It is a rare occurrence in college basketball when a coach deems it necessary to call a timeout in the opening moments of a half. Usually, coaches will wait until the first media timeout four minutes into each half to make any necessary adjustments.

So when Pitt coach Jamie Dixon called a timeout 2:19 into the second half of the Rutgers game Saturday night, something major was amiss.

Namely, it was effort. Pitt had a seven-point lead at halftime, but played such uninspired basketball in the first sequences of the second half that Dixon felt compelled to address his players for a wake-up call.

Rutgers had just scored the first six points of the half to draw within one. But the fact that the Scarlet Knights had scored six consecutive points was not what upset Dixon. It was the manner in which they did it.

Rutgers guard Mike Coburn gathered in a loose ball as Pitt players stood around and watched. Sam Young, regarded as the hardest-working player on the team, was the biggest culprit of lazy play. He stood under the basket flat-footed and did not even attempt to block Coburn, a 6-foot freshman who is 6 inches shorter than Young.

Dixon's timeout temporarily awakened the Panthers, who stormed back to take a nine-point lead with 13:33 remaining. But their focus was short-lived. They reverted to their languid play after that and got embarrassed by the last-place Scarlet Knights, 77-64.

Afterward, senior Keith Benjamin said his team was "outworked."

The statistics back up Benjamin's assertion. After outrebounding Rutgers, 22-9, in the first half the Panthers allowed the Scarlet Knights to win the rebounding battle, 29-13, after halftime.

Dixon was at a loss to explain the occurrence. He called the rebounding numbers "staggering."

Pitt went into the game No. 2 in the Big East Conference in rebounding margin while Rutgers was 15th.

Dixon said he witnessed a game where "the numbers defied explanation."

Here are some of those statistics:

• Pitt had 17 offensive rebounds and only managed to get to the free-throw line eight times.

• Rutgers came into the game shooting 40.3 percent from the field (last in the Big East), but the Scarlet Knights shot 53.7 percent against the Panthers.

• Rutgers came into the game shooting 30 percent from 3-point range (last in the Big East), but made 9 of 14 from behind the 3-point arc against the Panthers.

• Pitt came into the game shooting 47 percent but only shot 38 percent against Rutgers.

In a game when the Panthers made 27 of 70 shots from the field and Young, the team's leading scorer, made just 4 of 17 shots, the Panthers needed to rely on their defense and rebounding, but those two integral parts, measured on effort more than anything else, were almost non-existent in the second half.

"You're not always going to shoot it well," Dixon said. "Usually we can still find some ways to win. We didn't find the ways [Saturday]. Really, that was the most disappointing thing to us. We didn't find those ways to win.

"You have to rebound and defend better. Those have to be constants and they weren't [Saturday]."

Making the loss more disappointing for Pitt was that the Panthers had a chance to gain some separation in the standings. Instead, they are part of a logjam in the middle of the conference. Only one game separates the Panthers from 13th place.

The top 12 teams are invited to the Big East tournament in March.

Pitt (16-4, 4-3) already has played the Big East bottom feeders -- Rutgers, St. John's and South Florida. The rest of the schedule is far more difficult.

Pitt plays three of its next four at home and must find a way to keep pace until starting point guard Levance Fields returns from his foot injury. The Panthers play host to Villanova Wednesday and then travel to Connecticut Saturday before returning for home games against West Virginia and Providence.

Fields is scheduled to return for the following game, at Marquette Feb. 15.

"We're not going to panic," Dixon said. "We've responded well from disappointments before. We'll respond well this time."