Thanks again to Maz for running the liveblog. I’m sure people were calm, rational and not at all reacting like the sky was falling during the game.

In case anyone has forgotten, it isn’t easy winning on the road. Especially when you get to the middle point of the conference. The Ohio State escape from Evanston was like a nasty bit of foreshadowing — even with Northwestern lacking their best player. Yesterday was something of a bloodbath. Villanova losing their second straight. UConn blowing it at home to Louisville.

“That’s life in the Big East,” JT III said. “(Pitt coach) Jamie Dixon said this a couple weeks ago and he’s right. The first part of the season, Big East teams go out and just beat the rest of the country up. Now, conference play starts and we’re beating each other up and people out there are starting to ask what’s wrong with this team, that team.

Then all the ranked teams losing on the road to unranked teams. Syracuse losing four-in-a-row. Texas A&M losing at Nebraska. BYU at New Mexico. Same with Wisconsin in Happy Valley. Florida at Miss. St. and St. Mary’s at Portland.

Then there is a simple reality that Pitt has actually struggled with Rutgers. Pitt wins. They have now won 11 of the last 12, but games in the last few years have been ugly wins — or even a loss at the Pete. Even more so at the RAC. The 2008-09 Pitt team struggled to a 6-point win at the RAC. Pitt’s last double-digit win at the RAC was in 2001.

Considering how horrid a night Pitt had shooting the ball — if it wasn’t Gibbs (7-14) or McGhee (4-5) — I’m not going to complain about escaping with the win. The rest of the team shot 5-26 overall and 1-7 on 3s.

I hate to say that simply shots weren’t going, but that was some of it. Robinson and Wanamaker took some shots that just didn’t go. Rolled off the rim. Clanged. Some good looks, that were off and you saw it hurt their confidence. Even Coach Dixon acknowledged that problem with offense.

“We’re not clicking right now offensively, but part of that was it was a physical game,” Pitt coach Jamie Dixon said. “We didn’t shoot it well, but I was happy with our rebounding and we stepped up and made big plays when we needed to and I liked the way we shot from the free-throw line.

“We won tonight with our defense, that was good to see, and, hopefully, we’ll see more of that because lately we’ve been relying a little too much on our offense, and there will be nights when you don’t shoot well. When you’re not making shots, you have to be able to defend and get stops and grab the rebound and not let them get that second shot.”I

n a game with 44 fouls called,  Rutgers defense kept fouling the guards. While McGhee was a predictable 5-10, Robinson 0-1 and Taylor a surprising 2-2, Gibbs, Wanamaker, Brown and Woodall were 21-22.

Credit a great effort by Rutgers. They did a great job on defense. They played hard. They have given the RAC energy once more — though, it apparently was a little too loud for them at times.

In all the confusion and raucous noise against the second-ranked team in the country Saturday night, the six-letter word that Rutgers’ James Beatty shouted at teammate Dane Miller fell on deaf ears.

As the clock ticked under a minute to play with Pittsburgh clinging to a one-point lead, Miller was supposed to move off on Pitt’s Ashton Gibbs on the “switch!” command.

Instead, Miller couldn’t hear it. By that time, the ball was in Gibbs’ hands. Everyone knew what would happen next.

And again in the final seconds, the noise and Dane Miller were a problem.

Now they needed one more shot with 20.2 seconds remaining.

It was supposed to go to James Beatty in the corner but he never even touched the ball. Mike Coburn got stuck on the right elbow, picking up his dribble. He kicked out to Jonathan Mitchell who quickly was in the same position out past the top of the key.

Miller took the pass and without taking a look at the clock, heaved a 25-foot three pointer with a man in his face and seven seconds still remaining.

The shot went long, missing iron. The Scarlet Knights’ upset hopes came up short as they took a 65-62 loss to the Panthers.

“The boss told me to shoot it,” said Miller, who finished with nine points and three blocks.. “The head man told me to shoot it. When he said that I was like alright. I was going to pump fake it and I think if I would’ve pump faked it, Lamar Patterson would have jumped into me. But he’s the boss so do what he says.”

“I didn’t want Dane shooting it,” said Rice in a low, hushed tone.

The noise threw them off? Shouldn’t they have been used to their own court being loud? Oh.

For the first time all season the student section was packed to the hilt and rocking by tip-off, and Rutgers responded by jumping out to a 10-3 lead at the 17-minute mark.

How cute. Glad Pitt gave them a reason to show up.

But Pitt also knew what the plan was.

“I wanted JB (James Beatty) to come around and shoot a three….They were face-guarding our main three point shooter, that’s very good scouting by them,” RU coach Mike Rice said. “That’s the small winning plays that sometimes people don’t recognize.”

Which is why Pitt is the model Rice is working towards.

“I’m just trying to model our team after Jamie and what he’s been able to accomplish at Pitt, their consistency and their toughness,” he said. “They’re the most consistent team there is. They’ve won more Big East games in the last nine years than anybody.

“They seem to always develop as a group and play basketball the right way.”

It wasn’t pretty, but it is still a win.