Underrated Pittsburgh

KANSAS CITY, Mo. – No one knows where the Pittsburgh basketball team will place in the Big East race this season. But at least one well-respected coach figures it’ll be higher than the Panthers were projected.

“Someone told me they were picked ninth in their league,” Texas coach Rick Barnes said Tuesday. “The Big East is a great league if they’re the ninth-best team.”

Barnes would certainly know.

The Panthers gave his third-ranked Texas squad all it could handle before the Longhorns pulled away for a 78-62 victory in the championship game of the CBE Classic at the Sprint Center.

Unranked Pittsburgh led at intermission, and the score was tied 51-51 with 10 minutes remaining in the second half before Texas went on a 27-11 game-ending run.

“We expected to come in here and win,” Pittsburgh coach Jamie Dixon said. “We didn’t expect to come in here and be encouraged. We’ve got to play better. There’s no satisfaction in a loss.”

There’s no way Dixon and the Panthers won’t use Tuesday’s performance as a building block as they prepare for the rugged Big East. That the Panthers stayed in the game as long as they did was somewhat stunning considering Pittsburgh lost four starters from a team that finished second in the Big East last season while earning a No. 1 seed in the NCAA tournament.

Making matters worse for the Panthers is that their top two returnees from 2008-09 have yet to play this fall. Returning starter Jermaine Dixon is out at least another week with a broken right foot while Gilbert Brown, last year’s sixth man, is on academic suspension until mid-December.

“We learned that we can fight,” said center Gary McGhee, who earned all-tournament honors after scoring 11 points and grabbing 10 rebounds. “We can play with any team in the nation. We’ve just got to go back to the gym and get back to the drawing board.”

Dixon said his players were selfish during crunch time, which caused them to take low-percentage shots. He also said he may be playing some of his guys too many minutes. Four Panthers played 29 or more minutes Tuesday.

“We were up four [points] in the second half, but we weren’t there because of our execution,” Dixon said. “It was really just our will. We were playing hard, we were competing, we were battling for loose balls. But it wasn’t because of our execution. Eventually it caught up to us.”

The most impressive stat line of the night for the Panthers was that they outrebounded Texas 35-33. The Longhorns’ frontcourt of Damion James, Dexter Pittman and Gary Johnson is considered one of the country’s best.

“They’re a pretty good team,” Pitt guard Brad Wanamaker said. “You have to give them their respect. Down the stretch they showed a little more maturity than us. Still, when it comes down it, we think we should’ve won the game.”

A few other notes and observations from Tuesday:

• Barnes is right about the Panthers and the Big East, which is looking more and more like the top conference in the country. Two weeks into the season the conference’s 16 teams are a collective 58-5, with no team toting more than one loss. Even some of the league’s lowliest teams – namely DePaul, Seton Hall and South Florida – have made significant strides. Bottom line: From 1-16, the conference is as wide open as it’s been in years.

• Pittsburgh freshman forward Dante Taylor – the first McDonald’s All-American at the school in about 20 years – played just 10 minutes Tuesday and finished with four points and four rebounds. On the season he’s averaging 5.6 points and 5.6 boards. Taylor is definitely a talent but still seems a bit overwhelmed.

• Texas’ 2009 recruiting class was regarded as one of the country’s best, and most times it’s easy to understand why. Combo guard Avery Bradley has already earned a spot in the starting rotation and point guard J’Covan Brown – and maybe even wing Jordan Hamilton – will soon follow suit. Bradley was the fourth-ranked prospect in the nation coming out of high school and Bradley was No. 6.

Still, as talented as Texas’ newcomers are, they’re a long way from becoming the type of players that Barnes and fans expect.

Bradley still gets sped up at times and tries to do too much. Brown is an excellent street-ball type player who’s adjusting to the team concept while Hamilton is struggling with his defense and consistency. He scored 14 points in the first half of Monday’s victory over Iowa but, in the next three halves of basketball, he had only seven points.

Barnes said he wants his freshmen to pick up their intensity, especially on the defensive end.

“Overall the younger guys don’t sustain it yet defensively for long periods of time,” Barnes said. “That’s why we sub for them. It’s not so much because of something they’re doing offensively. We know they’ve got the ability to [score]. They don’t understand yet just how hard it is to play two or three minutes on both ends of the floor.”

A few more quick notes on Texas’ freshmen:

1. Hamilton, because of his 6-foot-7, 226-pound frame, looks to be the best pro prospect of the bunch. He’s got incredible range for his size and will be even more impressive once he starts going to the basket.

2. Varez Ward’s season-ending knee injury Tuesday should speed up what seemed to be the inevitable move of Brown to starting point guard. Though Brown is the leading candidate to start, Florida transfer Jai Lucas, senior Justin Mason and sophomore Dogus Balbay will see their share of minutes, too.

Balbay was actually the most impressive player on the court Tuesday. He had 10 points, eight rebounds and seven assists off the bench.

“I don’t really care who is in the starting lineup,” Balbay said. “That’s what I told [Barnes]. Whoever comes in is going to do the best job that he can do.”