HARTFORD, Conn. -- Now, of course, Jamie Dixon's team shrieks for a reassessment.
It had been suggested.
Now it's compulsory.
An ostensible upset at Syracuse and a slick-as-fish-oil dismantling of Cincinnati in back-to-back road appointments were agreeable curiosities, but last night's asphyxiation of perennial Big East dragon Connecticut in its own lair reshuffles the conference deck at the very minimum.
Picked to finish ninth in a league where it's now 4-0 and 14-2 overall, these Panthers planted a 10-point victory on Connecticut's jaw in the grandest fashion of Pitt basketball tradition -- with 1,000 pounds of defense and one crushing ton of want-to.
"We've said all along that we've never lowered our demands or our expectations," Dixon said about 20 minutes after a 67-57 smack-down. "Other people may look at us differently, but any team that cares about each other and cares about what they're doing can decide these things for themselves. I tell them all the time, it's up to us to determine what kind of team we're going to be."
These Panthers, following in the fresh footprints of Dixon's best team ever, a 31-5 unit that came within a whisper of the Final Four, either want to be awfully good or are at least willing to throw themselves on the floor trying to be.
That was both the literal and metaphoric reason they were only the fourth team to win at Connecticut in the past 44 games.
"I think it was just an example of what coach Dixon always emphasizes, which is being tough," said Gilbert Brown in 26 minutes of Pitt's seventh consecutive win. "You see how Ashton [Gibbs] almost turned the ball over and then gave up his body? I think this game tonight is where all that toughness really came out."
On a night when Connecticut never led by more than a point and then only briefly on three occasions, Pitt couldn't escape vulnerability, even with a 61-55 lead and 70 seconds remaining. It was at those precise coordinates that Pitt's superior want-to flashed through the XL Center to the clear disgust of the Connecticut faithful.
The Kemba Walker jumper that would have sliced Pitt's lead to four jumped straight up off the back of the rim to a point where Gary McGhee ascended to his team-leading ninth rebound, but as the 6-10 McGhee came back to earth in a forest of Husky limbs, the ball squirted free along the baseline.
Jermaine Dixon dived headlong parallel to the line, poking it to Gibbs near corner, but when Gibbs pushed it into the forecourt, Jerome Dyson flicked it free again near the top of the circle. Instead of retreating into Connecticut's hair-trigger transition game, Gibbs instead threw himself on the floor for the loose ball and got the Panthers a fairly indispensable timeout.
"Just something I had to do," said Gibbs, who hit three of Pitt's four 3-pointers, including the one that made it 55-51 as the clock blinked under four minutes. "That one was definitely about to become a turnover; it's just something coach Dixon always emphasizes -- he wants us to be scrappier."
Maybe you've noticed that it's rare if you can slide an envelope between what Jamie wants and what he gets, and what he's got with this pride of Panthers is a typical Pitt defensive machine of frenetic, interchangeable parts. The Panthers came into this highly conspicuous conference event allowing only 57 points per game, eighth best in the nation.
Connecticut got exactly that, no more, and all Panthers who walked onto the floor last night stayed there at least 12 minutes. Sturdy as Pitt's defense was against accomplished Huskies like Dyson, who was held to five points below his average of 19 on 5-for-14 shooting, it was equally elastic -- holding Connecticut to a stunning five 3-point shots, exactly one of which fell.
Pitt's now 12-0 when it leads with five minutes remaining, 14-0 when it goes to the free-throw line more than its opponent. The Panthers got 20 shots from there last night and made 17, a testament to their patterned offense that scored its first 10 points of the game in the paint despite the presence of 6-9 Alex Oriakhi and 6-11 Ater Majok.
Sometimes making noise is just making sense.
"We've seen this coming," insisted Brad Wanamaker, who matched Gibbs' 19 points, nine of them from the line, including both ends of a one-and-one that sent the Hartford crowd to the cold streets. "We know how good we can be."
First Published: January 14, 2010, 5:00 a.m.
