Just Perfect — Gray 9-of-9 from field as Pitt downs Providence on road

For the first 20 minutes of the game, Providence limited Aaron Gray’s presence in the paint…. For the first 20 minutes of the game, Providence limited Aaron Gray’s presence in the paint.

The 7-foot junior scored just four points in the first half as the Friars took a 37-33 lead over the No. 9-ranked Panthers into the locker room. Their game plan, however, didn’t last for long.

As the Pitt (20-3 overall, 9-3 Big East) offense found its way to Gray underneath in the second half, the center failed to miss a shot, finishing 9-for-9 from the field while leading the Panthers back to an 85-77 win over Providence (11-11, 4-7) last night in the Dunkin’ Donuts Center.

“We’ve got to get touches to our inside guys,” Pitt head coach Jamie Dixon said. “Sometimes we get away from it and look for other things. We need to keep our patience and be a little bit more active.”

Gray, who is averaging a double-double on the season, benefited from Pitt’s patience in the second half, posting a 22-point, nine-rebound performance on the stat sheet.

In addition to shooting 9-for-9 from the field, Gray also missed only one free throw (4-for-5) as the Panthers shot 72 percent (18 of 25) from the line as a team.

“Aaron was really good again,” Dixon said. “When they went man-to-man, we got him the touches and that really hurt them. On the boards, he kept the ball up in the zone.

“That’s been his biggest improvement, his ability to keep the ball alive and score under the basket.”

Down 42-35 in the second half, Gray received a pass from Levon Kendall underneath. The big man recorded a basket while drawing a foul that he used to complete a 3-point play.

On the next possession, Carl Krauser drove through the lane, drew a double team and dished off to Gray, who threw down a dunk for a five-point Pitt run.

Out for much of the first half with foul trouble, Krauser fought his way for 12 points on a rough shooting night (3-for-11) but played smart in Pitt’s big second half, notching seven assists in the process.

As for his 12 points, though, none were as big as his layup in the second half that put Pitt on top, 49-44.

Off a missed Providence shot, Krauser gathered the ball and took it coast to coast down the floor for an easy layup. The two points were Krauser’s fourth of the game, which also pushed him over 1,500 points for his career.

The point milestone put Krauser all by himself in Pitt history as the only player to record 1,500 points and 500 assists in his career.

“He does a lot of things,” Dixon said of Krauser after the game. “The numbers speak for themselves.”

Providence’s Donnie McGrath didn’t let the Panthers run away with the game in the second half.

The senior shooting guard scored a career-high 28 points in the game on 10 of 16 shooting, including a 6-for-10 mark from beyond the arc. Only one other Providence player – Weyinmi Efejuku, with 12 points – reached double figures.

However, as the Panthers slowly began to put the game away late in the second half, a familiar face proved to be their biggest contributor.

Reserve Keith Benjamin, who scored a career-high 16 points off the bench in Pitt’s 20-point win over Cincinnati on Saturday, registered 15 points against the Friars in 23 minutes of playing time.

“He’s been working hard at practice, and it’s paying off for him,” Dixon said of Benjamin. “It’s all about repetition with him. He just needs to continue to get consistent with that shot.”

Despite being outrebounded 28-27 in the game, the Panthers managed to find easy shots down low that led to their second-half run. As a team, Pitt finished 53.6 percent from the field on 30 of 56 shooting.

“It does say a lot. Our guys battled hard in the second half,” Dixon said. “We did get outrebounded, but I thought we attacked the zone much better early in the second half and found some easier shots.”

The win snapped a three-game road losing streak and gave the Panthers a school-record, fifth-consecutive, 20-win season. Pitt resumes Big East play on the road again when it travels to Milwaukee for a matchup with Marquette, Saturday at 9 p.m.

“We head back tonight and we’ll start getting ready for Marquette,” Dixon said. “We know already that they are a good team.”

Pitt held on for a 77-71 victory over the Golden Eagles in the two teams’ earlier meeting at the Petersen Events Center on Jan. 28.