Syracuse is the No. 8 team in the country, had won 17 of its first 19 games and boasts one of the top offenses in the Big East Conference. But Pitt probably couldn't have asked for a better opponent coming off its first loss of the season at Louisville Saturday.

For some reason, the Panthers seem to own the Orange. Pitt bounced back from its disappointing loss to the Cardinals and whipped Syracuse, 78-60, before a sellout crowd at the Petersen Events Center. It was the Panthers' 11th victory in the past 14 meetings against Syracuse.

One of the reasons Pitt has enjoyed so much success over the years against Syracuse is the manner in which the Panthers dissect the Orange's 2-3 zone. Last night, after struggling against Louisville's zone, the Panthers picked apart Syracuse and shot 53 percent.

"We do well against the zone," senior point guard Levance Fields said, explaining Pitt's dominance over the years against the Orange. "Unfortunately, we didn't do the same thing against Louisville. I guess the thing we learned from that game was that we had to make sure we were patient and got high post touches. When we did that we got open shots. When you do that against zones, good things happen."

Instead of settling for outside shots like they did against Louisville, the Panthers got the ball inside to DeJuan Blair and Sam Young who had a field day against Syracuse's front line. Young broke out of his three-game shooting slump and led the No. 4 Panthers (17-1, 5-1) with 22 points and six rebounds. Blair added 20 points and 12 rebounds for his 12th double-double this season.

The Panthers scored 40 points in the paint and held a 40-28 edge in rebounding after getting outrebounded for just the second time this season at Louisville.

"They were challenged about the rebounding numbers and they responded," Pitt coach Jamie Dixon said.

Blair was especially responsive. After playing only 20 minutes because of foul trouble against Louisville, Blair crushed the Orange.

He was 9 for 14 from the field, grabbed four offensive rebounds and had four blocks against Syracuse center Arinze Onuaku, one of the best centers in the league, who only managed eight points and nine rebounds.

"Blair is a tremendous rebounder," said Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim, who is in his 30th season coaching in the Big East.

"He is as good a rebounder as I've seen in this league in a long time. Pittsburgh is a tremendous rebounding team."

Perhaps the most important thing to come out of this game was the fact that Young got back on track. He had been mired in a slump that saw him shoot 15 for 49 from the field over the previous three games.

He was especially bad against Louisville, going 6 for 20 from the field and 2 for 10 from 3-point range.

"A couple of shots can change a lot of things," Dixon said. "He was fine at Louisville. He just had a bad stretch at the end of the game. Don't read too much into a six- or eight-minute stretch. He's been pretty consistent all year long. There will be games when guys don't shoot well. You don't want to overreact."

Young made an effort to attack the defense more instead of relying on his jump shot. After not getting to the free-throw line against Louisville, he got to the line eight times last night and two-thirds of his shots came from inside the 3-point line.

"It was Sam attacking, not settling," Fields said. "That kind of got him going. It's always easy for scorers to get some easy ones at the free-throw line. He's a hard worker. He kept working through his struggles. He came through when we needed him most."

Pitt led most of the game, but a bad stretch near the end of the first half allowed Syracuse to trim a nine-point lead to three at halftime.

In the early moments of the second half, Syracuse took a short-lived two-point lead, but the Panthers finally started to click on all cylinders on offense and a 20-5 run gave them an insurmountable, 53-40 lead with 9:34 remaining.

The Orange never cut that deficit below seven points.

Syracuse came into the game averaging almost 83 points per game, but Pitt's defense held the Orange to its second-lowest scoring output this season.

"To come out and do what we did tonight speaks volumes for what we did on the defensive end," Dixon said. "They are very good offensively. We did a good job of making them take tough shots."