2 pm ESPNU

St. Bonaventure is off to a strong start. Coming off a NCAA Tournament appearance last year, they are 6-1 with a nice road win over Ohio U. It’s a team with a good deal of confidence. They are run by former Robert Morris head coach Mark Schmidt.

Pitt, meanwhile, gets their first game back at the Pete in a month. Not to mention a healthy Cameron Wright. Coach Jamie Dixon isn’t fooling around on making sure the players know there is some pressure to play well from the start.

In his mind, there might be legitimate reasons the Panthers have struggled to start the season, but they aren’t relevant now — especially since they got their most experienced player, Cameron Wright, back in the mix after he missed 10 weeks with a broken bone in his foot.

“We need to get right into this,” Dixon said. “I mean, we can make all the excuses we want, but we have to get right into it and get going. We have had five practices, we can’t have any more excuses.

“We can’t have any more reasons for coming up short; we have to figure it out. I think we are fine. It can’t be a thing of ‘Well, we aren’t playing good because Cam has only been playing with us for five days.’ That can’t be a thought, a reason — it can’t be an excuse, it has to be seamless.”

A little more public bite from Dixon this year.

Not that Dixon is saying if Wright will start only that he will play.

“I don’t know,” Dixon said when asked whether Wright, who started all 36 games last season, will be in the starting lineup. “We’ll see how it goes. I was encouraged by (Thursday’s) practice. It was the first day that he shot it well. That was a big step.”

Wright averaged 10.5 points and 3.3 assists last season and made an impact on defense, averaging 1.8 steals. He adds leadership for a Pitt team with three sophomore starters.

“It feels fine, really good,” said Wright, who was encouraged by NBA superstar Kevin Durant’s speedy recovery from a similar injury. “I have seven days to prepare for St. Bonaventure. I only had one day to prepare for Duquesne. I’m starting to get my legs back.”

Dixon said Wright provides Pitt (5-3) with perimeter depth along with junior James Robinson and sophomores Josh Newkirk and Chris Jones.

Newkirk, in particular, has been impressive with back-to-back 16-point games.

“I don’t know if Josh is going to start, but he’s playing starter minutes (averaging 26.0),” Dixon said. “He’s going to be on the floor early and late. We have four experienced perimeter players that we feel good about. Whoever ends up starting is going to be inconsequential because they’re all going to play 30 minutes.”

Let’s see… 3 guard spots, 40 minutes allocated to each position is 120 minutes… 4 players with 120 minutes total… Okay the math is correct.

This is St. Bonaventure’s biggest game to date. Hey, let’s break out the old lies of defense, blue-collar, etc.

All that efficiency gets put to a test Saturday when the Bonnies visit the University of Pittsburgh for their marquee non-conference matchup of the regular season (2:05 p.m., ESPNU).

“We’re making strides, but we’ve got a long way to go, believe me,” said Bona coach Mark Schmidt. “We’ll see how good our offense is on Saturday afternoon.”

Defense is the hallmark of the Pittsburgh program. The Panthers ranked 20th in scoring defense last year, holding foes to 61.9 points per game. Pitt has held foes under 66 ppg 13 straight seasons.

The Panthers are one of only seven schools that have made the NCAA Tournament 12 of the last 13 years. They have averaged 26 wins a year during the 11-year tenure of coach Jamie Dixon. They are 112-2 in non-conference home games in the 13 years they have played at the Petersen Events Center. The Panthers (5-3) are picked to finish sixth out of 15 in the Atlantic Coast Conference.

[Note: looks like someone reviewed the Pitt game notes.]

“They’re a blue-collar, half-court, man-to-man defensive team,” Schmidt said. “They’re a great rebounding team, big and physical, a typical Jamie Dixon Pitt team.”

The Bonnies, play a bit up tempo and are surprisingly balanced. Starting with a nice backcourt duo.

Bona freshman point guard Jay Adams has been named Atlantic 10 Rookie of the Week two weeks in a row. He scored a career-high 26 in Bona’s win at Ohio last week. In the last four games, Adams is averaging 14.5 ppg.

Bona’s other new starting guard, junior college transfer Marcus Posley, leads the team with a 15.7 ppg average.

“We’re getting better play from our backcourt,” Schmidt said. “Jay is getting more and more comfortable. Marcus is getting more comfortable. And not just with each other, but with what we’re running, our system, and what I want, taking good shots and sharing the ball.”

It will be a challenge for Bona to hit its season scoring average (73 ppg) Saturday.

While they aren’t a great shooting team, Adams has been exceptionally dangerous from outside the arc. He is 16-32 on 3s this year. He’s going to need to be guarded closely.

Should be a tougher game than many would have thought.