Thanks to 13 points apiece by Nasir Robinson and Gilbert Brown, the Pitt men’s… Thanks to 13 points apiece by Nasir Robinson and Gilbert Brown, the Pitt men’s basketball team moved a bit closer to a double-bye in the Big East tournament today by beating St. John’s.

Robinson finished tied for a team-high with eight rebounds in Pitt’s 71-64 win at Madison Square Garden, the same arena where the Big East tournament takes place March 9-13. With the win, Pitt improves to 22-7 and 11-5 in conference play, moving the Panthers into sole possession of third place in the Big East behind Syracuse and Villanova.

Pitt is a half game ahead of West Virginia, which plays Cincinnati this afternoon. The top four teams in the Big East get byes in the first two rounds of the tournament. Marquette and Louisville are right behind West Virginia at 9-6 and Georgetown is 9-7. The next four teams get a first-round bye in the 16-team tournament.

The Panthers have just two regular season games remaining, at home against Providence March 4 and at home against Rutgers March 6. Both teams are 4-11 in Big East play.

If Pitt wants to finish out the regular season strong and ensure a double bye, it will need to continue playing stingy defense like it did today against St. John’s (15-13, 5-11 Big East).

While the Red Storm are second to last in the conference shooting 42 percent from the field, the Panthers held them to an even worse rate today, with St. John’s hitting 21-of-57 shots, or 36.8 percent. St. John’s came into today’s game shooting 32.5 percent from beyond the arc, but the Panthers held the Red Storm to just 13.3 percent from 3-point range.

The only other Panther in double-digit scoring was Ashton Gibbs, who netted 12 points to go with his six rebounds. Brown, Travon Woodall and Brad Wanamaker all had three assists. Gary McGhee tied Robinson for the team lead in rebounds, pulling down eight as well. The junior center also blocked three shots. It was his sixth straight game with at least one block, and in five of those games he’s had multiple rejections.

But it wasn’t a necessarily smooth game for Pitt. The Panthers were out-rebounded by St. John’s 33-28, including 14-6 on the offensive end. Pitt also turned the ball over 14 times, while the Red Storm had just five turnovers.

One more bright spot for the Panthers was freshman Dante Taylor, who scored six points, had three rebounds and two blocks. Taylor’s now scored in his last five outings, and in six of his last seven. Before that, he hadn’t scored in four straight games.