Biggs, Blair dominate down low in win against Georgetown

WASHINGTON ‘- Call it the Big Four from now on. Since the beginning of the season, the… WASHINGTON ‘- Call it the Big Four from now on. Since the beginning of the season, the undefeated Pitt basketball team’s nucleus has taken the nickname coined by the core of the NBA champion Boston Celtics. Point guard Levance Fields, forward Sam Young and center DeJuan Blair ‘- the Big Three. Room for one more? Tyrell Biggs made his case on Saturday against Georgetown. Biggs shot 7-of-10 from the field for 14 points against the Hoyas, which included several crucial second-chance buckets. He completed a frontcourt that helped Pitt score 48 points in the paint, limited Georgetown to 22 and made the touted freshman Greg Monroe look more like Greg Ostertag than Greg Oden. ‘Tyrell’s been playing very, very well,’ said Pitt coach Jamie Dixon. ‘I keep saying it, but everybody talks about our Big Three coming in, but he’s played his way into the Big Four, or whatever you want to call it.’ The Fantastic Four is taken. So is the Four Horsemen, so the Big Four will have to do for now. Whatever the case, Biggs has been huge for Pitt in its last three games. He had nine rebounds in a gritty 56-48 win over Florida State on Dec. 21 and brought down 10 rebounds and had two blocks in Pitt’s 78-72 victory over Rutgers last week, a game in which Blair only played eight minutes because of foul trouble. ‘His defense is much improved, a big factor in our success,’ said Dixon. ‘Last game we needed rebounding without DeJuan, so he goes and gets double-figure rebounds. This game he found the open spots and got the points.’ That’s no coincidence. Biggs and Blair are roommates and have a special type of chemistry on the court. ‘He’s always looking for me. I’m always looking for him,’ said Biggs. ‘I know where to be when he gets the ball at the top of the key. I just made myself open.’ And, according to Blair, the growing on-court rapport between him and Biggs is just a snippet of what to watch for the rest of the season, especially as Pitt is about to enter its gauntlet-like Big East schedule. ‘We’re best friends. I’m good friends with the whole team, but me and him have a good relationship because we’re the frontcourt,’ said Blair, who led Pitt with 20 points and 17 rebounds against the Hoyas. ‘We’re trying to be the best frontcourt in the whole nation, and I think tonight we showed that we can be that.’ Home away from home? The listed attendance for Saturday’s game at the Verizon Center in Washington was 19,397, and a good portion of those fans were cheering for Pitt. Washington, D.C., is about 250 miles from Pittsburgh, and many fans made the trip. It seemed at times like the entire upper tier of seats was on Pitt’s side, often making the arena resonate with the familiar ‘Let’s Go Pitt’ chant. ‘I thought our fans were terrific,’ said Dixon. ‘It’s amazing to have this many people here at the game. We’re very fortunate to have that support. To have that many people, four hours, three and a half hours from here says a lot about our school and our fans.’ Dixon isn’t the only one who noticed Pitt’s supporters. ‘I saw them all up there,’ said Blair. ‘So that was cool.’ Brown’s status About midway through the second half on Saturday, Pitt forward Gilbert Brown left the game and was seen on the bench tending to his right shoulder with Pitt trainers. According to Dixon, though, it’s nothing serious. ‘They told me he could go back in at the end, so we almost put him in, but we got that far of a lead [so it wasn’t necessary].’ Brown had nine points and six rebounds in 20 minutes and threw down two momentum-swinging slam dunks. ‘Him coming in there off the bench is big for us,’ said Dixon. ‘He allows us to do some things differently ‘- we can move Sam [Young] to [power forward] and have him in there. Five minutes into the game we’re running different sets, so I really like him coming off of there, and it helps our rotation.’