A record crowd turned out to help the Pittsburgh Panthers keep a very impressive record of their own in tact. Pitt used a 13-2 run midway through the first half to secure a lead it never relinquished as the Panthers improved to 7-0 at the Petersen Events Center against teams in the top five of The Associated Press Poll.

Ashton Gibbs scored a game-high 21 points, Gilbert Brown had 16 points off the bench and freshman Travon Woodall hit four free throws in the final 12 seconds as No. 19 Pittsburgh led all but 34 seconds of a 70-65 victory over No. 3 Villanova Sunday.

"The greatest thing about playing here is the Oakland Zoo," Brown said. "It's one of the toughest places to play for an opponent, because of the atmosphere. After every call or basket, the fans are cheering. It's one of a kind." Pittsburgh improved to 130-11 at home since the Petersen Events Center opened, but Sunday's crowd of 12,920 was the largest the building has ever seen.

Villanova noticed.

"This is a great place to play. It's really cool," Villanova coach Jay Wright said. "I think the toughest thing about coming here though is Pitt's team. They control the tempo here, and they are able to get to the free-throw line here.

"They make it a point of controlling the glass on offense and getting another possession."

The Panthers outscored the Wildcats, 16-7, on second chance opportunities, but Wright said Pitt's 21 offensive rebounds did more than just hurt Villanova on the scoreboard.

"They wanted to shorten the game," Wright said. "We tried to press, but Pitt is a hard team to speed up. They ran clock, and if they missed, they were able to get offensive rebounds and do it all over again.

"The offensive rebounds didn't hurt as much with scores as they helped shorten the game. They gave Pitt a lot more possessions than us."

Villanova cut Pitt's lead to two three times in the second half, but each time the Panthers responded with a big shot to start a run and build the lead back to six or eight.

With the score 34-32, Pitt got three consecutive offensive rebounds before Jermaine Dixon hit one of two free throws and Brown hit a jump shot. At the 10:05 mark, Scottie Reynolds, who lifted the Wildcats past Pittsburgh with a game-winning layup in the Elite 8 last season, hit a 3-pointer to make the score 42-20. Reynolds led the Wildcats with 20 points - 17 in the second half, but Pittsburgh responded by scoring the next eight points.

Leading by just two again with 4:44 to play, Gibbs nailed a jump shot, and Villanova never got back to within two.

Pittsburgh had points from Brad Wanamaker, Brown, Gary McGhee, Gibbs and Woodall in the final three minutes. After Gibbs, a 90 percent free throw shooter entering the game, uncharacteristically missed three of four from the line late in the game, Woodall made four of four to ice it.

"The balance of our team excites me," Pittsburgh coach Jamie Dixon said. "Today we were running sets for four or five different guys.

"It's something that's been developing, and it's good for us that we have a different leading scorer every game."

The victory improved the Panthers' record to 21-6 overall and 10-4 in the Big East. Pitt is tied with West Virginia for third place and is one game behind Villanova (22-4, 11-3) in the Big East. Syracuse leads the conference at 12-2, with one of those losses coming at home against Pitt.

"We're one step closer to winning the Big East Championship for the regular season," Jermaine Dixon said. "We talked about [winning the Big East regular season title] at the beginning of the year, and that's starting to look more reasonable now going into these last four games.