Let’s get some game media run-down finished.

Yesterday, Graves got a brief little piece. Today he gets a sizable puff piece. Coach Dixon, as is his habit, claims that Graves is doing nothing different than usual. Dixon doesn’t even like to suggest a player is picking things up because that would imply he had been down before.

“He’s been pretty good for a while. Nothing is really different. He’s been good all along. He’s been a good shooter for us.”

Dixon maintains Graves does not have to score at his recent pace to help Pitt win games. While Graves has been a lightning rod for criticism on the Internet message boards all season, Dixon believes he has been a consistent performer since November.

The only reason for the statistics spike, Dixon said, is a change in the rotation in which Graves and Fields have usurped playing time from some other players because of their improved play in practice and games.

“Oftentimes we look too much into scoring and the numbers,” Dixon said.

“I think he’s played just as well in games where his scoring hasn’t been there. Everyone is saying he’s great because he made three more shots than he made in the previous game. He’s been pretty good all the way through. He’s been a good defender. He can penetrate.

“As coaches, you have to look at what he’s doing consistently and not base it on making one or two more shots than he did before. I know it looks better, but he’s been good for us in a lot of ways. The same people who are saying he’s great now are the same ones saying he shouldn’t have been playing in the first place.”

Kent’s Nate Gerwig, on the heels of a couple stories about him in Pittsburgh, gets a story in the Akron paper. The story also focuses on the injuries and continually coming back from them.

Kent State players were excited because they got new sneakers.

Kent State’s players were given a gift Tuesday afternoon for winning the Mid-American Conference Tournament: a new pair of Nike Air Zoom Huarache 64 basketball sneakers. The shoes are black with a touch of black metallic silver.

“They make you feel stealthy,” sophomore forward Mike Scott said after trying out his size 14 sneakers at practice.

“It makes me feel like I can jump out of the gym.”

Senior guard DeAndre Haynes liked the shoes, too.

“We’re all going out to get (matching) black socks,”Haynes said.

To be fair, these sneakers aren’t getting released to the general public until March 26, so they are getting brand new gear.

Pitt, except for Benjamin, is already in Michigan.

“Everybody’s ready. We had some hard practices,” said senior guard Carl Krauser, the team’s leading scorer at 15.0 points per game.

Krauser, the 10th-leading all-time scorer at Pitt, has struggled with his shooting during the last half of the season, but he’s looking forward to giving the Panthers a spark in the NCAA Tournament.

“I’ve got six games left,” he said, with a wink. “It’s going to be a lot of fun. We’ll try to make it the most memorable six games we’ve played at Pitt and try to win a national championship.”

Joe Starkey says that Aaron Gray needs to come up (sorry about this) big.

Obvious point: In order to make a serious run at the national title, you better have at least one Surf-and-Turfer (that’s Vitale-speak for superstar).

Where does this leave Pitt? Well, as a fifth seed, the Panthers are a longshot under any circumstance, and recent history suggests they are more likely to encounter a star player (Dwyane Wade, Tony Allen) at tournament time than produce one.

In the past 20 years, Pitt has delivered only four first-round picks – none since Vonteego Cummings in 1999 – and one lottery pick (Charles Smith, taken third overall in 1988).

The Panthers of recent vintage have been all about team, rather than relying heavily on a superstar or two. That’s a sound concept. It has worked nicely in helping to vault the program to national prominence.

But it’s not conducive to contending for national championships.

This is where Aaron Gray comes in. He gives Pitt something almost every other team in the country lacks: a talented 7-footer (who happens to weigh 270 pounds).

Gray has been very good for most of the season. If he becomes great in this tournament — and that’s a big if — Pitt could make a lengthy run.

Of course the team is trying to stay focused on just the first game in front of them.

Pitt’s players have said that they refuse to look past opening-round opponent Kent State (25-8), which they play at 7:10 p.m. Friday in Auburn Hills, Mich. If the fifth-seeded Panthers (24-7) win, they likely will get No. 4 Kansas Sunday in a second-round matchup. The Jayhawks play Bradley on Friday.

“I think we’re way ahead of where we were last year,” junior center Aaron Gray said. “We’re playing more like a team, and we have a lot of confidence in each other. That’s made a big difference.

“Last year, we kind of overlooked Pacific because we were so worried about Washington. We just weren’t ready, but we learned from that experience. And we’re not going to do that this year.”

For Kent a Cleveland beat writer thinks that Kent has had success during the season with double teaming big men down in the post, but it remains to see how it will fair against Gray. He also thinks one of the freshmen guards needs to step up to help the team.

[Editor Note: Originally posted at NEO Babble]

Here’s a memo to the Kent and Pitt people in charge of organizing events around the NCAA Tournament: You might want to contact the Big Buck Brewery in Auburn Hills about how big they actually are.

