Defense paves the way for Pitt

The Pitt offense played a major part in the Panthers’ 78-41 victory over Auburn last night…. The Pitt offense played a major part in the Panthers’ 78-41 victory over Auburn last night. But everybody knew where the win started.

“It all started from our defense,” head coach Jamie Dixon said afterward. Guard Ronald Ramon echoed his sentiments.

“We came out with a lot of intensity,” he said. “Our defense was there from the beginning.”

Nobody was better qualified to talk about the defensive effort than Ramon, as one of his plays early on set the tone for the entire game.

After the ball bounced around under Pitt’s basket on a rebound, Auburn had a chance to outlet, but before they could get two steps inside the half-court line, Ramon had knocked the ball loose.

After a sequence where the ball bounced around in traffic, it ended up back in Ramon’s hand. The guard dribbled back to the middle of the floor before lofting a high pass that Young slammed home as one of the highlight-reel dunks that have become his trademark.

For one second short of 11 minutes in the first half, the Panthers held Auburn without a point. The defense forced the Tigers to take bad shot after bad shot.

Auburn did get the occasional free throw – they were in the bonus with 9:46 to go in the half – but they missed all six of their first-half attempts. They didn’t convert a free throw until Quantez Robertson sank one with 3:59 to go in the game.

The Panthers held Auburn to just 35 percent shooting in the first half. More importantly, they held the Tigers’ leading scorer, Ronny LeMelle, to just one field goal in the half. LeMelle struggled to get a shot the entire half, as Pitt defenders blanketed him every step of the way. He was only 1-for-2 from the floor, the one coming with 50 seconds to play in the half when the game was already out of reach.

“We knew it was going to be a physical game,” LeMelle admitted.

Head coach Jeff Lebo agreed, citing the fact that he had to start four freshmen as one of the primary reasons Pitt’s defense was so effective.

“You could see, as a young team out there, we got physically dominated at every spot,” he said.

Solid transitional play ensured that the Pitt defensive effort would not go to waste. The Panthers outscored Auburn 30-9 in points off turnovers, and Lebo cited that as a major reason the Panthers built such a large lead.

Pitt’s guards played a vital role in the transition, whether it was Levance Fields picking up a loose ball at mid-court, going full speed and stopping dead at the left elbow to sink a jumper or Ronald Ramon bringing the ball back down for one of his eight assists. But the transition offense was only part of the picture.

“Our defense was key in transition,” Dixon said.

On the rare occasion that they missed a shot, Pitt shifted quickly to the other side of the ball. The most vivid example came from Keith Benjamin’s steal late in the first half.

With less than 20 seconds left in the first half, Benjamin missed a shot. Auburn pulled down the rebound, but Benjamin, following his shot, swooped in just as a Tiger came down with the ball and took it right from his hands.

Pitt didn’t miss a beat after halftime. In the first two minutes, Ramon took away a steal, then dished it to Krauser, who drained a three. On the ensuing possession, John DeGroat blocked a shot.

Dixon complimented his team’s ability to give 100 percent in the face of such a huge lead, which grew as large as 48 in the second half.

“[At halftime] I was really talking about coming out in the second half, that we needed to keep up the intensity,” he said.

The Panthers responded. The final twenty minutes saw more of the same. Auburn did score 26 points in the second half – compared with their 15 in the first half – but most of that total came by way of a 10-0 run in the last 2:28 after Dixon had pulled most of his starters.

Krauser admitted that the smothering defense was due in part to Dixon’s encouragement.

“Coach is just really stressing us about our defense,” he said. “We just wanted to go out there and play good D.”

LeMelle, who averages 13.5 points per game, finally did hit his stride in the second half, scoring a team-high 18 points on the night. But he admitted that the swarming Pitt defense made such a difference in the first half that the Tigers had to change their game plan to get him some looks.

“In the first half, they were playing real aggressive,” he said. “In the second half we started setting more screens.”

His scoring made little difference, however. No other Auburn player had more than five as Pitt shut down the Tigers.