Talk about the Syracuse-Georgetown game then take it into the game that matters.

HALFTIME UPDATE: Pitt is leading 32-21.

Shocking. Especially since Pitt got off to a bad start — 4 turnovers in the first 4 minutes.

Pitt is doing it with guards passing and penetrating. Graves, Fields and Ramon are huge.

Kendall is fearless. If you’ve ever had any back problems, you know how tender it can feel — and how much pain it can cause.

Gray and Krauser aren’t exactly lighting it up, but they will be needed to come up big in the second half.

You can’t expect Villanova not to make adjustments and stay that cold. They will be making a run, and with their guards and the 3-point line, it doesn’t take much time.

FINAL UPDATE: All hopes that Allan Ray is not suffering from anything permanent.

Pitt wins 68-54.

If you were to tell anyone that Pitt would get 14 points on 4-14 shooting, 11 rebounds, 7 assists and 5 turnovers combined from Carl Krauser and Aaron Gray you could only assume an embarrassing Pitt loss. Instead, a 14 point win over the #2 team in the country.

I would not prescribe that plan too often, but Pitt pulled it off tonight.

This was a tremendous team defensive effort and Levon Kendall was the unsung hero. I’m still digesting all of this. Astounding.

Pitt and Syracuse tomorrow. History will be made. I don’t buy into destiny or fate, so Pitt has its opportunity.

I hope Villanova players are looking as far ahead as the people writing about them are.

That squeaking noise you hear is the door of opportunity opening wide for Villanova.

It’s all right in front of the Wildcats, a Big East Tournament championship, a first-ever No. 1 ranking, a top seed in the NCAA Tournament, and more than anything an I-95 corridor roadto the Final Four in Indianapolis.

All ‘Nova has to do is walk through.

Now, things aren’t as simple as that; there still is the rather large matter of beating Pittsburgh tonight in the Big East semifinals and then knocking off the survivor of the Georgetown-Syracuse semifinal for the conference title.

But everything is set up for the taking.

The column then spends most of the time with the “but” portion.

Naturally, Villanova is taking the, “we have to play them one game at a time” approach.

The rest of the world is looking ahead, thinking up the scenarios for Villanova now that the Wildcats live to play another day and Connecticut doesn’t.

Fans and reporters are looking at a Villanova team that suddenly finds itself staring at a Red Sea-like route to the Big East Tournament title, reveling in the Philadelphia to Washington, D.C., NCAA Tournament commute that should come the Wildcats’ way on Selection Sunday.

Not Villanova. As much as reporters begged and pleaded after the Wildcats blew the doors off Rutgers, 87-55, in a Big East Tournament quarterfinal last night, the players weren’t biting.

“That’s what the rest of the world does,” sophomore Kyle Lowry said. “We have to be different.”

Different, that’s what No. 2 Villanova, which will meet Pittsburgh in the tournament semifinals at 9 o’clock tonight, has been all season. From its four-guard lineup to its tunnel vision through a season that has seen the bandwagon fill up to overflowing, the Wildcats have done things kids their age aren’t supposed to do. They have maintained their composure and their cool, have enjoyed their newfound fame but haven’t gotten swept up in it and most important, have taken the cliche of one game at a time to heart.

Villanova is a 4.5 to 5 point favorite. In 5 of the last 6 meetings the favored team covered and won between the two teams.

Blogger is driving me crazy this week. I’m really starting to consider a move to a new platform.

Since I’m sure most of you read the stories in the Pittsburgh papers, I’ll skip the excerpts from non-columns.

In New York, the Times has a perfunctory report commenting on balanced scoring and making free throws by Pitt. Newsday takes subtle digs at the Hoopies in their summary.

Back where its thrilling hayride to the Elite Eight began, West Virginia entered this year’s Big East Tournament as nobody’s Cinderella. But the third-seeded Mountaineers will need to jump-start an NCAA Tournament run without the benefit of a terrific conference tournament. They lost to sixth-seeded Pittsburgh, 68-57, last night in the quarterfinals.

Finally the Daily News goes with the hometown feel.

Carl Krauser grew up in New York City, so he really understands about how playing basketball on the Garden floor can be a higher calling. He also knows how special it is to win a championship on it, having done so three years ago when Pittsburgh captured the Big East Tournament title.

“Those of us from New York get it,” he said. “It’s on us to spread the word about how good it can get.”

Krauser was there spreading the word to his Panther teammates last night at halftime of their Big East quarterfinal against West Virginia. They’d been lackluster for 20 minutes and trailed at times by more than 10 points. But inspired by Krauser’s words and his Bronx-born glare, Pittsburgh jumped all over the fourth-seeded Mountaineers in the second half and soared into the Big East semifinals with a 68-57 win.

“Carl had this look on his face,” Sam Young said, describing the scene in the locker room. “I didn’t want to let him down.”

Sam Young, did far from let anyone down in his first start.

Out in the trailer parks, the mood is not so joyous.

This loss was more than just a single game in a single tournament. The way this season is ending is the very antithesis of last year.

In 2005, the Mountaineers headed into the NCAA Tournament having won seven of nine. This year? They’ve lost five of seven.

“We lost five of seven because we lost to lights-out teams,” said WVU Coach John Beilein following the Pitt loss Thursday night.

Still …

Yeah, you think we were getting down on Pitt. The mood is starting to sour South of Pittsburgh.

The loss was another disappointment in a string of recent ones at the end of this season. West Virginia has lost six of nine to fall to 20-10. Still, the Mountaineers are a lock to be invited into the NCAA tournament field Sunday afternoon, although their seeding has no doubt taken a big hit.

