Pittsburgh’s Gray is man in middle

SAN JOSE — At one end of the court, Aaron Gray will see the coach who recruited him for Pittsburgh, a man prescient enough to see that a gawky, 7-foot teenager could become a pivotal figure for a powerhouse team.

At the other end, Gray will see the coach who has stood by him since his tentative freshman days and through his recent awful performance in Pittsburgh’s loss to Georgetown in the Big East tournament championship game.

Ben Howland didn’t stay in Pittsburgh long enough to see the center buckle down and smarten up and lead the Panthers with averages of 14 points and 9.6 rebounds a game this season. Howland was wooed away by UCLA in 2003, leaving his assistant, Jamie Dixon, to take the Panthers on the soaring trajectory that will match them against the Bruins tonight at HP Pavilion in the Sweet 16 round of the NCAA tournament.

Gray, who was born in Tarzana but was 2 years old when his father’s job sent the family bouncing around North America, laughed at the circumstances that have brought his past and present to converge in this moment.

Dixon is a younger, less brusque version of Howland, but both speak of defensive play in the same reverential tones. Dixon and Howland remain close friends -- their families are even closer -- and while Dixon respects what Howland taught him, he has added his own wrinkles and fitted his strategies to his players instead of trying to cram his players into a predetermined mold.

“It’s going to be a little interesting,” Gray said Wednesday. “You run down on one side of the court, and you see Coach Dixon yelling about one thing, and you run down the other side and you hear Coach Howland probably yelling about the same thing....

“We run a lot of the same plays. We had a lot of the same names for the same plays. It’s really going to come down to execution of those plays.”

Gray’s execution, particularly, could make the difference.

Gray and 6-10 forward Levon Kendall, a redshirt freshman during Howland’s final season with Pittsburgh, give the Panthers size and presence down low that the Bruins haven’t often seen and probably can’t match. Gray gained some mobility when he lost weight and cut his body fat last summer, but he’ll never be mistaken for nimble and the Bruins will have an overall edge in quickness.

“We’ve been out-sized all year,” Bruins forward Josh Shipp said. “It hasn’t really bothered us too much. We do a lot of double-teaming and rotating. We’re just going to stick to what we do, and hopefully, that works.”

Gray’s court awareness and good passing skills could also cause the Bruins some problems. Howland said he considered Gray “a real steal” as a recruit and hasn’t been surprised by Gray’s evolution into a possible NBA first-round pick.

“He had great hands then, a big, huge body,” Howland said. “Very competitive and tough.”

Gray’s toughness was questioned, though, after he was outscored and outrebounded by Georgetown’s Roy Hibbert in the Big East tournament title game March 10 at Madison Square Garden. He couldn’t get his baby hook shots to fall and ended up one for 13 from the field for three points, with five rebounds. Hibbert was eight for 10 for 18 points with 11 rebounds.

Gray took the defeat so hard that he became physically sick on the team’s flight home. Dixon, however, wasn’t worried.

“If he had gotten the ball in bad shots or taken the shots in bad situations, that would have been my concern,” Dixon said. “I like what he did even though the result didn’t turn out to be what we had hoped.”

Gray was reinvigorated when the NCAA tournament began, contributing 11 points, nine rebounds and two assists to the Panthers’ 79-58 rout of Wright State in their opener. In the second round, he was six for eight with 14 points, eight rebounds and five assists in the Panthers’ 84-79 overtime victory over Virginia Commonwealth.

“In my mind, five assists for him is almost like eight, nine assists for a point guard,” Dixon said, “because his passing is oftentimes not going to get an assist. He’s going to hit somebody that’s going to hit another guy for an assist.”

He will probably have to rely on his passing tonight, with the Bruins likely to swarm all over him.

“I don’t anticipate seeing the ball without two guys on me. They do a great job with that and rotating,” Gray said.

“If two guys are on me, there’s going to be three guys trying to guard four of us. Just picking my spots, not trying to force much because I do have so many weapons around me, that might be a more important role for me than scoring points.”

If he succeeds, the Panthers will be known less for what Howland did to launch them than for what Dixon and Gray have done to elevate them.

“It’s an exciting time right now,” Gray said. “We’re happy to be here, but at the same time we don’t think it’s good enough yet.”

helene.elliott@latimes.com