Pitt opens season with win over St. Peter’s
PITTSBURGH – Pitt opened the 2005-2006 basketball season at the Petersen Events center Saturday night with a different look compared to years’-past by fielding three first-time starters, freshman Levance Fields, junior Aaron Gray and senior John DeGroat. The season-starting win, in which they led the charge, an 82-71 victory over St. Peter’s of New Jersey (0-3), was nothing new, though, as the Panthers have now won their last nine season-opening games and also 50 of their last 51 home games against non-conference opponents.
“It’s good to start the season off with a win and give St. Peters credit, they were better than most people thought,” Pitt head coach Jamie Dixon said. “We feel good about the depth on this team and we’re probably going to play a number of guys all year.”
Fields is only the third freshman to start for Pitt on opening night along with Ronald Ramon (last year), and Ricardo Greer in 1997. He responded with 12 points and five assists including 4 field goals on 5 attempts, including 2 for 2 from 3-point range.
“I thought Fields played well,” Dixon said. “It’s good to have two point guards on the floor, which you’ll probably see most of the time this year.”
With so many guards on the team this year, Fields knows his starting slot is not guaranteed and he plans on battling every day to keep it.
“We have a lot of guards who can play on this team, so it meant a lot to hear my name called as a starter in the beginning of the game,” Fields said. “I just have to keep fighting in practice if I want to continue to start because we have a lot of players who can start.”
Fields is happy Gray, a 7-footer, is another starter on the floor. Fields was the starting point guard for Xaverian High School in Brooklyn and during his freshman and sophomore year, he had the luxury of former Panther and now NBA player Chris Taft on his team.
“I’m always happy to have a 7-footer on the floor to be able to dish the ball to when I can,” Fields said. “I played with Chris Taft, but that was three years ago, so it felt good having such a big guy out there.”
Besides a career first start, Gray also had a career-first double-double by leading the Panthers in points with 17 and rebounds with 11.
Pitt needed all the points they could get too, as they watched a 28-point lead early in the second half wither away to as little as 7 points with 44 seconds left before Gray finished out the game by hitting 5 of 6 free throws to ice the win.
Besides Gray and Fields scoring in double-figures for the Panthers, Carl Krauser also did with 13 points and Antonio Graves came off the bench and scored 15.