Troutman leads Panthers’ revenge

Panther junior guard Carl Krauser owns a 2-0 record as an amateur boxer, but he gave the sport… Panther junior guard Carl Krauser owns a 2-0 record as an amateur boxer, but he gave the sport up to concentrate on basketball. Nevertheless, in Pitt’s 55-44 win over St. John’s last night at the Petersen Events Center, he showed everyone that he still knows a few moves.

After St. John’s (8-12 overall, 2-8 Big East) Dexter Gray pulled down an offensive rebound with less than four minutes remaining, Krauser threw a punch to jar the ball loose.

“Yeah, I got good hands, good hands, very good hands,” Krauser said. He further explained, “I saw [Hamilton] go up high for the rebound. I saw the opportunity for a steal and I just gave him a little uppercut and got the ball.”

Following the steal, Krauser dribbled over the center-court line and threw up a lob pass to Chevon Troutman, who then shot in off the glass to increase the Pitt lead to 13 points.

The bucket brought two of Troutman’s 19 points on the night and capped a 17-6 run that allowed Pitt (16-4, 6-3) to run away with a win.

Troutman began the run with the Panthers up two, 32-30, and 11:38 showing on the game clock. He scored seven points on the run, starting with a shot off the glass. After Panther forward Chris Taft tipped in a missed 3 from Krauser, Troutman was there again to lay in and put Pitt up by eight.

The Panthers then scored five points on free throws and Troutman finished with another layup to put his team up 49-36 with 3:27 remaining.

Krauser and Taft also finished in double digits, each scoring 12 points. Krauser’s final point — a free throw with 1:41 left — marked his 1,000th career point at Pitt.

He said after the game that he had no clue he had reached the milestone when he hit the shot.

Taft added eight rebounds on the night, but impressed his coach more with his improved defense, which kept St. John’s Lamont Hamilton, who was averaging 14.6 points per game, to only two points.

“He’s a kid that’s always looking to get better,” Dixon said of Taft. “I think he did a real good job defensively.”

Also kept in check was Red Storm guard Daryll Hill, who was averaging 21.2 points per game against Big East opponents and scored 26 in the Red Storm’s first game against Pitt on Jan. 18.

Last night was a different story, as the Panthers held him to only six buckets on 18 shots. Hill also committed four turnovers to go with his 18 points.

The Red Storm as a team shot only 27.8 percent on the night and was held under 50 points for the second straight game. Against UConn on Saturday, they managed only 46 in a blowout loss to the Huskies.

The Panthers were looking like they wouldn’t reach 50 points in this game, either, after scoring only 17 points in the first half, which was a nightmarish 20 minutes for both teams. To put it into perspective: St. John’s was only beating Troutman alone 15-10 at the half.

The 17 points constituted the lowest first-half total for Pitt since notching that same number against Villanova last season. The Panthers did not hit a 3-pointer in the half and hit only hit 37.5 percent (6 for 16) of its shots. They also turned the ball over 13 times in just that first half, nearly meeting their average of 14.3 per game. Meanwhile, the Red Storm did no better, combining to shoot only a meager 20.7 percent (6 for 29) from the field.

Krauser explained that a halftime talk from Dixon helped them come out of the half and score 38 points — more than double their first-half effort.

“Coach really came at us and really got in us [about going out there] and just playing Pitt style of basketball,” Krauser said of Dixon’s stressing the need for better defense. “He really emphasized on that’s what we need to do to win this game.”

“We changed some of the things we were doing,” Dixon said, adding, “We were stationary. We wanted more movement against the zone.”

Dixon went on to comment on the status of his team: “We’re always looking to play better, I don’t think we’re playing our best basketball.”

Evidence of their poor play can be seen in the 22 turnovers they committed last night.

Krauser led the team with seven turnovers, after giving the ball away only eight times in his last three games. He also had 33 assists over that span. He only had two against the Red Storm.

The Panthers now look ahead to Notre Dame, (14-6, 6-4) who will be coming to the Pete for a noon tip-off on Saturday. The Irish are coming off a huge win against Boston College last night, which was 20-0 going into the game.

“We’ve got to get ready for Notre Dame. That’s really the first thing on our minds now,” Dixon said, reiterating, “[We’ll] enjoy the win. We’re 6-3 in conference, [but we’ve] got to get ready for Notre Dame on Saturday.”