In this story about how alumni interest in Akron and Kent is booming with the success of their sports programs there was this bit.

The KSU alumni association is sponsoring a pregame reception at 4 p.m. Friday at Big Bucks Brewery and Steakhouse in Auburn Hills — a site scouted out weeks in advance.

Lori Randorf, KSU’s interim executive director of alumni, said graduates throughout the nation helped identify possible reception areas should the Flashes qualify for the NCAA Tournament in their region.

Pitt’s alumni association also tried booking Big Bucks Brewery, but was too late, Randorf said.

Yup, here’s the release from Kent St. Alumni Association.

And here’s the problem. The Pitt Alumni Association still has an event scheduled at Big Buck starting at 4:30.

The Big Buck in Auburn Hills is very big, since it caters to fans going to games at the Palace. But is it really that good an idea to have opposing alum in the same bar? Getting drunk?

Good times.

Can it all be this coincidental?

We all know that Pitt’s campus is in the Oakland section of Pittsburgh.

Pitt is playing in the Oakland bracket.

Pitt’s first and (hopefully) second round games are in Auburn Hills, Michigan. The County where this is located is Oakland.

There are 5 other coaches in this bracket who have coached at Pitt.

Additionally,

In coaching, everybody knows everybody, for one reason or another. KSU assistant Josh Oppenheimer attended the same Los Angeles high school as Pittsburgh coach Jamie Dixon. Oppenheimer’s best friend as a kid was Jason Matthews (1987-91), who is Pitt’s fifth all-time leading scorer.

This six degrees stuff is getting ridiculous.

Emphasis on bug.

Okay, something is going on with Pitt right now. Aaron Gray left with Pittsburgh on the flight after battling the flu says he vomited 13 times during the past 36 hours before feeling better.

Tyrell Biggs is no longer on crutches and says he’s ready to play. He just has a strained calf muscle.

Keith Benjamin, however, is still in Pittsburgh.

Benjamin became violently ill Tuesday night and did not travel with the team on their flight to Detroit last night. Pitt coach Jamie Dixon said Benjamin does not have the flu bug that junior center Aaron Gray had earlier in the week.

“It’s a different thing,” Dixon said. “We think Aaron just had the flu. [Keith] seemed to be all right yesterday. We’ll get more back from the doctors [today]. He was throwing up last night. He was pretty violently sick last night.”

Dixon was hopeful that Benjamin would be able to rejoin the team today. If the doctors released him, the plan was to have him fly out today. Dixon described Benjamin’s hospital stay as “precautionary.”

The timing is unbelievable.

Then there is the spectacle of Levon Kendall’s back spasms flaring.

Minimal injury issues all season, now guys are having trouble standing up or keeping anything down.

Press releases for both Pitt and Kent State on the game. Pitt and Kent State also have Game Notes (PDF).

Interesting to note an inaccuracy by the Kent State press release saying that Pitt is 16-17 versus current MAC members. Actually, Pitt is worse. They have a 19-23 record. Mainly from a 2-10 mark versus Miami (OH). Pitt played Miami between 1953 and 1968 to compile that record. Against Kent State, Pitt is 7-7. Before the 2002 Sweet 16 match-up, Pitt had last faced Kent State in 1977.

I don’t listen to a lot of podcasts. When I do, I just tend to use one of the media players already on the computer. At the very least, it looks like I may have to download iTunes 6.

CBS Sports is bringing the tournament into the iPod age by offering downloads of all 63 of the tournament games it covers on Apple’s iTunes service. Games will be available the day after they’re played; CBS’ coverage tips off Thursday.

“While CBS Sports’ coverage of the NCAA men’s Division I basketball championship remains the centerpiece of the NCAA March Madness experience, iTunes is a great way for viewers to catch games they miss or to keep their favorite moments for viewing on their iPod,” CBS News and Sports chief Sean McManus says. “This was how CBS envisioned the future when we made the unprecedented bundled rights deal with the NCAA that began in 2003.”

CBS will offer condensed versions of every game, and the two Final Four matchups and the April 3 title game will be available in their entirety. Fans can buy individual games for $1.99 apiece or purchase a “season pass” that gives them access to all 63 contests for $19.99. Compilations of highlights from past tournaments will also be available.

If Pitt has a deep run in the Tourney, how could you not want to get the particular games downloaded and saved for future reviewing?

Here’s the CSTV podcast page, with links for downloading iTunes. Just out of curiosity, because I’ve heard enough horror stories from people with Windows PCs about glitches and problems with iTunes not working well at times, any other free podcast software people would recommend?

