Dec 12, 2003 3 min read

PITTSBURGH (AP) – This might be the best defense in Pittsburgh since the Steel Curtain. Pitt’s 20th-ranked basketball team changed coaches this season, from Ben Howland to Jamie Dixon, but what hasn’t changed is the Panthers’ unswerving and near-maniacal commitment to defense.

It’s not a gimmick-filled, stop-’em-with-gadgetry system or one that requires an extensive playbook. It’s more like the defense taught back in the 1960s, when dunking was outlawed and UCLA thrived not just because it had better players than anyone else, but because it played better defense.

Don’t let an offensive player get a step on you. Never be out of position. Square up to the man with the ball, just as a shooter needs to square up to best get off a shot. Box out. Help out. Never let up.

“Everybody stays to the script and keeps their man in front of them,” said senior Julius Page, who usually draws an opponent’s best offensive player.

It’s Basketball Fundamentals 101, yet the Panthers take these principles of the game onto the court and use them. Countless coaches try to teach them but, in an era when many top players head straight to the NBA, they don’t always get through to transient athletes more concerned with making a highlight play than a sound one.

That doesn’t go at Pitt, where Howland long ago succeeded in convincing players such as Jaron Brown, Chevy Troutman and Page that good defense was a guaranteed route to success. Now it’s the older players who teach the younger players almost as much as the coaches do.

“The upperclassmen here love to play defense more than score,” sophomore point guard Carl Krauser said. “Good teachers like coach Howland and coach Dixon, they make you believe in it.”

It’s easy to believe these numbers: Pitt’s average points allowed total dropped each year under Howland, from 67 points in the 1999-2000 season to 65.3 to 60.9 to 59.2. This season, under Dixon, it has dropped to 54.6 through six games, with opponents shooting just 37.2 percent.

That 59.2 average last season was the fifth best nationally, trailing only Air Force, Miami, Holy Cross and Bucknell – none of whom play the quality of opponents that Pitt does.

The Panthers’ defense was so overwhelming and intimidating during Saturday’s 64-37 victory over Penn State that the Nittany Lions scored two points during one 13-minute stretch and had only 11 points at halftime.

“I think we’ve improved each week,” said Dixon, the first Pitt rookie basketball coach to start 6-0. “That gives you a good feeling about a team.”

Page and Krauser have since talked at length about the mistakes that must get corrected before the opponents shift from Chicago State and St. Francis to Connecticut and Syracuse.

Now that finals are over, Pitt begins a busy stretch of five games in 10 days Saturday against Youngstown State. After that comes a four-game block against Georgetown (Ky.) College, Chicago State, Murray State and Florida State – all in Pittsburgh – that winds up Dec. 22.

“I think we’re good,” Page said. “I just think we have to stay focused and do the little things that we’ve been doing. We can always get better. It’s still too early in the season to compare us to last year’s (28-5) team. We had a team full of seniors and juniors, so I don’t know if we’re going to compare.”

At least at one end of the court, it looks like they will.

“We’re getting there,” Dixon said.