A NY Daily News puff piece on Chris Taft. Quotes from Page, Morris and his high school coach.
In San Antonio, a surprise prediction for the Final Four from the East (Rutherford) Bracket.
Oklahoma State won the Big 12 championship largely because of its tenacity at both ends of the floor. But in Pittsburgh, which loves to win ugly, the Cowboys may have found an opponent that likes to play defense as much as they do.
In the other semifinal, the nation’s best player in the regular season (Saint Joseph’s guard Jameer Nelson) will face off with the NCAA tournament’s best player thus far (Wake Forest guard Chris Paul).
This is the one region where all four top seeds advanced, so it’s no coincidence that it’s also the one where all four teams are capable of coming to San Antonio.
Projected regional final: Pitt over Saint Joseph’s.
The Oklahoman looks at Pitt and learns they are the winningest program for the last three years. The paper also expects a defensive struggle with the “First team to score 60 points wins, if somebody gets that high.”
From the OSU athletic site, here is their press release on the game and game notes (PDF). Not exactly much of a history between the two teams.
Pittsburgh owns a 3-2 mark against Oklahoma State all-time on the hardwood, including a 2-1 record on neutral courts. The two teams played the first game in the series on Feb. 8, 1950, with OSU taking a 43-34 victory in Stillwater. The next four games were all played within a three-year span. Pitt defeated the Cowboys, 93-75, on Nov.
26, 1988, in Pittsburgh. The teams played twice during the 1989-90 season, with the 18th-ranked Panthers taking a 102-90 win over Oklahoma State on Dec. 1, and again defeating the Cowboys, 92-81, on Dec. 27, in Atlanta, Ga. The last meeting between these two schools came on Nov. 27, 1991, when OSU defeated the Panthers, 74-63, in New York City in the Preseason NIT. OSU was ranked No. 11 at the time, while Pittsburgh was ranked 24th. It was the only time Coach Eddie Sutton has ever played Pittsburgh.
My palms are already sweating thinking about this game.
