. The Panthers are the only Big East team that Waters, now in his fourth season, has yet to beat.

Keep it going. It will be a wild crowd as the new semester begins for the students. And the players seem to be talking a little:

The Rutgers forward listened to the rave over Chevon Troutman and Chris Taft’s size. He heard the admiration of their muscles and the speculation that Pitt’s two big men could be tougher than any other pair in the league. But the blather that the two would even look frightening on the Panthers’ football field? That, Joynes said, was enough.

“Hey, we lift weights, too,” the 6-foot-9, 265-pound [Rutgers Forward Byron] Joynes said, showing no signs of the merry smile he usually wears. “We may not look as good, but we’re big. We’re strong.”

He was insulted by the suggestion that injured Adrian Hill was Rutgers’ best elbow-thrower (“I throw tough elbows,” he said). And he was even more affronted by the proposal that the thickly built, tightly wound 6-7 Troutman and 6-10 Taft would go straight at Rutgers’ inexperienced interior.

The sophomore Joynes sure picked a prime time to be peeved. No. 16 Pittsburgh’s in town today, coming off two straight losses for the first time in three years, its big men surely looking to dish out some punishment – as they do anyway.

“They try to punk you,” Joynes said, nodding his head. “They’re very physical and very tough and so they try to out-tough you.”

Playing tough themselves, and laying the first hit, is all Rutgers (6-4) coach Gary Waters has talked about to his own big men this week. Keep Pitt (10-2) out of the lane and off the boards. Put a body on every big man. Go at the basket every time a shot goes up. When there, attack the rim.

“We have to make them go over our backs,” Joynes said, stressing first the “them” and then the “our.” He’s being particular there for good cause – that’s the type of foul Waters calls “cheap” and the type Joynes has an exasperating penchant for getting tagged with.

Just a few minutes now.