Throughout the fall, the Pantherlair featured the "Talking Pitt Football" series, with a different Pitt player each week discussing the ups and downs of the season. With basketball season underway, the Pantherlair now presents "Talking Pitt Hoops."

Today's edition of Talking Pitt Hoops features senior center Aaron Gray. A pre-season Big East Player of the Year, Gray is the Panthers' leading scorer (14.9 points per game) and rebounder (10.2 per game). He ranks 12th in the Big East in points and second in rebounding, and he's coming off an 18-point performance against DePaul on Wednesday night. The No. 7 Panthers face Georgetown at home Saturday night, and today Gray talks about facing the Hoyas' Roy Hibbert, playing good team defense, and his recent scoring slump that ended against DePaul, among other topics.

Things are going pretty well right now. I think we're really starting to reap the benefits of our adjustments this year, as far as toughening up our schedule and playing more games on the road. We're not only 3-0 in the Big East but we have two huge road wins. That was a DePaul team that was 9-0 at home and beat Kansas. So we're really confident that when we go on the road we're just as good as when we play at home.

I can really see the effects of playing that non-conference schedule. One of the bad things about playing a little bit lighter pre-season schedule is that you get into a comfort zone, you get in something like an idle stage where maybe you're not getting better, you're just staying the same. With playing such tough competition and playing on the road in such tough environments, it forces you to get better. You have to get better; if you stay the same or get worse, you end up losing ball games.

I think we've really taken advantage of playing away, so now, when we go on the road in the Big East, it's not such a culture shock to us. We know what to expect, we know what's going to be there. And as you can see, we've come out and been very confident in our first two road games in the Big East.

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