NEW YORK -- Pitt calls Madison Square Garden its home away from home. And with good reason.

The Panthers entered last night's game against St. John's having won 18 of their past 26 games at the World's Most Famous Arena. Strangely, none of those 18 victories came against St. John's, which has been among the worst teams in the Big East this decade.

Victory No. 19 since the 2000-01 season came emphatically last night. No. 13 Pitt (16-3, 4-2) snapped a six-game road losing streak against St. John's with an 81-57 victory. It was the Panthers' first win against St. John's (7-10, 1-5) in New York since 1995 and represented its largest margin of victory in a Big East road game since beating Providence by 25 in March 2004.

"The last few times we've come up here we've lost," junior forward Sam Young said. "I've been telling our guys that for the last three or four days leading up to the game. People were saying, 'Well, St. John's isn't any good this year.' But I said, 'They keep beating us. They always give us a run for our money.' "

Not last night. Young saw to that personally. He scored 18 of his 26 points in the second half to point the way to the blowout victory.

Young was 10 for 17 from the field and 3 for 6 from 3-point range. It was the eighth time this season Young scored 20 or more points in a game.

"Young is a tremendous player," St. John's coach Norm Roberts said. "He has really improved his game. When he steps out and starts making 3s, it makes it very difficult. I think he's the player of the year in our conference right now."

Young estimated he played about half of his minutes last night at small forward. When St. John's had a guard defending him, Young took it inside. When he played power forward and had a bigger player guarding him, he stepped outside and showed off his long-range game.

Pitt coach Jamie Dixon called a lot of plays for Young, but many of his baskets came when he free-lanced, especially in the second half when he was matching St. John's forward Anthony Mason basket for basket in an entertaining portion of the game. Mason led all scorers with 29 points.

"Sam does all that on his own," senior guard Keith Benjamin said. "If you listen to coach Dixon, he's yelling for him to pull it back out a lot of times. But when Sam gets hot like that you just have to let him do that. That's what you call playing in a zone. You don't say anything to him when he's playing like that. You just feed off that."

The difference in the game, though, was Pitt's secondary scoring. Ronald Ramon added 16 points and DeJuan Blair 10 for the Panthers; St. John's did not have another player reach double figures.

Freshman guard D.J. Kennedy, from Schenley High School, finished with seven points and one rebound in his first game against Blair, his former teammate at Schenley.

Pitt's victory came four days after a lackluster performance at Cincinnati that resulted in a 62-59 loss.

"This, for us, was a great sign," Dixon said. "We responded in a lot of big ways. We knew what we had to improve on from last game. Our preparation was good and it carried over into the game. I was very impressed with the maturity of our guys."

Pitt jumped on St. John's from the opening tip and never trailed in the game. The Panthers, who had struggled with their shooting in previous Big East road games, made 4 of 9 from 3-point range in the first half and jumped out to a double-digit lead.

The Panthers led, 38-27, at halftime. In the second half, it was the Young-Mason Show. For one four-plus minute stretch, they were the only players who scored. Young scored 13 consecutive points for Pitt, and his hot hand helped the Panthers build a 19-point lead.

It was a satisfying win for the home-grown Panthers, who had three players competing who grew up in New York.

"We never beat them up here in my four years here," Benjamin said. "We like getting payback on people. We think this is a home court for us. We've played so many games here during the Big East tournament over the years. It's so basic for us to be here and be comfortable."