NEW YORK — Pittsburgh’s season has been unlike any of its recent ones, so why shouldn’t the Panthers get the Big East tournament off to a different start?

Ashton Gibbs scored 20 points to lead Pittsburgh to a 73-59 victory over St. John’s on Tuesday in the opening round of the Big East tournament.

The Panthers had been the No. 1 or No. 2 seed in the last three Big East tournament. Trouble was they left New York after one game all three times. This year they came in as the No. 13 seed and they get to stay around for at least one more game.

“I think we’ve gotten better the last couple of weeks and it’s a good sign as we go forward here,” Pitt coach Jamie Dixon said. “We’ve got to defend and I think we did that today and we’ll continue to do that as we go forward tomorrow.”

Gibbs scored the first seven points of a 13-2 run to close the first half that gave Pittsburgh a 33-28 lead. Nasir Robinson scored on a rebound to give the 13th-seeded Panthers a 43-32 lead with 15:07 left and the Red Storm were never closer than nine points the rest of the game.

Robinson went 6 of 6 from the field and scored 12 of his 15 points in the second half for the Panthers (17-15), who play fifth-seeded and 13th-ranked Georgetown in the second round on Wednesday at Madison Square Garden.