Sorry, I’m not going to get worked up over any aspect of “trouble” in an exhibition game. Let me point you to the IUP exhibition in 2005. How about the struggles with Carnegie Mellon in 2004?

So the big issue in the Pitt-Johnstown exhibition (and for the record, there’s a link to watch the exhibition free if you want) was that there were some issues with defense from the Center position/frontcourt. Whoah. Shocking.

Pitt-Johnstown center Chris Gilliam scored a game-high 23 points against Pitt’s young and inexperienced frontcourt players. Gilliam, a 6-foot-7 senior, went head-to-head against Pitt freshman DeJuan Blair and junior-college transfer Cassin Diggs, and got the better of them on the offensive end.

“We’ve got a lot of [work] to do because he torched us,” said Blair, the former Schenley High School star who got the start at center. “He was moving, and we weren’t moving that great. We can do a whole lot better. A Division II school [player] put 23 on us. We have to work extra hard on our post defense. But it’s only the first game. It will get better as the season goes on.”

Gilliam, who made second team in the West Virginia Intercollegiate Athletic Conference last season, was shocked he was able to score the way he did. He was 11 for 19 from the field.

“I never thought I’d do that against a Big East team,” he said.

Pitt coach Jamie Dixon did not seem overly concerned about his post defense. He correctly pointed out that Gilliam had five points at halftime and, by then, the game was well in Pitt’s favor. But he acknowledged that the post defense is a work in progress.

If you want to make yourself crazy over an exhibition game, go ahead. It just means, that Blair, Diggs and others in the frontcourt have a better idea of what kind of effort is needed on defense — in a game and in practice/preparation.

Cassin Diggs also gets a puff piece as the latest JUCO player at Pitt, trying to reverse recent history of such players not having much of an impact at Pitt since Ontario Lett.

Ronald Ramon saw somewhat limited action as he nurses a sore ankle.