Pitt-Bradford’s new style of play is already starting to pay major dividends.

Jamarion Butler led four players in double figures with 23 points as the Panthers raced past Alfred, 113-66 at the KOA Arena, improving to 4-0 on the young season, their best start since becoming a member of the NCAA in the 1990s.

“I think as a whole, we’ve shown up on time ready to work, have a great attitude and guys have been selfless,” said Pitt-Bradford head coach Jesse DeLoof.

The Panthers came into the game averaging 103 points per game, a number that will go up after the performance against the Saxons (1-3). It’s not run-and-gun, as DeLoof points out, but a style of play predicated on full court pressure defense.

The numbers certainly tell that tale as well, with the Panthers forcing 33 turnovers leading to 42 points.

“It’s definitely the right style for the group,” DeLoof said. “And coach (Nate) Schneider, he played for a program that had the coach (Jordan Fee) that was the mastermind behind it. That’s what we’re trying to do. And now we’re starting to get much more detailed with it, the nuances of it and things we need to tweak. But I think we’re starting to get to the point where we’re dialing in on the details instead of having a broad view of it. That’s how we’ll continue to improve, is the small details.”

The Panthers also had 54 bench points, led by 20 from Rodd Yarbrough, a 6-3 junior from Dallas.

“Coach prepared us for this,” Yarbrough said. “The whole team buckled down. We got everybody in, everybody applied pressure, and we were able to get it done.”

It’s Yarbrough’s first season at Pitt-Bradford, and like his coach, he feels like the execution continues to get better.

“Perfectly, honestly,” Yarbrough said about the execution. “The way he recruited us, we’ve got a bunch of athletic guys on the team. We put it up on them, apply a lot of pressure to the ball and trap.”

The Panthers led 16-15 early on when Coby Farley, another one of the guys coming off the bench, keyed a 17-0 run to make it 33-15 with just under eight minutes to play in the first half. At one point Farley, who scored all 16 of his points in the first half, had eight in a row, prompting a Saxons timeout.

A Farley 3-pointer made it 41-16 at the 6:20 mark, the biggest lead the Panthers had in the first half, and a Yarbrough bucket just seconds before halftime made it 54-43 at halftime.

“I thought we were settling too much early,” DeLoof said. “We talked about that at halftime. We were settling too much. When we get a steal, with the athletes we have, I want it to be to the rim, and then we can get our kick out 3’s. We can go in a drought shooting 3’s, but we’re not going to go on a drought if we’re attacking the rim, because we’re going to get to the line and things like that.”

Xavion Boone scored seven of his nine points early in the second half, as the Panthers started the second on a 7-0 run and were off to the races.

Much like they did in a 116-90 win over Penn State DuBois on Saturday, a number of different players showed up in the stat sheet. Sixteen players scored in that win over the Lions, and 12 did in the win over the Saxons.

Butler, an All-AMCC performer, got to the rim seemingly at well, scoring his 23 points on 11-of-18 shooting.

As a team, the Panthers shot 50.5% (46-of-91) and 40% from 3 (12-of-30). Conversely, they limited Alfred to 39.7% shooting (23-of-58) and 22.2% (4-of-18) from 3-point range, which was a point of emphasis for DeLoof.

“It’s defense,” DeLoof said. “It’s get steals, get stops and then the offense feeds off that. “It’s all based off of defense. We were getting stops, and that allowed us to go on a run. That’s historically a good program with a good coach. They’re a good team.

“We really wanted to limit their 3’s. They’re a really good 3-point shooting team. Half of their field goal attempts are 3’s. We wanted to keep them under 22 (percent) and it was 18. I thought we did a really good job of when they did break the press, we got matched up and played really good half-court defense.”

Freshman Braylen Salters (Richmond Heights, Ohio), who already has games of 25 and 23 points on his resume this season, scored 17 of his 19 in the second half.

“It’s fun,” Yarbrough said about playing the way the Panthers do. “If you look on the score sheet, we’re able to get more shots up. Everybody gets their time to shine.”

To Yarbrough’s point, the Panthers finished with 33 more shot attempts than the Saxons.

Amoi Charles led Alfred with 16 points, while Zion Baitely had 13 and Kenneth Allison Jr. 12.

DeLoof pointed out assistant coach Nate Schenider, who was a 1,000-point scorer in two seasons with the Panthers before playing his final season at Gannon. Schenider’s coach at Gannon, Jordan Fee, adopted that style while an assistant at Division II Nova Southeastern (leading to a national championship at the Division II level in 2023). In his one year at Gannon, Fee took the Golden Knights from a 3-23 mark the year before to 32-3 and a berth in the DII Elite Eight and is now an assistant at Division I Florida Atlantic.

For the Panthers, they look to keep the strong start to the season going when they travel to play at Fredonia on Friday (7 p.m.).

“We’ll be prepared,” Yarborough said. “Tomorrow we’ll get some shots up and on Friday we’ll come back and be ready to execute.”