The most highly touted freshman in the Pitt-Oklahoma State game yesterday afternoon was Cowboys guard James Anderson, who entered the contest as one of the top 30 scorers in the country. But it was a freshman from Pitt who made the biggest impact in the Panthers' 85-68 victory at the Petersen Events Center.

DeJuan Blair continued to rampage his way through opposing defenses with another dominating performance. Blair recorded his fourth double-double by tying his career high of 20 points and adding 10 rebounds. He also had a career-high five blocks and padded his team-leading steals total with another two.

Blair, who has three double-doubles in his past four games, was 8 for 10 from the field and 4 for 5 from the free-throw line.

"DeJuan was way too physical and too strong for them," Pitt forward Sam Young said.

With the victory, No. 11 Pitt improved to 10-0 and set the stage for one of the most highly anticipated non-conference games in recent memory. The Panthers play No. 6 Duke (9-0) Thursday night at Madison Square Garden.

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Next

• Game: No. 11 Pitt (10-0) vs. No. 6 Duke (9-0).
• When: 7 p.m. Thursday.
• Where: Madison Square Garden, New York.
• TV: ESPN.
• Of note: Mike Krzyzewski has not coached against Pitt since arriving at Duke for the 1980-81 season.

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The game against Oklahoma State served as a good tuneup. Blair led a balanced scoring effort as four other Panthers scored in double figures. Levance Fields had 17 points, Young and Mike Cook 15 and Ronald Ramon 10.

Pitt shot 55 percent from the field, including 68 percent in the first half when it raced to an 18-point halftime lead.

"They have a terrific team," Oklahoma State coach Sean Sutton said. "All five of their starters can score and defend. They'll win a lot of games."

Anderson, a McDonald's All-American who had scored 22 or more points in five of Oklahoma State's first eight games, was held to a season-low eight points. He shot 2 for 8 from the field and never got into the flow of the game because Cook and reserve Gilbert Brown harassed him so much.

"I give credit to Mike and Gilbert for doing a good job, really being up into him," Pitt coach Jamie Dixon said. "We didn't want to allow him to catch and shoot. It was a lot of guys [guarding him]. We really emphasize that it's not one guy guarding him. He was going to be running off a lot of screens. The guy extending off the screen, the guy pinching off the passer ... All those things just are just as important as [the one-on-one defense], maybe more so."

Oklahoma State played Pitt even for all but six minutes of the game. But those six minutes turned out to be the difference. Pitt held a slim, 29-26 lead with 6:33 remaining in the first half, but the Panthers blew open the game with a 20-5 run and led, 49-31, at the intermission.

Young, quiet for most of the game, scored 11 of those 20 points. He did not make his first field goal until 3:41 remained in the half, but he scored seven consecutive points for Pitt in that crucial stretch.

"I was trying to be patient," Young said. "They were denying me the ball. I couldn't get good position. I was just patient and waited until an opportunity came to me. At that point, they kind of relaxed on me a little bit."

Young was being guarded by 6-foot-9 senior Marcus Dove, one of the top defensive players in the country. And even though Young did not have his best game he still managed to give the Panthers a lift at a crucial juncture.

"[Young] took over," Sutton said. "Marcus had him early. We feel like Marcus can guard just about anyone in college basketball. And he did a great job on Young to that point.

"But he carried them through that stretch. He made some big shots and made some big plays for them. They were on fire in the first half. Everything they shot seemed to go in. There were a couple of key 3-point shots during that stretch to push it to double figures. Good teams seize that momentum. They played off that momentum and were able to extend that lead. That's what veteran teams do. That's what good teams do."

Pitt let Oklahoma State back into the game with a lethargic beginning to the second half. The Panthers had one field goal in the first 8¹/₂ minutes of the half, and the Cowboys trimmed the lead to seven with 11:56 remaining.

Fields came off the bench to restore order. He had been out of the game since picking up his third foul four minutes into the half. One minute after coming back into the game, Dixon ran a play for Fields, and he made a 3-pointer to boost the lead back to 10.

Fields scored 10 of his 17 points in the final 11:27.

"I just wanted to get something going for my team on offense," he said. "We weren't executing on offense. But the main thing is the defense. If we make mistakes on offense, we can't compound them on defense. That's what we did to help them get back in the game. I knocked down that shot. We got some stops, and that helped us on offense again."

NOTES -- After recording six assists yesterday, Fields has 300 for his career and is tied with Demetreus Gore for 14th in the school record books. ... Cook's 15 points were a season high. ... Pitt improved to 55-1 against non-conference foes at the Petersen Events Center.