DAYTON, Ohio - If you could ever attribute a 25-point blowout victory to the performance of one player, you could credit Dayton senior guard Brian Roberts for UD's 80-55 win over No. 6 Pitt at UD Arena. Pitt held Roberts in check for the first 12 minutes of the game, but had no answers for the Dayton standout in the final 28 minutes.
Roberts, who scored just four points in the first 12minutes, finished with a game-high 31 points on 10-for-17 shooting, including 5-for-8 from 3-point range.
"Brian Roberts was phenomenal," Dayton coach Brian Gregory said. "I don't even know if that's a good enough word. He controlled the game from the start to the end. I've been saying for a long time that he's the most efficient guard in the country. He's getting to be one of the best guards in the country overall, too."
Roberts knew that he would have to carry his team if it was going to pull the upset over the previously undefeated Panthers.
"I just knew I had to come out and be aggressive," he said. "That's one key. I had to do that tonight."
Dayton guard Marcus Johnson, who finished with 15 points and 11 rebounds, said Roberts feeds off playing on a big stage against a favored opponent.
"He's our stopper. I think he lives up to all that," Johnson said. "He likes to play in the game being the underdog."
Gregory said his program must build off a win of this magnitude as it approaches Atlantic 10 Conference play.
"You know, it's been bonkers around here for over a week," Gregory said. "This is just another block in what we're trying to build. It's a good block, a big block, but it's just one. We need to continue to do that.
"We have a vision of what we what to do and what we want to become, but you have to built that. We have to build the foundation first, and I think you're seeing us start to do that."
