There had been little evidence to suggest that South Florida would give Pitt a game last night. The Bulls entered the contest having lost four of their past six and suffered losses at the hands of Niagara, Wright State and Oral Roberts.

If the Panthers didn't realize it before the game they should recognize one undeniable fact now: No matter what team, their No. 1 ranking almost guarantees that their opponents will give their absolute best shot.

South Florida gave Pitt all it could handle for one half before the Panthers pulled away for a 75-62 victory before a sellout crowd at the Petersen Events Center.

"Teams are going to play us tough regardless," senior point guard Levance Fields said. "This is a tough conference. Unfortunately, now that we're No. 1, everyone expects us to win by 20 or 30. But in this conference it just isn't like that. Teams are going to play hard and fight. And that's what South Florida did."

A close game at halftime morphed into the usual manner of victory for the Panthers in the second half. They manhandled South Florida on the boards, methodically wore them down and received a well-balanced scoring effort on another night when leading scorer Sam Young was held below his average.

Senior forward Tyrell Biggs led Pitt (16-0, 4-0) with 16 points. Sophomore center DeJuan Blair had another double-double with 13 points and 18 rebounds and Fields had a double-double with 11 points and a career-high 13 assists.

The only negative was some suspect defense that allowed South Florida to hang around into the second half. The Bulls shot 58 percent from the field in the first half and only trailed, 41-37, at halftime. In the second half, the Panthers clamped down and held the Bulls to 39 percent.

"Our defense was sluggish the whole game," Blair said. "We just have to step it up on defense -- point blank, period."

Fields said the Panthers have to learn their lesson and build from their improved defensive performance in the second half.

"That's something good we can take out of this game," Fields said. "That was a great improvement. That created the margin we had in the second half. Everything isn't going to go perfect. We have to find ways to make adjustments. I think we did a pretty good job of that in the second half."

There were no complaints about the offense, which was orchestrated perfectly by Fields. He committed just one turnover in 36 minutes, broke down the South Florida defense and found the open man almost every time.

Pitt shot 49 percent as a team and made 10 of 18 from behind the arc. Fields and Young each had three 3-pointers apiece and Brad Wanamaker had two.

"We wanted to force them to be a 3-point shooting team," South Florida coach Stan Heath said. "It didn't work. They shot the heck out of the ball."

Heath concocted his game plan based on the fact that Pitt entered the game shooting just 34 percent from behind the arc. Pitt coach Jamie Dixon welcomes it when opponents pack it in and force his team to shoot 3-pointers.

"I've said all along that we have a good shooting team," Dixon said. "You can't count on that every game because it's not going to be there every game. But we took good shots."

Pitt also rebounded very well. South Florida concentrated its defensive efforts on Young, who was just 4 for 14 from the field and scored 14 points. But the Bulls had no answer for Blair's dominance on the boards. Blair had 18 of Pitt's 37 rebounds. The Bulls had just 23 rebounds as a team.

"We played well," Heath said. "If you would have told me before the game that we would shoot 48 percent, 50 percent from 3-point range I wouldn't have expected to lose by 13. They taught us a lesson the glass, on how to go get it. That kind of wears on you."

Pitt led at halftime thanks in large part to its 3-point shooting. The Panthers were 7 for 10 from behind the 3-point arc in the first 20 minutes. The Panthers also had 10 offensive rebounds that set up 14 second-chance points.

South Florida was 12 for 21 from the field in the first half, including 5 for 8 on 3-pointers. After falling behind 10-2 to start the game, South Florida tied the score twice but was never able to take the lead The Bulls got to within two points early in the second half, but Pitt opened up a double-digit lead after Wanamaker made a 3-pointer with 13:53 remaining. South Florida never cut the lead below nine points the rest of the way.

NOTE -- The game was delayed for 23 minutes because South Florida got stuck in traffic en route to the Petersen Events Center. It took the Bulls' team bus 90 minutes to get from the Marriott City Center in Uptown to the arena.