Defense calms Storm

Pitt head coach Jamie Dixon prepared his No. 9 Panthers for a St. John’s team that was… Pitt head coach Jamie Dixon prepared his No. 9 Panthers for a St. John’s team that was “playing its best basketball of the season.”

If that was indeed the case, the Panthers prepared well.

“I’m very happy with the way we played, and I think maybe the respect we had for these opponents helped us out there,” Dixon said.

Pitt’s defensive performance was worthy of its own respect, holding St. John’s to 32.1 percent shooting and taking care of the ball on offense to beat the Red Storm (12-9, 3-5 Big East), 72-46, at a sold-out Petersen Events Center Saturday.

The game was the third this season in which the Panthers (19-3, 7-1) limited their opponent to less than 50 points. Pitt is 3-0 when doing so.

The Panthers also finished with only seven turnovers, tying a season low. Pitt’s care with the basketball came as somewhat of a relief to Pitt head coach Jamie Dixon, who saw his team give the ball up 18 times in its 77-74 overtime loss to Marquette last week.

“I think we’ve handled the ball pretty well all season,” Dixon said. “It was a bit of a problem the last few games, but most of them were wins, so it’s hard to complain. We have guys at every position that pass well for their position, especially our big men, so it’s not uncommon to see a turnover total that low.”

“Holding onto the ball is something we stressed in practice all week,” swingman Mike Cook said. “We wanted to stop being so nonchalant with the ball, both in passing and in driving to the rim. Coach wanted us to get back into the mentality of making the smart play and taking the extra pass when it’s there.”

Forward Levon Kendall exhibited the unselfishness that Dixon continually stresses. With a little more than eight minutes to play in the first half, Kendall had the ball and an open play at the basket on the low-block. Instead of taking it himself, Kendall gave a quick glance over his shoulder and dished to forward Sam Young who got the bucket, got fouled and hit the free throw.

Young had one of his better performances of the season with 11 points – the seventh time this year the sophomore scored in double figures.

“He played great tonight,” St. John’s head coach Norm Roberts said of Young “He hadn’t played like this all year. Not only did he shoot well today, but Pitt had a lot of guys that shot well. We knew Sam could play like that, though. We saw it in the tapes. You can’t concentrate on any one part of this team, though. Not when they have Aaron Gray. It’s almost like you have to pick your poison with them, and we decided to focus more on Aaron. Things just didn’t go our way tonight.”

Pitt did share the ball, and the scoring numbers reflected it. The Panthers had eight players who scored five or more points, led by Gray’s 13.

The Panthers delivered 23 assists on 31 baskets, an assist-to-turnover ratio of more than three. Point guard Levance Fields led the way, dishing out six helpers to complete an all-around solid day for the sophomore. Fields also scored seven points and pulled down seven rebounds.

“Rebounding was something that Carl Krauser did very well while he was here, and it’s something that Ronald [Ramon] and Levance have worked on very hard in his absence,” Dixon said. “Not only are they very good at getting rebounds, but they’ve also improved at boxing out the other team’s guards, especially the bigger ones, to prevent them from getting rebounds.”

Fields and Ramon hauled in 10 rebounds between the two of them, matching Gray’s total. The 7-foot Gray tallied his 10th double-double of the season, shooting six of 13 from the field. As a team, Pitt shot 48 percent from the field, converting 31 of 64 attempts.

As tidy as the Panthers were on offense, that’s how sloppy St. John’s was. After the game, Dixon attributed Pitt’s solid defense to Kendall and the Panthers neutralizing the Red Storm’s key player, Lamont Hamilton to just eight points on three-of-10 shooting.

“He’s a very good player, and we put four or five guys on him throughout the game, which was the plan coming in,” Dixon said of Hamilton. “I think the key was to deny him the ball in the low post and make sure he took tough outside shots. We were fortunately able to do that today because, as he’s proven before when he gets going, he can really hurt us.”

Coming into the game, Hamilton averaged 13.5 points per game, leading the Red Storm.

“Pitt was very physical tonight. They’re a physical team. We needed to do a better job of getting [Hamilton] the ball,” Roberts said. “I want to give Pittsburgh a lot of credit. They played very well. They’re a great defensive team. We didn’t make our shots, which had a lot to do with the defense. There were a lot of loose balls that we let go, and then they started to make a lot of shots to put us in a pretty big hole.”

The Panthers shot nearly 12 percent better in the second half than they did in the first, which enabled them to pull away as much as they did.

“I was very pleased that our shooting improved as the game went on,” Dixon said. “I thought we missed some easy shots early, but we were able to come out and knock them down in the second half, which allowed us to pull away. You also saw a lot of unselfishness from our guys, and to have a team playing like that is something the fans can be proud of.”