Men’s Basketball: Panthers look to bounce back against Rutgers

Plenty of players have come and gone during Jamie Dixon’s tenure as head coach of the Pitt… Plenty of players have come and gone during Jamie Dixon’s tenure as head coach of the Pitt basketball team. DeJuan Blair, Sam Young and Aaron Gray all found a place in the NBA after playing for the Panthers.

But coaches, too, have learned under Dixon and moved on to head coaching jobs at other schools. One of them, former Pitt assistant Mike Rice, will face his old team as the head coach of Rutgers when his Scarlet Knights take on the No. 2 Panthers Saturday at 8 p.m. in Piscataway, N.J.

Rice was an assistant coach under Dixon for the 2006-07 season, when Pitt made it to the Sweet 16 and brought in a recruiting class that included Blair, Brad Wanamaker and Gary McGhee.

But now Rice has to find a way to shut down Wanamaker and McGhee, currently seniors on the Big East-leading Panthers (19-2, 7-1 Big East).

One of the reasons Wanamaker committed to Pitt four years ago was his relationship with Rice, who he had known for years before Rice became one of the Panthers’ assistant coaches. Now, Wanamaker said he wouldn’t be surprised to see Rice turn the Rutgers program around.

Rice, a Pittsburgh native, has done well with an inexperienced Rutgers roster this year. Despite having three underclassmen in the starting lineup and having just nine scholarship players total, the Scarlet Knights (12-8, 3-5 Big East) hold opponents to 64 points per game, the fifth-best defense in the conference.

“He’s a very demanding person,” Wanamaker said. “He works hard at what he does. He gets the most out of his players.”

He added that under Rice, the Scarlet Knights will “get after it” for 40 minutes because Rice’s enthusiasm for the game is contagious.

The younger members  of Rutgers’ team, though, have struggled with the ball. Senior Jonathan Mitchell is the only Scarlet Knight averaging double-digit points, and Rutgers is 15th in the Big East in scoring.

Rutgers is perimeter-oriented, Dixon said, and the Panthers will focus on Mitchell and his abilities, as well as stopping Rutgers’ penetration. Mitchell can play inside and hit outside shots.

Last season’s star for the Scarlet Knights, Mike Rosario, transferred to Florida over the summer.

Rutgers, picked ahead of only DePaul in the Big East preseason coaches’ poll, bounced back from five losses in a six-game stretch by beating South Florida and Seton Hall last week. The modest win streak, though, ended Wednesday at Cincinnati in a 72-56 loss.

The Scarlet Knights trailed by one at intermission, but, according to Rice, turnovers ended their chance at a third consecutive win.

“We were frantic for some reason,” he said after the game. “They started making a couple of more shots … It was just three or four minutes, but they hit us with a hook and we kind of went down on one knee.”

Pitt, meanwhile, suffered its first Big East loss of the season Monday, a 56-51 defeat at the hands of Ben Hansbrough and No. 15 Notre Dame. The Fighting Irish suffocated Pitt’s offense after halftime, holding the Panthers to a season-low 23-point half.

Pitt focused on improving in the practices following the defeat, Dixon said, and that’s something that stays consistent whether the Panthers win or lose.

“After wins we’ve been improving and after our second loss, we’ve got to make improvements too,” Dixon said on Thursday. “Nothing really changes in that regard. That’s what’s great about this team. I think we understand we need to get better. We can get better, and that’s been our focus.”

Wanamaker, who scored 12 points Monday night, said after the game that Pitt got away from the ball movement and patience that the team is known for. Later in the week, he added that the team didn’t perform up to its level defensively.

“For the most part, we seemed selfish on defense,” he said. “Pitt is a great help-defense team and watching film, a lot of guys were out of position, myself included.”

Despite the defeat, the Panthers still lead the conference in a wide range of statistical categories, including scoring margin (+16.7), assists (19.3/game), 3-point shooting (39.8 percent) and rebounding (42.4/game).

When the Panthers face Rutgers on Saturday, they’ll be running into a program that has given them trouble in the past. Three years ago, Rutgers handed No. 13 Pitt a rare loss at the Petersen Events Center, 77-64. Scarlet Knights guard J.R. Inman called the win “a miracle” after the game.

Rice isn’t a stranger to pulling off an upset, either, or at least coming close. After his time at Pitt, he took the head coaching position at nearby Robert Morris, and his Colonials nearly upset No. 2-seed Villanova in the first round of the NCAA Tournament last season. They lost in overtime, 73-70.

Rutgers hired Rice less than two months later.

The weekend expedition to New Jersey is a rare true road game for Pitt — just the fourth of its season. The schedule balances out in the coming weeks, though, as the Panthers play six of their next nine games away from home.