That’s the theme the players are sounding after a tougher than expected win over the USF Bulls.
“Teams are going to play us tough regardless,” senior point guard Levance Fields said. “This is a tough conference. Unfortunately, now that we’re No. 1, everyone expects us to win by 20 or 30. But in this conference it just isn’t like that. Teams are going to play hard and fight. And that’s what South Florida did.”
A close game at halftime morphed into the usual manner of victory for the Panthers in the second half. They manhandled South Florida on the boards, methodically wore them down and received a well-balanced scoring effort on another night when leading scorer Sam Young was held below his average.
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“Our defense was sluggish the whole game,” Blair said. “We just have to step it up on defense — point blank, period.”
Fields said the Panthers have to learn their lesson and build from their improved defensive performance in the second half.
“That’s something good we can take out of this game,” Fields said. “That was a great improvement. That created the margin we had in the second half. Everything isn’t going to go perfect. We have to find ways to make adjustments. I think we did a pretty good job of that in the second half.”
Levance Fields’ dishing was a big story for the game. His stature on the team, overshadowed the great work by Tyrell Biggs in the first half when USF was so focused on stopping Blair and Young.
But Biggs scored 11 of Pitt’s first 20 points and finished with his second-highest scoring game in 121 career games. He shot 7 of 10 from the field.
“It felt good,” Biggs said. “I got some nice open shots. That got me going.”
Pitt went 10 for 18 from 3-point range, including 7 for 10 in the first half, as South Florida collapsed on Blair and Young.
“Teams are going to double (the big men) more,” Fields said. “That’s what South Florida did today. We’ve just got to space the floor and knock our shots down and try to make teams stay honest.”
It also made things easy with Pitt knocking down the wide-open looks from the perimeter that USF was giving.
Pitt wasn’t shy about pulling the trigger either and, for only the second time in 16 games, the Panthers made more three-pointers than they missed. A total of 10 three’s plus a season-high 16 points from Tyrell Biggs led No. 1 Pitt to a 75-62 victory.
“I’ve said all along that we’re a good shooting team. I think we’ve taken good shots and I’ve been waiting for us to get that going with the three-point shooting,” Pitt coach Jamie Dixon said. “I don’t think that we took a guarded three that I can remember.”
Pitt (16-0, 4-0 Big East), off to the third-best start in team history, shot 55.6 percent (10-for-18) from three-point range and the Panthers seemed to make one every time South Florida (6-10, 1-3) drew close.
Useless fact that may only interest me. The USF beat writers have never been to the Pete, and possibly never on Pitt’s campus. The last time USF was at Pitt, the beat writers were sent to cover the Gators BCS Championship. This time, they just didn’t bother sending them. Again, they just hired local writers to provide them the stories (Tony DeFazio, editor of PSR and Rob Biertempfel, the Trib’s Pirate beat writer).
As you would expect the delay in getting there played a role in the story, not to mention coming close.
“Man, we could’ve had this one,” said freshman forward Gus Gilchrist, who scored a season-high 22. “We played them tough, beyond anybody’s expectations.”
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USF’s team bus left the downtown Marriott about two hours before the scheduled tipoff. From there, the ride to the arena usually takes about 15 minutes. But 90 minutes later, the Bulls were snowbound and trapped in traffic. It took a police escort to pry the bus out of the jam.
“Maybe it was a good thing, being stuck like that,” said guard Dominique Jones, who scored 22. “Everybody was listening to music, anxious to get here. That really surprised me; everybody on the team was anxious to play. That’s a good sign for us.”
But, they couldn’t play any defense.
South Florida shot lights-out in the first 20 minutes, hitting 12 of 21 shots from the field and five of eight from beyond the arc. The Bulls shot 47.7 percent overall (21-of-44) and 50 percent from 3-point range (7-of-14).
“If you’d have told me before the game we were going to shoot 48 percent, and 50 percent from 3, I’d take it,” USF coach Stan Heath said. “I just would never have thought we’d lose by 13.”
As noted, Pitt is the team the other Big East opponents are looking to see how they measure up against.
The feeling around Oakland has morphed from showing the Big East they can play with the top teams to the top teams measuring themselves to Pitt.
Pitt has become the Big East measuring stick.
The Panthers will lose, more than once even, in the Big East. They may even lose Saturday. Louisville’s a quick, athletic team with a load of talent. If they do, here’s a prediction that the student body will flood the Freedom Hall floor.
That’s where Pitt is now. It is what every other team wants to be … and the ranking has little to do with it.
It’s still a little hard to wrap my head around that. It’s true, just more untrod ground.
