I have some thoughts on the Big East staying in the BCS and a 5th bowl to be added, but I won’t get to them until after the Providence game, or more likely the season finale with Villanova.

Just wanted to pass along the other news that Pitt hired a receivers coach, Pete Carmichael.

Carmichael joins the Panthers after serving as an offensive assistant with the Chicago Bears from 2001-03. Prior to Chicago, he was the Cleveland Browns’ offensive coordinator (2000) and the Jacksonville Jaguars’ receivers coach (1994-99).
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Before his NFL tenure, Carmichael spent 13 seasons at Boston College (1981-93), including the last three as receivers coach under Tom Coughlin. The Eagles earned New Year’s Day bowl berths in 1992 and 1993 as All-Big East quarterback Glenn Foley led a potent passing attack. From 1981-90, Carmichael tutored the defensive backs at Boston College.

Carmichael began his coaching career in 1963 at Watchung Hills (N.J.) High School and coached at Clark (N.J.) High in 1964. In 1965, he spent a year at Virginia Military Institute and then went to Madisonboro (N.J.) High. That was followed by stints at New Hampshire (1967), Columbia (1974-77) and an initial tour at Boston College (1968-72). He was head coach at Trenton State College in 1973. After three years as an assistant at Columbia, he earned his second head coaching assignment from 1977-80 at the Merchant Marine Academy.

He is apparently in his early 60s. I have no information as to whether this was a good hire. The only thing to say is that his last two jobs would have been thankless tasks for anybody — so he is used to seeing things go wrong on offense.

The Pitt-Providence game will likely decide at least the co-Big East regular season champion. Providence can win it out-right if it sweeps its remaining games and UConn loses to either Seton Hall or Syracuse. Pitt needs to beat both Providence and Villanova to and a UConn loss. The top two teams receive a first round bye in the Big East Tournament.

Providence is led by Ryan Gomes who was named Big East Player of the Week today — the 4th time he’s earned that. On the other side Chris Taft won Big East Rookie of the Week for the 5th time this season. The winner of the game will likely earn Big East Coach of the Year honors for the coach.

Providence is already juiced for the game.

Enough with the preliminaries. It’s time for the Providence Friars to face a true Big East heavyweight.

After dismantling the sorry Red Storm of St. John’s yesterday at Madison Square Garden, 103-78, the Friars’ thoughts quickly turned to their biggest test of the season tomorrow night. Ready or not, the third-ranked Pittsburgh Panthers come to town with first place in the Big East on the line.

PC’s players are very aware that this will be the most important home game in the school’s 25 seasons of Big East basketball. The Friars have never won a Big East regular season title and have never faced a top-5 opponent at home while ranked in the top 15.

“It’s for first place and the Big East regular season title,” said PC star Ryan Gomes. “It’ll be hard to take it as just another game because we’ve worked hard since October to get to this point. It’s a big game for the fans and for us. ”

PC played Pitt twice last season, but hasn’t hosted the Panthers since 2001. The Friars lost at Pitt last Feb. 4, 68-61. The Panthers also won a rematch in the Big East Tournament, 67-59.

“It’s a special time for our program,” said Friars coach Tim Welsh. “We had it marked down a couple weeks ago that if we could get through this stretch of four out of five one the road, we’d have two [games] coming home. I’ve turned off my phone. I have no tickets.”

Pitt fell to #6 in both of the polls and Providence is at #12 in the AP Writers and #13 in the ESPN/USA Today Coaches poll.

Here are Pitt’s and Providence’s game notes (both in PDF).

The media in Pittsburgh, after all but declaring the game decided before it started, suddenly had to rewrite their copy. The story now was Pitt’s first loss at the Pete. The first time in quite a while when no one seemed able to step up in the game. The numbers said it all.

It was Pitt’s worst offensive performance in more than 22 years. The 46 points scored represented the fewest scored in a game since a 52-46 double-overtime loss at Penn State in 1982.

The Panthers shot a season-low 30.9 percent from the field. They were 17 for 55, 3 for 16 from 3-point range and 9 for 17 from the free-throw line. They were 1 for 9 from behind the arc and 7 for 13 from the free-throw line after halftime, when they scored 24 points in the final 25 minutes.

This time, Syracuse couldn’t merely be shoved around and cowed. They met Pitt’s physical play and fought threw it.

So the columnists at the game can either take what happened and try to keep some perspective.

Before panic breaks out in the wake of such a revelation, consider:

Pitt was about as bad as it could have been and still came within a free throw of winning in regulation.

Chevy Troutman, Chris Taft and Jaron Brown repeatedly missed on easy attempts from underneath in the game’s opening minutes.

Julius Page didn’t make a three-pointer until just 46 seconds remained in the second half, and the Panthers finished a horrific 3 for 16 from beyond the arc.

