Sam Young has been gaining the respect of coaches in the Big East Conference slowly. Earlier this month, coaches started to comment on how Young was the most improved player in the league.

Lately, coaches have been changing their opinion. Some, including St. John's coach Norm Roberts, believe Young is the best player in the conference. Roberts called Young "the player of the year in the conference right now" after Young scored 26 points and No. 13 Pitt hammered the Red Storm, 81-57, Wednesday night at Madison Square Garden in New York.

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Scouting Report

• Matchup: No. 13 Pitt (16-3, 4-2) vs. Rutgers (9-11, 1-6), 6 p.m. today, Petersen Events Center.
• TV, Radio, Internet: ESPN Classic, WWSW-FM (94.5), WBGG-AM (970), www.pittsburghpanthers.com.
• Pitt: Tied for second in Big East Conference standings with West Virginia, Louisville and DePaul. ... Senior G Keith Benjamin is 16 for 33 from 3-point range in Big East games.
• Rutgers: Picked up first Big East win Wednesday against Villanova. ... 1-7 in road games. ... Led by J.R. Inman (14.2 ppg, 7.8 rpg), Corey Chandler (12.2 ppg, 3.4 rpg) and Anthony Farmer (11.1 ppg, 2.7 rpg).
• Hidden stat: Rutgers is last in the 16-team Big East in scoring (63.0 points per game), field-goal percentage (.403) and 3-point field-goal percentage (.300).

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Young has gone from enigmatic reserve to confident star over one summer, and he could be lugging home some hardware from New York in March if he continues at his current, torrid pace.

The Big East has an awards ceremony before the Big East tournament, and among the awards are ones for the most improved player and player of the year. Only one player has won those awards in the same season.

Pitt's Brandin Knight won the most improved player in 2002 and shared the player of the year honors with Connecticut's Caron Butler. Young, a 6-foot-6 junior forward, could join Knight in the Big East record books.

Young is third in the Big East in scoring with 18.6 points per game, a hair behind Luke Harangody of Notre Dame and Seton Hall's Brian Laing. He also is among the league leaders in rebounds and 3-point shooting percentage.

Young worked feverishly on his game over the summer to improve on a disappointing 2006-07 season in which knee injuries and inconsistent play led to a sophomore slump. But after an arduous offseason of training and the opportunity to be a starter, he has answered all questions about his ability emphatically.

"I want to silence all critics about my game," Young said. "I work very hard. People don't see what I do behind closed doors. It's hard to say how a player is going to be in the future when you don't know how his work ethic is."

Young keeps his frustrating 2006-07 season close to him. He wrote an inspirational passage before the first game of the season that he keeps at his home. A copy is posted in his locker. He also has been known to post newspaper articles in his locker that were unflattering.

Such stories were published last season, when Young was having a hard time playing small forward. By late December, Pitt coach Jamie Dixon decided to play Young at power forward exclusively.

This season, Young began the season as Pitt's starting power forward, but a season-ending injury to starting small forward Mike Cook forced lineup adjustments. Young is the starter at power forward, but he is beginning to see more and more time at small forward.

Young estimated he played half the game Wednesday night against St. John's at small forward, and he said most of his scoring came when he played that position.

"I took it as a challenge last year when people said I couldn't play [small forward]," Young said. "A lot of people say I can't play [small forward]. A lot of people feel like power forward is my natural position. I feel like I can play both."

Young's biggest improvement has been his outside shooting. He had made only 17 3-pointers in his first two seasons at Pitt and shot 27 percent from behind the 3-point line. This season, he is Pitt's top 3-point shooter. He has made 46 percent of his attempts through the first 19 games.

"Obviously, the numbers situation has forced [the move back to small forward]," Dixon said. "It's gone as planned to be honest. When we recruited him, we talked to him about eventually playing [small forward]. He had some setbacks along the way. But he has worked and put forth the effort, that's the thing."

Young has been Pitt's top scorer from the outset of the season, but he has been taking his scoring to new heights in recent games. He has scored 20 or more points in four of the past five games. He had 24 or more in three of those games and is averaging 20.8 in conference games. The previous time a Pitt player averaged more than 18 points in a season was 1999-2000, when Ricardo Greer averaged 18.1 per game. That was coach Ben Howland's first season at Pitt.

Since then, scoring balance has been a Pitt trademark. No player since Greer has been such a dominant force within the Panthers' offense.

Dixon said Young is in a position where he has to score more because of the injuries to Cook and Levance Fields, but he also acknowledged that he gives Young the green light to freelance more than any player he has coached.

The circumstances have led to Young being in position to claim the conference's top honor.

"That's one of my goals," he said.

"At the beginning of the season, it seemed like it was real far away. But now I can see that light at the end of the tunnel. Hopefully, I can maintain my play, and that will happen."