ESPN has a podcast of Coach Jamie Dixon’s appearance on Mike & Mike yesterday morning. It is the final segment in the podcast (around the 19 minute mark). He doesn’t exactly reveal anything special, but he does seem a little more at ease in the interview that lasts over 7 minutes.

If you have ESPN Insider, you can listen or download just the Dixon portion.

Don’t forget to sign-up for the Tournament Challenge. We’re up to 21 entries.

Group name: Pitt Sports Blather.

Well, the big news on a light news day for Pitt is that Aaron Gray has “flu-like” symptoms.

Center Aaron Gray sat out Pitt’s practice session Tuesday at Petersen Events Center with flu-like symptoms that coach Jamie Dixon said began to affect the 7-foot junior a day earlier. “He looked much better today. He’s going to be OK,” Dixon said. Also, Dixon said freshman center Tyrell Biggs was being evaluated for a calf muscle injury he sustained near the end of practice. Biggs was on crutches as he headed to the locker room, but Dixon said he didn’t think the injury was severe. However, Biggs’ status for Friday’s NCAA Tournament first-round game against Kent State in Auburn Hills, Mich., was uncertain.

It doesn’t look like Gray will miss any time in the games, though it should be another reason for Pitt to try and blow Kent State out of the water early to give Gray some extra time to sit. There’s nothing in the story to suggest it, but you almost hope Gray was coming down with the flu during the Big East Tournament. That would provide a little more explanation as to why he looked absolutely drained and spent during the games.

Antonio Graves gets a little love for the way he’s been playing. His comments are straight from the “I’m just happy to help the team,” handbook.

“I just want to be ready for anything, mentally,” Graves said. “If I don’t get the minutes I have been getting the past couple of games, maybe I can help somebody from the bench. Seeing things from the bench is different from being in the game. I’m ready to take whatever role I need to take for us to win.”

Pitt gets to take a charter flight to Detroit as the distance from Pittsburgh to Detroit is 18 miles over the NCAA minimum of 300 for flying versus taking a bus. That would mean that Kent State are definitely taking the bus.

Kent State Senior Center Nate Gerwig is a Pittsburgh native and graduate of Schenley High. So naturally he gets a story in each paper today.

Gerwig has averaged 6.4 points and 3.9 rebounds during a career that has included three knee surgeries and shoulder problems.

“Resiliency is what he’s all about,” said Kent State coach Jim Christian, whose team will face Pitt in the first round of the NCAA Tournament on Friday. “We’ve got a lot of great players, but Nate Gerwig is the toughest player we’ve had here, bar none, and the other kids see that.”

Christian’s statement stunned Gerwig.

“He’s saying I’m tougher than Antonio Gates and Demetrius Shaw?” Gerwig said.

After a pause, Gerwig bought into Christian’s way of thinking.

“Well, I don’t know if there are many players that can go through what I did. But I want to play basketball.”

The number of injuries he’s suffered have changed his game over his 5 years at KSU.

Gerwig is a shadow of the player he used to be. He was a starter as a true freshman when Kent State beat Pitt in the NCAA tournament and advanced to the Elite Eight in 2002. He led the team in field-goal percentage that season and averaged 4.8 points and 3.5 rebounds per game.

Gerwig averaged 7.6 points and 4.1 rebounds per game with the shoulder injury as a sophomore. He tried to beat his man up court on the fastbreak and relentlessly bang low for offensive rebounds.

But the knee surgeries have taken a toll. He played 17 minutes a game this season and averaged 6.5 points and 4.0 rebounds a game. Christian has to pick his spots when and where to use him. Gerwig must pick his spots, too.
…
What bothers Gerwig is that he knows the game inside and out as a senior. He has such a better understanding of the game than when he was a wide-eyed freshman on that talented and experienced team that advanced to the Elite Eight.

He just can’t make his body move the way he wants it to anymore.

“It’s terrible,” Gerwig said. “It hurts me most on defense, rotations and things like that. I’ll see things happening, but I just can’t react. It’s kind of tough, knowing that you could do something four years ago but you can’t do it now.”

That does suck. To be in your early 20s but to already sound like a guy in his 30s because your body just can’t do it.

Another Kent Senior, Guard DeAndre Haynes gets a puff piece on how his coach got an old teammate to help him out of his early season funk to becoming the 2006 Mid-American Conference Player of the Year.

Like Pitt, Kent State uses its bench liberally.

“Our thing is, everybody is important,” Kent State coach Jim Christian said. “I can go down the roster and point out guys who made big plays, huge plays, in 10 minutes or less. I think that was evident in the MAC Tournament. When we break down game film, we make sure to point out who made big plays in just three or four minutes more than the guy who made big plays in 30.”

