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UNIVERSITY PARK -- Obligatory disappointment at another Penn State men's basketball loss to Pitt was tinged with relief Saturday.

Pitt now has beaten its intrastate foe four consecutive times. But where the previous three wins had come by an average of just over 28 points a game, this latest installment yesterday in the Bryce Jordan Center was by a relatively competitive 84-71 score.

This is progress.

Penn State had even managed to lead, briefly, 30-29, as late at 5:25 before halftime. That Pitt responded to minor adversity to build the advantage back to nine by halftime, or that the 11th-ranked Panthers kept the Lions at arms-length through the second half, didn't obscure totally signs of obvious improvement for Ed DeChellis in his second season of the rebuilding campaign at Penn State.

"We competed. We thought we could win," DeChellis said. "When you've been waxed three or four years in a row, and you're trying to convince guys for three days of practice that you can play with the 11th-ranked team in the country, that's just not all snap, snap, 'OK, we kind of believe you coach.' "

It was certainly wasn't snap, snap, we believe when Pitt raced to a 13-2 lead. It was reminiscent of last season's blowout at Pitt, one the Panthers had led by the ridiculous score of 39-11 at the half.

DeChellis and staff kept right on selling yesterday, and they found buyers among their players, who rallied to keep the game respectable.

The struggles of Penn State, and the three straight Sweet 16 NCAA appearances by Pitt, make it hard to remember that the roles were largely reversed not that long ago.

When current Pitt head coach Jamie Dixon arrived at Pitt as an assistant to Ben Howland for the 1999-2000 season, the Panthers had produced losing records in five of the previous six seasons. That streak would reach six in seven before Howland produced a 19-14 NIT team in 2000-01, and the next year began the run of Sweet 16 successes.

"When Ben got at Pitt, everybody was like, who is this guy?" DeChellis recalled of Howland, who had come from a job at Northern Arizona.

Dixon took a trip down memory lane, too, yesterday, in addressing the state of the Penn State program.

"I remember them as a Sweet 16 team, too," Dixon said. "That's the first thing I remember."

That was the 2000-01 Penn State team, one that beat Howland, Dixon and Pitt 88-74 on Dec. 6, 2000. Pitt has won all the games since.

"They were very good, and they're very good this year," Dixon said.

That's overstating the case. Penn State is 5-4 and destined to take some lumps in the Big Ten. Hanging with a Pitt team that was in the midst of improving to 7-0 did provide hope, though.

"We played hard. We played tough. They didn't manhandle us at all," said Penn State's 6-foot-9 bruiser Aaron Johnson, who led the Lions with 17 points.

Johnson had been sidelined following surgery for a detached retina and hadn't played against Pitt last season.

That, said Dixon, was a major difference.

"I made our guys well aware of that going into the game," he said.

The long-range shooting of freshman Mike Walker (16 points) was another upgrade for Penn State.

Unfortunately for Walker, he looked like a freshman on defense, where Pitt's junior point guard Carl Krauser lit him up personally for the bulk of his career-high 28 points.

On a broader front, Krauser, or often Pitt inside presence Chevon Troutman, scored any time the Panthers were in dire need of points.

Penn State hung close, but could do no better

"We were there," Walker said. But . . .

This was both an indication of progress, and a reminder that major steps remain to be made.

"We're trying to be a top 20 college basketball team," DeChellis said, "and obviously we've got a ways to go."

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