Oakland Skyscrapers
Panthers' Big Men Causing Problems For Opponents
By Joe Bendel

Steve Newman is not a little man by anybody's standards. He is 6-foot-8, 230 pounds with well-defined muscles in his arms and shoulders.

If you saw Newman on the street, you'd take notice. But if you saw him on the court next to the interior players at Pitt, you'd think he was a member of the Billy Barty basketball team.

"I'm big, but those guys: wow," said Newman, a center-forward for Georgia who was bruised and battered after a 76-55 loss to Pitt on Dec. 30 at Petersen Events Center. "And they keep coming at you."

Whether size truly matters will be determined in March and April during the NCAA Tournament, but this much is certain: Pitt is the biggest of the big in the Big East Conference and one of the biggest teams in the country.

League coaches are taking notice to these triple-X-wearing Panthers.

"It's not just one big guy for them it's two, three, four, five," said Connecticut coach Jim Calhoun. "They give you a lot to handle with that physical presence."

"It never ends," Rutgers coach Gary Waters said. "They can match up with just about anybody in the paint."

The top inside man for the Panthers goes by the nickname, "Big Ticket," an appropriate moniker for 6-foot-10, 250-pound freshman Chris Taft, who burst into the starting lineup seven games into the season and will contend for Big East Rookie of the Year honors.

Taft is one of four Panthers 6-10 or taller. He is one of six who is at least 6-7. All weigh more than 220, while three tip the scales at 250-plus.

Taft's top backup is 6-10, 282-pound senior Toree Morris, who is backed up by 7-0, 280-pound freshman Aaron Gray, the second 7-footer to don a Panthers' uniform in history.

Junior Mark McCarroll, 6-10, 220, tops off the 6-10-and-above club, a.k.a. The Oakland Skyscrapers.

The second wave of big men features redshirt freshman forward Levon Kendall, 6-9, 220, and junior starting forward Chevon Troutman, 6-7, 236.

The stream of size is seemingly endless.

"When I come into the game after Chris and Toree, I know what people are thinking: 'Not another big guy,'" said Gray. "It's good for me because I get in there after those two have worn everybody down. It's a big plus for us to be able to throw so much size at somebody else. It's hard to match up against that."

There was a time not long ago when first-year coach Jamie Dixon's predecessor, Ben Howland, used the phrase, "recruit to shoot," but that was amended to "recruit for brute (strength)," at least in the most recent class, which featured Taft, Gray and Dante Milligan, 6-8, 200, who is taking a redshirt. Interestingly, Pitt also received a commitment from big and bulky Walter Waters, 6-9, 270, of Detroit, but Waters and the Panthers parted ways and Dixon used the scholarship on a little guy shooting guard Antonio Graves.

"You like to recruit size, but the guys we brought in were more than just big guys with height and weight," Dixon said. "They fit into our system. All of them can pass. When we're looking at big men, we like to see if they can pass. That's the thing about our interior players, they pass the ball well. So, a lot might be made of their physical stature, but there is more to it than that."

Of the three centers, Taft had been receiving the lion's share of playing time during the first five Big East games, averaging nearly 33 minutes per outing. Morris averaged 6.2 minutes and Gray played just once in the first five league games, two minutes in a blowout victory over Virginia Tech in the opener.

As for the second set of big men, Troutman and McCarroll continue to provide quality minutes, while Kendall, who had 11 points in his first career start against Murray State, joined Gray on the bench after the conference opener.

McCarroll showed his wares by scoring 26 points against Georgia and added 15 in a win over Syracuse. Troutman is among the most physically dominating 6-foot-7 players in the nation.

"The guy's a beast underneath the basket," Waters said of Troutman, whose wingspan is that of a 7-foot player. "I don't know how big he is, I just know he plays big. That's the difference between Troutman and most players. He controls you."

With the wealth of big men on the roster, you would think Pitt runs its offense through the low post, but that is not usually the case. Guards Julius Page, 6-3, and Carl Krauser, 6-2, are the team's leading scorers. Page typically is the first scoring option and Krauser the second. Small forward Jaron Brown, 6-4, is the team's third leading scorer.

In a dominating win at Syracuse in late January, though, the Panthers' big men took over. Pitt scored almost all of their second half points from the inside, as Taft, Troutman and McCarroll combined for 42 points in a 66-45 victory.

Taft is emerging as a key element in Dixon's motion offense.

"How can you leave a guy like that out?" Krauser said. "We try to get him the ball as much as we can. We love dumping it into those big guys and letting them go to work. We have options under there, with Toree and Chris and Aaron and Chevy. They bang and bang under there, wearing the other team out, and that makes it easier for us guards. You can't come out and play us too closely, because we'll feed those big guys, and those big guys know what to do when they get it. We have extra options with so many wide bodies."

Taft, a Brooklyn native, is the best big man to land at Pitt since Charles Smith in the early '80s. He contributed 8 points, 7 rebounds and 3 blocks against Connecticut big men Emeka Okafor, Josh Boone and Charlie Villanueva in a three-point road-loss in January; looked dominant against highly regarded Notre Dame big man Torin Francis with 10 points, 9 rebounds and 4 blocks in a three-point victory; and delivered a 15-point, 8-rebound performance in just 23 minutes in the win at Syracuse.

Okafor, a leading candidate for national player of the year honors, took notice of the Pitt freshman.

"He's strong and quick for being so young," Okafor said of Taft, who scored at least 15 points in four of the Panthers' first five conference games. "He gives Pittsburgh an extra element, and it gives us something else to worry about. They've always had the good guard play, now they have it in the low post as well."

With the emergence of Taft and the vast potential of Gray, who impressed coaches enough that they decided not to redshirt him, Pitt could showcase a set of twin towers in coming years that rivals the great Sam Bowie-Mel Turpin tandem at Kentucky and the Patrick Ewing-Ralph Dalton duo at Georgetown in the '80s.

That's what Taft and Co. hope.

"I think we can be the most dominating inside team in the country," Taft said. "We have the size and the muscle and the ability. It could get to the point that nobody can stop us."

Joe Bendel covers college sports for the Tribune-Review.