Troutman, Taft and to a lesser extent Mark McCarroll were abused by Syracuse forward Hakim Warrick.

Carl Krauser fouled out.

And Pitt was a not-good-enough 9 for 17 from the foul line.

And still it took a missed free throw by Troutman with three seconds left for Syracuse to survive in overtime.

That makes Pitt mortal, but not necessarily more vulnerable than anyone else.

Even in defeat, the defense and rebounding showed up for the most part, and that’s what Pitt depends upon night in and night out.

The Panthers’ best hope in the upcoming tournaments is that defense and rebounding continue to be staples of their game.

Taking their chances with the rest and living with the results has put them in a position to contend with anyone.

On the other hand, you can start to panic

March isn’t always about the highest seeds. It’s about the teams that are playing their best.

That’s what you should be worried about.

It’s hard to imagine Pitt playing worse than it did at Georgetown Tuesday night when it committed 23 turnovers and made just 4 of 15 3-point shots. It won by 10 points but only because the Hoyas were the opponent. They lost to St. John’s, for goodness sake, just six days earlier.

But Pitt was worse in a 49-46 overtime loss to Syracuse. It protected the ball better, but its shooting was worse. Syracuse dared it to shoot outside by playing a collapsing 2-3 zone defense, but the Pitt players weren’t up to the challenge. Its three guards — Carl Krauser, Julius Page and Jaron Brown — combined to shoot 9 for 34. As a team, it was 3 of 16 shooting 3s.

That was much more troubling than the end of Pitt’s remarkable 34-game run at the Petersen Events Center.

This isn’t the time of the year to struggle. Not with the NCAA tournament barely two weeks away.

There really isn’t any time to linger over this loss. Pitt played a horrible week of basketball and came away 1-1. They are still in position for a #1 seed if they win the last two and make it to the Big East Championship game. The important thing for Pitt is to get ready for Providence. Pitt shouldn’t necessarily forget this game. They need to use it as motivation. To remind themselves that they aren’t going to win any games just by showing up. They have to play and play smart.

Maybe I didn’t see the same game. Maybe the sportswriters at the game let themselves get too caught up in the drama of the last few minutes of regulation and the subsequent overtime. I saw no mention in an of the columns and reports of the game about Pitt not pushing against Hakim Warrick when he got in early foul trouble. Nowhere is there mention of how he played the final 13 minutes of the first half with 2 fouls — not picking up a 3rd nor coming out of the game. There is also no mention of him having 4 fouls at 6 minutes left in regulation — and again not getting a 5th. Instead Warrick played the entire 45 minutes. The fact that Pitt didn’t try and go at him more seems to be a key issue in the game and the sort of question you have for the coaches. As in, “Coach Dixon, why didn’t you try to go at Warrick more when he was playing with 2 fouls in the first half, or later in the second half when he had 4?” Or even for Boeheim, “Coach, did you even consider taking Warrick out for any spell to avoid picking up the 3rd foul in the first half or after he picked up that 4th foul with 6 minutes left?”

The decision not to take out Warrick was risky but arguably necessary by Boeheim, since McNamara was having a nightmare game, and Warrick is their best player. I still want to know how and why Dixon didn’t instruct Taft, Troutman, McCarroll and even Morris not to got at Warrick more on the offensive end.

On to the media review. To the victors go the spoils, so Syracuse papers go first. The Post-Standard beat reporter gets a little too cute right off the bat.

The Syracuse Orangemen handed Pittsburgh its first loss in the history of the Petersen Events Center here Sunday, 49-46 in overtime, and yet no one thought to utter the phrase, “The Petersen Events Center is officially open.”

Where is John Thompson when you need him?

The report is more a collection of quotes about how this was a payback game for Syracuse, and that they now know they can play and beat the best in the country. According to Boeheim, the goal was to really, really slow the game down. More than even Pitt likes the pace. Not even Syracuse students could say this was a pretty game. Their not complaining about the win, though.

After Hakim Warrick chucked the ball halfway to the Petersen Events Center’s roof – and James Naismith stopped doing 180s in his grave – the spindly forward walked defiantly off the court, head high and chest out.
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For the first time in a while, the Syracuse men’s basketball team had reason to be that proud. It had just become the first visitor to send fans at the Pete home unhappy, beaten a No. 3 Pittsburgh team that some called the best in the nation and did so with a toughness that screamed, “Ready for March.”

For all the hand-wringing SU’s struggles and Billy Edelin’s absence have brought this season, the Orangemen gave reason to shove that in the background. They’ve punched their ticket to the NCAA Tournament and did so on national television, where they’d previously done nothing but fall on their face.
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If Syracuse can beat Pitt on its home floor, it can beat any team in the country anywhere.

