National college basketball pundits offer many criticisms of Pitt in discussing its chances… National college basketball pundits offer many criticisms of Pitt in discussing its chances of Final Four contention.

In previous seasons, the Panthers couldn’t shoot or score when they needed. This year, experts from Jay Bilas to Doug Gottlieb question the tenacity, toughness and take-over ability of Pitt’s defense, something Pitt head coach Jamie Dixon or former head coach Ben Howland never heard in years past.

This year’s team is different. Pitt combines athleticism, power and speed with depth, experience and a killer instinct to push its reputation into discussions about top teams in the nation. The Panthers can run with anyone, but the old standby of slowing everything down and physically punishing their opponents isn’t quite as sturdy this year.

That could be problematic.

The Panthers’ man-to-man defense possesses some kinks, kinks that were easily exposed by a smoking-hot Wisconsin team in its 89-75 undressing of Pitt on Dec. 16.

Conversations turned from 7-foot senior center Aaron Gray’s dominance of Pitt’s earliest opponents to the Panthers’ inability to stop Wisconsin’s Alando Tucker or Oklahoma State’s JamesOn Curry one week later when Oklahoma State dropped Pitt in double overtime, 95-89. In those games – Pitt’s only two losses of the season – Dixon turned to zone defense on occasion, attempting to avoid foul trouble, to pack in the paint and thwart opponents’ hot shooting.

Needless to say, the zones did little better.

But there are signs of life in the Pitt defense. In Thursday night’s 74-66 win over Syracuse, Orange forward and then-Big East leading scorer Demetris Nichols struggled against Pitt’s rotating coverage, something that outsiders might view as a bit of a surprise, as the 6-9 wing presented potential matchup problems for Pitt’s defense. Still, Nichols hit just four of 15 shot attempts and turned the ball over three times.

Then, in Sunday’s dominating 69-48 victory over Big East doormat South Florida, Pitt’s improvements shined even brighter on the defensive end. The Panthers clamped down on the Bulls’ leading scorer, Solomon Bozeman, who averaged 13.6 points per game entering Sunday’s contest, holding him to seven points while forcing four turnovers.

Bozeman, covered by Pitt’s myriad guards, from Antonio Graves and Levance Fields to Keith Benjamin and Ronald Ramon, took only four shots in 33 minutes.

“We played great help defense on [Bozeman],” Ramon said. “He likes to drive and penetrate, so we knew we had to cut him off and limit his output. We just made sure he didn’t beat any of our guys, but if he did, we had guys slide over to stop him.”

Bozeman, one of the Big East’s top scorers, hardly saw the paint.

And so it seems, after two games in the Big East, Pitt might be on to something when it comes to stopping conference opponents’ scoring threats.

“It’s really all about keeping the scorers out of the paint and playing good help defense,” Ramon said.

South Florida head coach Robert McCullum knew what he and his team were getting into when they traveled to Pittsburgh, and he left impressed.

“They’ve got all the pieces that can help them make a deep run into March or April,” McCullum said. “They’re just rock solid.”

According to McCullum, Pitt isn’t about style points or nice-looking victories – it clamps down opponents in the half-court and makes things difficult offensively for anyone, let alone South Florida.

“Pitt doesn’t come out and try to trick you or anything, they force you to beat them in the half-court,” McCullum said. “To be a great team, you have to take away easy shots and you have to be able to execute and beat people in the half-court, and they do that extremely well.”

Dixon mentioned his team’s relative youth in terms of learning Pitt’s hard-nosed defensive style. But in acknowledging the learning process, the coach was pleased with the progress made in practice and in games by his team.

“Our defense just continues to get better,” Dixon said. “We’re working a lot on our defense and we’ll keep improving every day.”

The improvements must continue if Pitt wants to contend with the big dogs both in the conference and in the nation. And, as the race for a top-four slot in the conference heading into the postseason tournaments heats up, it appears the Panthers are making the necessary progress.