Sometimes I think gimmee games make me more nervous than the big, tough ones. I am finding myself getting increasingly edgy the more I think about Pitt playing Providence. You would think that Pitt players would want revenge and  still have the memories stuck in their heads from last year at the Dunk.

“We’re just going to move the ball,” Panthers guard Ashton Gibbs said. “We’ll continue to be unselfish and penetrate and dish and look for open teammates. That’s what we’ve been doing, and we’re going to continue to do it.”

Twenty-nine players have scored at least 20 points against the Friars this season.

South Florida’s Dominique Jones scored 46 points against Providence — the second-highest point total in Big East history — and Georgetown’s Greg Monroe became the first Big East center to record at least 10 assists in a game when he had 12 against Providence.

The Friars can turn ho-hum players into high-scoring stars.

DePaul’s Mike Stovall, who averages 6.6 points, scored 30 against Providence. Cincinnati’s Cashmere Wright, averaging 5.7 points per game, netted 24.

Still, Pitt can’t take the Friars lightly. The No. 1 Panthers started out “lackadaisical” at Providence last season and lost, 81-73.

“We came out really lazy, and they took advantage of it,” Gibbs said. “Before you knew it, we were down 20.”

What has me worried is that Providence plays such bad defense. Expending all its energy on scoring. It is a hard temptation for players to resist the urge to just try and match the scoring and slip on the defensive end.

Consider this: Marquette Providence is riding an eight game losing streak. In four of the games they had a halftime lead (USF, G-town, Syracuse and Marquette). One game was tied (Cinci), and in three games where they trailed at the half (WVU, Nova, Cuse) two of them had the Friars within 5 points. Only WVU blew them out of the water in the first half and shut down their offense.

It took for most of these teams a halftime of their coach getting in their faces to remember to play defense and not let Providence dictate the tempo. Considering the offensive funks Pitt can fall into, it does have me a bit concerned.

You add in just the level of public humiliation Providence is taking over their defense. Plus second year coach Keno Davis seems to be losing his honeymoon grace period with the play.

But they aren’t, and there are no repercussions coming from Keno.

“There’s a point where guys make mistakes,” he said the other day, “and as a coach you can sit them, but are you ruining your chances of winning a game?”

Last time I looked, the Friars had lost eight straight conference games, and 10 of their last 11.

Because Keno is soft on his players, they play soft defense.

Can you picture Jim Calhoun or Jim Boeheim, Jay Wright or Jamie Dixon, Bob Huggins or John Thompson III, putting up with efforts they felt were insufficient and unacceptable?

Keno Davis’ quote came from his discussion of lack of depth on the squad that benching the guys won’t help the team win. It’s a tough line. Will the players actually respond to the benching? Just quit?

I know the broader point being that they were going to lose anyways so at least do so witha  message. As I pointed out with their first half, they were actually leading or still very close. Only one game was a blowout from the start. That’s what has to make it so hard. For at least a half, they were in these games.

Well, at least we know Jermaine Dixon will do what he can on defense and to keep the team in line. He has a goal.

Dixon, a 6-foot-3, 200-pound guard who came to Pitt from Tallahassee Community College last year, can complete his two-year career at Pitt with a 36-1 home record if the Panthers can win their final two games Thursday against Providence and Saturday against Rutgers.

“That would be big,” Dixon said Tuesday after practice. “I told them I never wanted to lose in the Pete. But we took one loss this year. Not losing [another] game in this building would be great. It’s something I want to do.”

The team from a year ago became the fourth in school history to complete a season with a perfect home record. The current team can join select company by finishing the season with only one loss at home.

Since the Petersen Events Center opened in 2002, four teams finished undefeated or with one loss. The 2008-09 and the 2002-03 teams did not lose at home. Coach Jaime Dixon’s first team in 2003-04 and the 2005-06 group finished with one loss.

Not that he’s actually seen the court much — and now the presumed odd guy out to make room on the next recruiting class — Dwight Miller has reinjured his heel that was the official reason for his redshirt last year.

In other stuff, Gary Parrish lists his top-eight candidates for National Coach of the year. Tough group.

In a dubious distinction for Coach Dixon, he gets mentioned as the “best coach never to make the Final Four.”

Coach Dixon has been doing the media rounds and on the Dan Patrick show he engaged in hyper-conference partisanship.

“I think we’ve got like 11 teams that are NCAA tournament teams,” Dixon told Tony Bruno, a fill-in host for Patrick.

“I think this conference is actually stronger this year from top to bottom, I really do,” Dixon said. “I don’t think we’re as top heavy this year, but top to bottom there is just better teams.”

But Dixon acknowledged that the league likely won’t actually get that many bids to the Big Dance.

“Now I know that many aren’t going to get in. It’s just pure numbers, plus beating each other up,” he said.

Dixon also remained lukewarm on conference expansion.