With Bob Knight looking on from the Garden stands — watching Indiana in person for the first time since his firing in 2000 — coach Tom Crean showed his Hoosier reclamation project is well under way. They cruised past Pittsburgh, 74-64, in the Jimmy V Classic, turning the Panthers into little more than a speed bump on their road back to relevance.
Sophomore Verdell Jones III scored 22 points for the Hoosiers (4-4), who got 16 from Christian Watford and held Pittsburgh to just 31.4 percent shooting. It was an impressive statement for a team that’d been 6-25 last season, 1-17 in the Big Ten.
“That’s one of the things we always preach. We want to put Indiana back in the spotlight. We want to put Indiana back on the map,” said Watford.
“It feels great. Our hard work is starting to pay off. People were jumping around like crazy. It just feels good,” Jones said. “We wanted this win so bad.”
Indiana led 41-37 five minutes into the second half before an 18-5 run blew the game open. Bobby Capobianco’s layup pushed it to 59-42 and ended the run, but it was Watford’s block on one end and a three-point play on the other over freshman Dante Taylor that epitomized it.
“I’m not concerned about the offense. I’m concerned about the defense. We’re letting teams score too easy, and not taking pride in defense,” said Taylor. “We need to put our foot down and stand up and play defense.”
Sophomore guard Ashton Gibbs, a Seton Hall Prep grad, had a career-high 25 for Pitt.
Taylor (12) scored in the paint to cut the lead to 70-64 with a minute left, but that’s as close as the Panthers got.
“It starts on the defensive end. Once we start getting stops, our offense will come,” said Gibbs. “Defensively we’ve got to strap it up and play tougher, especially down the stretch. Our offense comes from our defense and rebounding; we do that and we’ll be fine.”
That duo, along with Brooklyn’s Travon Woodall, will have to take a bigger scoring role on a young Pitt team that’s lost four starters from last season, Gilbert Brown to suspension, and — until last night — Jermaine Dixon to a broken foot.
“We got what we deserved we didn’t play well and Indiana did. We’ve got some work to do,” said Pitt coach Jamie Dixon, whose team mustered just 15 first-half points Friday vs. New Hampshire.
In the opener, sophomore center Greg Monroe led Georgetown to a 72-65 win over Butler. He had career-highs of 24 points and 15 rebounds for the 15th-ranked Hoyas (7-0), who held the No. 22 Bulldogs (6-3) to just 31.1 percent shooting and 16 points in the paint.
“The whole team had an energy coming into the game. We’re trying to keep that energy throughout the game,” said Monroe, who was extra fired up to play in the Garden after last season’s first-round Big East tourney loss to St. John’s.
“I hope so, because our last memory in this building was not fun . . . and everyone in here remembers that,” said Hoyas coach John Thompson III. “It’s time we make some newfound memories in this place.”