The Pittsburgh papers were — naturally — all about Sam Young.

“I knew I had to step it up a little bit,” Young said.

Young was 7 of 10 from the field in the second half. Pitt shot 61.5 percent in the second half and forced St. John’s into 16 turnovers for the game. As Young heated up, he basically took over the game.

“People don’t realize, Sam does all that on his own,” Benjamin said. “Coach Dixon could be screaming ‘bring it out,’ but Sam gets so hot sometimes, you have to let him do that. That’s what you call a player in the zone. As you could see, the kid from St. John’s (Mason) got in the zone. When Sam gets in the zone like that, there’s really not too much you can say to him, besides nothing. Just let him be him.”

The Pitt players were happy to get that win over St. John’s in NYC.

“The last few times we’ve come up here we’ve lost,” junior forward Sam Young said. “I’ve been telling our guys that for the last three or four days leading up to the game. People were saying, ‘Well, St. John’s isn’t any good this year.’ But I said, ‘They keep beating us. They always give us a run for our money.’ ”

…

It was a satisfying win for the home-grown Panthers, who had three players competing who grew up in New York.

“We never beat them up here in my four years here,” Benjamin said. “We like getting payback on people. We think this is a home court for us. We’ve played so many games here during the Big East tournament over the years. It’s so basic for us to be here and be comfortable.”

For St. John’s, there isn’t a lot to be happy.

St. John’s, a loser of four straight and six of seven, was no match for the hobbled Panthers at Madison Square Garden. Despite having only eight scholarship players available, No. 13 Pittsburgh came away with an 81-57 victory. The crowd was only 5,219, which included a small student section that spent much of the game jeering the home team.

“Teams right now are out-toughing us,” the St. John’s freshman Malik Boothe said. “We have to get back into the gym and get tougher.”

This could be the doom for St. John’s Coach Norm Roberts. As much as he has been trying to rebuild after Mike Jarvis wrecked the place, patience is wearing thin.

It has stood for every minute of every game, cheering through losses. They have ridden opponents, and despite their numbers, tried to make the Garden and Carnesecca Arena inhospitable. But even the St. John’s student section – the Red Storm’s most loyal fans – is getting fed up.

St. John’s coach Norm Roberts has said the freshman-laden Red Storm would take its lumps, and pleaded for patience. His overtures were met last night with calls for his job from the student body before even the first half was complete in last night’s 81-57 Big East loss to No. 13 Pittsburgh before just 5,219 at the Garden.

There was still 3:21 left before the break and the Panthers, who were without injured starters Mike Cook and Levance Fields, held a 33-20 lead when the student body began to chant “Fire Norm!”

Maybe there’s something about the Garden that makes a fan want to call for the home team coach’s head.

“I chose the path we are on,” Roberts said. “I chose to bring in eight freshmen. I chose to do that for our program (to) build a foundation. We have to take our lumps in order to be good. We are playing against quality – not good teams but great teams.”

The problem for Roberts is that after having to start over, that first group is almost all gone. The number of transfers and players quitting put him in the position where he ended up with a large, promising recruiting class. The problem is that there are eight freshmen scholarship players. Eight. There is one senior and two juniors on scholarship. That’s it.

As much as everyone clamors for the next thing. The younger player with the potential and upside, that many at once on a team is going to really struggle. As Roberts said, though, that was his call to do that. Sadly, it seems increasingly likely that the next coach of St. John’s will be the one to benefit from this decision.

Why? Worse than the losing the people aren’t showing up for the game except to heckle.

Inside the arena St. John’s helped make famous, before 14,544 empty seats, the Red Storm took another uncertain step into its second century of men’s basketball.

Although the program has suffered more painful defeats in a mostly glorious history, few losses have presented a sadder spectacle than the emotional brownout seen at Madison Square Garden last night. To be fully comprehensive, the final score should be three-sided: Pittsburgh 81-Anthony Mason Jr. 29-St. John’s teammates 28.

…

“This is probably the least amount of people I’ve ever played in front of here,” said Keith Benjamin, Pitt’s senior guard from Mount Vernon. “Still, the Garden gets you hyped just to have one person in the crowd.”

The fans were apathetic at the start, and several in the student section called for Roberts’ head as St. John’s fell behind late in the first half.

“When it started to slip away,” said Boothe, whose bounce passes consistently eluded teammates, “I felt the crowd kind of turned on us. Everyone’s getting tired of losing. It’s just the lumps we’re going to have to take to get better.”

Good luck with that.