Gray hobbles off, Pitt holds on

Jamie Dixon shouldn’t have had anything to worry about after Pitt’s win over Washington. … Jamie Dixon shouldn’t have had anything to worry about after Pitt’s win over Washington.

His team responded well to a crushing home loss to Louisville on Monday. It took care of the ball and shot well in the late minutes to seal a 65-61 victory.

But the fourth-year head coach was anxious. As he evaluated his team’s performance in the post-game press conference, he had a hard time trying to smooth over questions about Aaron Gray’s twisted ankle.

“He’s had ankle problems, but he went down pretty bad on this one,” Dixon said after Gray, his 7-foot centerpiece, fell to the floor with 13 seconds left in the game and grabbed his ankle hard. “I think it’s going to be worse [than Gray’s previous ankle trouble] to be honest with you. But I hope I’m wrong.”

Although the status of Gray’s injury and whether or not he’ll play at Seton Hall tonight is uncertain, he certainly struggled against Washington’s frontcourt of Spencer Hawes and Jon Brockman. He still managed to surpass 1,000 points on his career, but Gray was limited to just five points.

“I thought Spencer did a nice job,” Washington head coach Lorenzo Romar said. “Gray, you just can’t move him. He’s just so solid. He’s the focal point of their offense, and Spencer, a freshman against a senior [Gray], did a good job against him.”

Washington (16-10) was also able to out-rebound Pitt, 42-32 – something that doesn’t happen easily against the Big East-leading Panthers and something that Dixon was very disappointed with.

“That’s something we can’t have,” Dixon said. “I thought it was more of the guards that were getting the tipped-out rebounds. This is one of the best rebounding teams in the country, and we needed to do a better job.”

The rebounding edge was enough to put Washington ahead of Pitt (23-4) in the early first half. But Washington slipped into a funk in the late minutes, turning the ball over on three consecutive possessions. With 2:48 remaining in the half, the Huskies let the shot clock expire after Gray stood up Hawes. On Washington’s next possession, Hawes traveled.

While the Huskies sputtered on offense, the Panthers were able to sneak a 3-point lead heading into the locker room. Pitt was just nine-for-27 from the field in the first half and Gray a dismal one-for-five.

But as the Panthers have expressed all year, Gray can influence Pitt’s offensive production without scoring at all. Drawing double teams that create perimeter opportunities has continually been one of Gray’s intangibles throughout the season, and Saturday was no exception.

“When your star is not scoring, somebody else has to step up, and we’re fortunate to have a lot of the guys on the perimeter to step it up,” junior Mike Cook said. “He doesn’t mind kicking it out.”

Cook quite possibly benefited the most from Gray, scoring a game-high 15 points and improving upon the five-point performance he produced against Louisville last Monday.

The Panthers as a whole improved upon the Louisville loss, turning the ball over just six times as opposed to 19 on Monday.

“We took care of the ball, and that’s a normal game for us,” Dixon said. “I thought we played very smart.”

The smartest play of the game for Dixon happened after Sam Young pulled down an offensive rebound with less than 30 seconds to play and Pitt was clinging to a 3-point lead. Young brought the ball down and immediately slung it out to Ronald Ramon, who was fouled and sank both free throws.

“The best thing was that he immediately threw it right back out to the guards,” Dixon said. “That’s the thing – getting better and getting smarter. I thought we did a very good job in that regard.”

And even though Gray was limited, Hawes, a much touted freshman, had just as tough a time, scoring only four points on two-for-eight shooting. Hawes finished with 12 points on six-of-16 shooting. Heading into the game, Dixon knew the Pitt defense had to limit Hawes and sophomore forward Jon Brockman.

“We did a great job getting pressure on them and getting their [big guys] to put the ball on the floor,” Dixon said. “We haven’t faced a team that has two guys that can score inside like that, so they had us do things a little bit differently.”

Romar also noticed Pitt’s defense and how it bothered his players, forcing them into 16 turnovers.

“We got some traveling calls and were trying to move too fast sometimes,” Romar said. “We knew they were going to get after us on the defensive end. That made a difference.”

The battle between the Panthers’ and the Huskies’ frontcourts surged throughout the second half, each getting the best of the other. Brockman first bullied Sam Young one-on-one on the low block for buckets on consecutive possessions midway through the half. Several minutes later, Young worked inside off a feed from Mike Cook for an easy two.

Overall, Washington barely out-scored Pitt in the paint, 24-22.

Although the battle down low festered as the game progressed, it was the steady shooting of point guard Levance Fields and Ramon that deterred the Huskies from getting over the cusp and taking a lead. The pair of guards each hit two big free throws in the late minutes to seal the victory.

“I shoot pretty good percentage from [the free-throw line], but I haven’t shot as much as I need to,” Fields said. The sophomore hit eight of eight from the stripe. “I just made my one-and-ones and capitalized.”

Pitt is now 2-3 in the all-time series with the Huskies, this being the first time the teams have met since 1950.