Of course, that doesn’t mean it will. Maybe yesterday’s game was an aberration – that much we don’t know. What we know now, though, is that when we all counted Syracuse out, it was a little too early.

That would include a lot of Pitt fans and pundits.

Another article focuses on McNamara as the “go-to-guy” no matter how bad a game he was having. It conveniently ignores the fact that Syracuse didn’t have much of a choice. Even Warrick couldn’t do it all by himself. The Daily Orange has a better take on what McNamara’s 3 meant — it simply erased everything he had done in the game up until that point.

I give the Daily Orange student reporters a lot of credit. They are brutally honest in their coverage. They seemed to be the only ones admitting that the refs sucked in the game.

It was as exhilarating as it was nauseating, captivating as it was disgusting. The Syracuse men’s basketball team’s 49-46 overtime victory over Pittsburgh on Sunday afternoon was a Picasso covered in mud.
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With Syracuse (19-6, 9-5 Big East) leading 40-38, a pair of questionable calls helped force the game into overtime. McNamara was bumped by Krauser – who picked up his fifth foul before racing down the court, and yanking his shirt over his head – and knocked down a pair of free throws.

On the ensuing possession, Page hit his only 3-pointer of the game. After a Syracuse miss, center Craig Forth fouled out on another questionable call trying to knock away a pass to Pittsburgh forward Chevon Troutman. Forth stood in disbelief before jogging to the bench with three seconds left.

Troutman, meanwhile, strode to the foul line, made his first free throw and had an opportunity to win the game. His second circled around the rim and bounced out.

“The referees were doing the best they could,” Warrick said. “Any game with Pittsburgh is going to be hard on them because they like to be so physical.”

That doesn’t excuse the bad refereeing. Especially under the basket. It seemed that they were afraid to call anything inside, so they’d only do make-up calls just outside.

The New York Times wonders if Pitt could be losing its composure and poise.

In losing to Syracuse in overtime on Sunday, 49-46, Pittsburgh suffered more than its third defeat and the end of a 40-game home winning streak, which began before the Petersen Events Center opened last season.

The Panthers fell into a three-way tie with Connecticut and Providence for first place in the Big East Conference and will probably lose their No. 3 national ranking. Moreover, the Panthers may be losing their poise and confidence a week before the conference tournament and two weeks before the N.C.A.A. tournament.
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One person not talking afterward was Carl Krauser of Pittsburgh, the sophomore point guard from the Bronx, who had plenty to say to the officials while drawing three fouls in 3 minutes 12 seconds; he fouled out with 1:03 left in regulation.

After his final foul, on a steal attempt, Krauser ran down the floor and showed his anger by pulling his jersey over his head and wringing it tightly with his hands.

It was not the only display of Panthers pique.

Midway through the second half, when Craig Forth of Syracuse blocked a shot by Page, Jamie Dixon, Pittsburgh’s first-year coach, was whistled for a technical foul. The score was tied. McNamara made the two free throws, and Pittsburgh never regained the lead.

“I didn’t get an explanation,” Dixon said. “I don’t know what I did.”
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Perhaps it is a lesson for Dixon, the new coach, and Krauser, the young guard. Lose your cool at the wrong time and you may lose your shirt.

It may be overstated in the article, but he has a point. Pitt seemed to let itself get deeper in the funk and frustrated deeper into the game.

I’ll get to the Pitt side a little later. The kid is up and tearing into the office.

The BCS is adding a 5th Bowl game and two more at-large teams, while the Big East retains its automatic bid to the BCS.
That is quite a relief, considering how the football conference will likely suck ass in the near future.

This also means Pitt will have a legitimate shot at a BCS bowl every year, and won’t have to rely on Miami or VaTech having an off season to make the big time – and the big money.
The uncertainty of the BCS’s relationship to the Big East no doubt contributed to the defection of two of Pitt’s top football recruits, Anthony Morelli to Penn State and Andrew Johnson to PSU (a third defected to USF, a new Big East football member).

This likely prevents any current Big East football member from seeking BigTen membership.

It also elevates new in-conference foe USF significantly, which could hurt Pitt’s recruiting in Florida (I guess Cincinnati and Louiville benefit as well, but they never had as much to gain as USF). That’s still worth it, in my opinion.
Why does USF gain? Because they went from a nothing conference to a BCS conference. They now can look down their noses at UCF up in Orlando since they are still in a nothing conference. They can also say to in-state recruits that Miami, FSU and Florida are all in the same system they are (the BCS) – and the kids actually have an easier path to the dance by coming to USF.

Pitt, Syracuse, WVU (and Rutgers and UConn, I guess) all hang on to BCS status. This allows them to stop the bleeding caused by the loss of VaTech, Miami and BC. And it means the best basketball conference in the nation, the Big East, stays together for the forseeable future. Rock on!