The Siena Saints were supposed to be different. They were supposed to offer Pitt its first challenging game of the season because they returned all five starters from a team that won an NCAA tournament game last season.

But the No. 3 Panthers did to the Saints what they had done to their first 10 opponents of the season. They ran them out of the building.

Pitt beat Siena, 79-66, at the Petersen Events Center to improve to 11-0 for the second consecutive season. The game technically was Pitt's closest of the season, but the final score is a bit misleading. The Panthers led by 21 with 5:50 remaining before the Saints mounted a late but futile comeback attempt.

Sophomore center DeJuan Blair recorded his seventh double-double of the season with 21 points and 16 rebounds. Sam Young and Tyrell Biggs added 14 points apiece and Levance Fields had 11.

The difference in the game was Blair, Pitt's 6-foot-7, 265-pound battering ram. The mid-major Saints could do little to slow down the runaway train that is Blair in the middle. He grabbed eight offensive rebounds and led the charge for the Panthers, who had 48 points in the paint.

"He's got an incredible sense of where he is on the floor," Siena coach Fran McCaffrey said. "He's the best at creating angles that I've seen. He doesn't fight the game. He lets the game come to him. He's going to have a double-double no matter what. I don't care what you do to him."

Siena likes to play up-tempo and the Panthers were more than happy to oblige, showing off their transition offense skills. The Panthers easily solved Siena's pressure defense that had been forcing 19.4 turnovers per game.

Pitt only had seven turnovers last night and had 25 assists on 30 field goals.

"Twenty five assists and seven turnovers," a very pleased coach Jamie Dixon said afterward. "Teams would die to have those numbers."

Pitt led 37-29 at halftime behind the superb play of Blair, who had 15 points and six rebounds in the first 20 minutes. Siena had no answers for Blair's brute strength inside, frustrating McCaffrey to the point where he drew a technical foul with 3:31 remaining after one of his players was called for fouling Blair.

"I feel like every game I can have success, but this one was good," Blair said. "I started off a little dry, but you know me, I'm going to keep fighting. I'm going to keep doing what I do. I think I did a good job of rebounding and defense."

The Panthers raced to an early 15-4 lead with a 13-0 run as they capitalized by running off Siena's missed shots of which there were many. At one point midway through the first half, the Saints had made just 5 of 20 shots from the field.

Pitt built its lead to 14 points after Young converted a 3-point play with 1:17 remaining, and it looked like the Panthers were going to take the momentum into the locker room. But Siena scored the final six points of the half on 3-pointers, the Saints' only two 3-pointers of the half. The last one coming from Kyle Downey as the buzzer sounded.

But any jump the Saints got from the final minute of the first half was diffused in the opening moments of the second half. Pitt quickly regained the momentum at the beginning of the second half, getting back those six points and then some. The Panthers scored the first 11 points of the half and boosted the lead to 19 a little more than four minutes into the half.

Siena never threatened after that as the Panthers put the hammer down.

"If you look at the start of both halves, we were running good offense," McCaffrey said. "We weren't turning the ball over. The ball was in the hands of our best players, and we couldn't score. They didn't hit many [3-point] shots. But they're able to overcome and sustain leads because of the way they defend."

With the victory, Pitt has now won 37 consecutive games against non-conference opponents at the Petersen Events Center and has beaten 86 of its past non-conference foes at home.

The Panthers will play one final non-conference game before Big East play, Sunday evening at Florida State.

NOTES -- Pitt is now 13-6 all-time against opponents from the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference. ... Jamie Dixon is 71-4 against non-conference opponents and is 37-3 in games played in December. ... Pitt is 105-10 at the Petersen Events Center. ... Siena fell to 17-43 against Big East foes.