West Virginia could have gone a long way toward recovering momentum and a stronger NCAA seed, but like top-ranked Connecticut and Marquette earlier in the day the third-seeded Mountaineers failed even to win their first game after getting a first-round bye. The only one of the top four seeds that won in Thursday’s quarterfinals was Villanova.

It seems, now that WVU is losing more, the concern about that rebound differential looms bigger (much like Pitt and turnovers).

For one half, it didn’t seem that way. The Panthers held a rebounding advantage in the first half, but it was slim — Pitt had 18 to West Virginia’s 17.

“That was the main thing I said at halftime,” Dixon said. “It shows these kids knew what had to be done.”

Dixon must have been very persuasive. The Mountaineers only grabbed seven rebounds in the second half. Pitt had 26.

There’s your ballgame.

“It gave them some extra possessions,” WVU Coach John Beilein said. “We didn’t get them to turn it over the way we did earlier.”

Beilein was referring to West Virginia’s win two weeks ago over the Panthers in Morgantown. In that game, Pitt also had a big rebounding advantage.

The Mountaineers forced 17 Pitt turnovers then, only coughing it up six times themselves.

In last night’s game, Pitt only had 11 turnovers.

Smizik echoes many Pitt fan’s wish that Pitt would play a complete 40 minutes. I don’t know if they can. This is still a team that is learning. Coach Dixon, to his credit, won’t use youth as an excuse at this point, but I will. I also think the complete 40 minutes is just incredibly rare. You shoot for it, but even the best teams are going to have 5-10 minutes of off play. It’s an issue of just keeping up at least one end of the game during those stretches, i.e., not losing it on defense when the offense struggles. Like what Pitt did in the first half last night. It kept them in the game, and in a position to win when the offense started clicking.

Joe Starkey wrote a swell column on the beauty that was Pitt’s win and the BET yesterday.

And now from Ray Fittipaldo’s Q&A for the week.

Q: I thought Jamie Dixon out-coached John Beilein last night. What do you think of the adjustments Dixon made?

Fittipaldo: I agree with you, John. Dixon’s insertion of Levance Fields at the beginning of the second half gave the Panthers a distinct quickness advantage. He also mentioned moving Aaron Gray closer to the basket, which got him in better position to catch the ball and score. Beilein is a great coach, but Dixon is proving that he can coach with the best of them.

The whole game plan was very good last night. Pitt contained them in the first half defensively. They just couldn’t convert the shots. Pitt wasn’t even committing many turnovers in that first half after Sam Young made a couple very early ones.

Okay, you may have seen this snippet in the P-G today.

It appears Pitt will have to pay a steep price to retain coach Jamie Dixon after this season.

Arizona State has Dixon at the top of its wish list, according to a report in the Arizona Republic yesterday. The Republic cited sources in the Arizona State athletic department in its story saying Dixon was the leading candidate to replace Rob Evans, who is expected to be fired soon.

Well, here’s a piece in the Arizona paper looking at the job — and not reaching good conclusions for ASU.

Evans’ critics complain that he got ASU into the NCAA Tournament only once, yet 2003 was only the third time in 25 years for the Sun Devils. The other two came under the bumpy watch of coach Bill Frieder, who since his departure in 1997 has called ASU’s basketball potential “the mirage in the desert.”

ASU’s basketball blahs have been around longer than anybody on the current roster.

Boosters still loyal to Evans repeatedly have complained that ASU has not supported him enough through marketing or any attempt at altering the complete lack of atmosphere at Wells Fargo.
…
Hollins, also a former ASU and Suns assistant, knows the landscape as well as anybody. But even he might have questions about whether ASU is just talking or willing to invest in a real commitment to basketball.

In other words, follow the money.

The path will start with Evans’ expected departure and negotiations for a successor. Evans has one year left on a contract that was extended in 2002 after he said no to a $4.9 million offer from New Mexico. His extension was for two years at the same financial terms: $595,447 per year.

According to sources at ASU and several other sources connected to the coaching community, Dixon is the leading candidate. One interested coach at a mid-major school in the West said Dixon would have to say no before anybody else has a chance.
…
For ASU, that’s the first question: How much can it pay a coach with proven credentials? Tennessee just extended first-year coach Bruce Pearl’s contract for two years at an annual salary of about $1.1 million. ASU football coach Dirk Koetter will get $950,000 a year in his new deal.

It’s not whether ASU has the money. It’s whether they will spend it? It also appears that if there are issues with Dixon and Pitt about how much they put into the basketball program, then there are even more of those issues at ASU.

Of course, this tidbit from Andy Katz is encouraging as well (ESPN Insider):

By the way, Dixon has not made any indication that he’s the slight bit interested in Arizona State, if it were to open. Arizona media reported Thursday that he’s the leading candidate, with the assumption that Rob Evans is out now that the Sun Devils are done in the Pac-10 Tournament. The most likely scenario is for Dixon to get a call from ASU if the job opens but for him to stay at Pitt after getting a big bump in pay. Multiple sources say that’s expected to happen.

I Expect Pitt to be paying Dixon around $1 million and the team to be taking more charter flights rather than commercial after this season.

I’m both excited and terrified to face Villanova tomorrow night. They beat Pitt twice last year. Effectively exposing the team.

This past season, Pitt didn’t face ‘Nova which was good for a team expecting to rebuild, but bad considering both are PA schools and have something of a history of bad blood in the BE.

Now it happens.

I don’t think Pitt will have Kendall, and quite frankly, Gray looked totally wiped by the end of this past game. It will be as big a challenge as Pitt has had this season.