Maybe this hurting team isn’t OK

If your team just lost to the last-place caboose of the Big East, you’d be hard-pressed to… If your team just lost to the last-place caboose of the Big East, you’d be hard-pressed to find an explanation, too. So, forgive Pitt coach Jamie Dixon for not knowing exactly what to say after everything went so wrong in Pitt’s 77-64 loss to Rutgers at home on Saturday night.

“I didn’t see this coming,” Dixon said.

Neither did anybody else in the Petersen Events Center, where Pitt had only previously lost eight games in 99 tries. It’s been deemed the toughest place to play on the road in the Big East.

And yet, Rutgers, just 1-5 in its past six games, 1-6 in Big East play so far this season, with losses to Saint Peter’s and Rider, outreboundsand out-hustles Pitt en route to handing the Panthers their worst conference upset in Dixon’s five years.

“It’s a miracle,” Rutgers’ J.R. Inman, who was one of five Scarlet Knights to score in double figures, said. “What a great win for our program.”

And a confusing loss for Pitt. The Panthers came into the game holding opponents to just 29.6 percent shooting from 3-point range, and the Scarlet Knights were converting on a mere 30 percent of their 3-point attempts. On Saturday, Rutgers shot 9 of 14 from 3 – good for 64.3 percent.

“Give them credit, because they hit some tough shots,” Benjamin said.

Comparatively, the Panthers entered Saturday’s matchup shooting 47.2 percent from the field, and outrebounding opponents by nearly eight. And on Saturday, Pitt shot 27 of 70, and was outrebounded, 29-13, in the second half as the Scarlet Knights used a 20-2 run to leave the Panthers baffled.

“We were saying in the locker room, ‘Usually, we don’t see Ronald [Ramon] miss that many 3s,'” Benjamin said. Ramon was 0-5 from 3-point range. “Sam [Young] and [Tyrell] Biggs don’t miss that many foul-shot jumpers,” he added.

Biggs and Young, the team’s leading scorer, combined to shoot 5 of 23.

“But on most of those nights,” Benjamin finished, “usually our defense is there and gives us a chance to win.”

Usually.

“It just wasn’t there tonight,” Benjamin said.

The stats only say so much. Yes, the Panthers had an off-night shooting. Yes, it happens. Problem is, as Benjamin put it, Pitt’s blue-collar defense has been a bail out in the past.

It wasn’t on Saturday. Why not?

Were the Panthers unprepared for the Rutgers offense that put up 80 points in an upset of Villanova last week?

“I thought we had good preparation and a lot of energy in practice leading up to tonight,” Dixon said.

OK, so was Pitt forcing shots?

“I thought we took good shots for the most part,” Dixon said.

OK, so how, then, did Pitt blow a seven-point halftime lead? Did the Panthers just fall into that complacency trap?

Or is it possible that the Big East is so strong and deep, that the last-place team can upend the second-place team on any given night?

No doubt the Big East is a strong conference – perhaps the strongest – but an upset like this doesn’t just happen on a weekly basis.

Take another statistic from Saturday night into consideration – bench points. Rutgers’ bench, though just Corey Chandler and Byron Joynes, scored 28 points. Pitt’s bench, which includes Tyrell Biggs, Brad Wanamaker and Gary McGhee? Eight.

Biggs can score, but perhaps not on as consistent a basis as Pitt thought. His role on the floor seems similar to Levon Kendall’s last year, bringing plenty of intangibles, but not as many numbers.

McGhee and Wanamaker are just freshman to give minutes, and can’t be counted on to put up points.

So Pitt’s bench, essentially, is Tyrell Biggs. The bench points it used to get from Benjamin and Gilbert Brown, before the injuries to Levance Fields and Mike Cook, are now part of the starting lineup, which played, by the way, 85 percent of Pitt’s minutes on Saturday.

What if Pitt has a bad night on offense? If Young and Ramon aren’t lights out? If Biggs doesn’t score at least 12 or 15, and Pitt’s offensive frustration affects its defense? Then Saturday night can happen.

Maybe Pitt’s more vulnerable with only eight scholarship players than everyone originally thought.