There are no complaints from Kent State’s bench as the Flashes, the No. 12 seed in the Oakland Regional, prepare for Friday’s NCAA Tournament matchup with the Big East’s Pittsburgh, the No. 5 seed.

“We play our same role, no matter what,” said Kent State junior guard Omni Smith, who started five games and came off the bench for 28. “It’s no life-ending thing.”

Kent State plays 9 guys who average at least 14 minutes a game. Only 2 players Youngblood and Haynes have started more than 23 games this season. Not so coincidentally they are the only player to go more than 30 minutes per game.

The Golden Flashes get their motivation mojo from a video.

When Phelps and former director of basketball operations Ryan Pedon (now an assistant at Miami) started producing an annual video in 2003, he had no idea that it would become such a big deal.

“I totally made it expecting the guys to like it, but I didn’t expect them to get this motivated,” said Phelps, a senior broadcast journalism/theatre major.

“Each year, it keeps getting bigger and bigger. More and more is expected of it.”

This year, Phelps topped even himself.

He tracked down former players such as members of the 2002 Elite Eight squad — the last KSU team to reach the NCAA Tournament — along with players who never fulfilled that lifelong dream.

He interviewed them via phone and the audio was incorporated with video highlights from their playing careers and this year’s games.

Demetric Shaw explained what it takes to win the MAC Tournament.

Trevor Huffman talked about the tradition at KSU.

Eric Thomas detailed what it’s like to head into the tournament injured, then put the pain aside.

Jason Edwin talked about how he never made it to the NCAA Tournament. He told them to leave their effort all out there on the floor.

“The guys need to know the tradition, the reason why we’re successful at Kent State, and what type of people they are,” said former KSU guard Eric Haut, now the team’s director of basketball operations.

The video is 14 minutes long and can be viewed in Quicktime, WindowsMedia or Real.

Paul Zeise just completed a NCAA Tournament chat at the P-G. I like Zeise’s work covering Pitt and college football, but found him to be all over the board and completely inconsistent about college basketball.

He’s a Temple guy and wants to complain about the Big East being too physical and rough? He thought the Big East Tournament was bad basketball? Then he obviously didn’t see the Big 11 Tournament or the eye-bleeding pain caused by watching the SEC Championship game between South Carolina and Florida.

Still worth a look, if for no other reason then he totally agrees with me about this:

Slr: Do you think Pitt is a year away?

Paul Zeise: I don’t usually buy that “a year away” stuff because each year is different and success this year doesn’t mean they’ll capture it next year. You never know. One guy could fail out, Aaron Gray could run into Greg Lee’s agent and walk away from the meeting convinced he’s a lottery pick and decide to leave school, another could get injured. This team is special _ they played together and were on a mission, it seemed. That chemistry can be hard to reproduce, particularly next year when the expectations will be high and they won’t have the “us against the world” stuff to rally around. They should be very good next year, but a lot can go wrong as well. That’s why they need to seize the moment this year.

Never waste an opportunity.

As I said the night of the selection show, Nantz and Packer were idiots for their arguing with Craig Littlepage of the NCAA Selection Committee equating the MVC with the ACC and such based on number of teams getting in without looking at the where in the seedings.

Well, with the Selection Committee taking a righteous beating all of Monday for more substantive reasons, Littlepage is on the defensive. Mainly by going after the easy, dumb arguments from Nantz and Packer (rather than the real arguments for the Committee’s incompetence).

And Littlepage said the reason teams from the traditional power conferences fare better in the tournament is that they typically get higher seeds.

“He may have an opinion about that or the two of them may have an opinion about that, and they are certainly free to have those opinions and express those opinions,” Littlepage said of Packer and his CBS broadcast partner, Jim Nantz. “But to look at this in terms of the partnership, you would hope there would be a little better understanding of what it is that we do and an accurate reflection of the facts as they know them to be. Facts, instead of opinions, would be helpful.”

But there were times Monday that Littlepage almost seemed to plead for empathy.

Empathy? Bear with us? What?

Another member of the selection committee was Kent State AD Laing Kennedy. He of course defended the job.

Kennedy, who returned to Kent on Monday after being in selection committee meetings since last Wednesday, said he has not compared the bracket to years past, but sensed nothing was out of norm with the final 65.

“I don’t know how it stacks up, but I would believe it would be about the same [number of majors and midmajors],” Kennedy said. “But I have to tell you, the effort put in all year, not just this [past] weekend, I’ve never been involved with a group so committed to the task.

“We wanted the best 34 at-large teams, and we hammered that every day, team by team by team. That [Nance and Packer assumption] is not a fair assessment.”

I’m getting a feeling that there’s a lot more dissatisfaction and annoyance with the selections than in past years. It seems like the controversy is going to last a few extra days. Maybe it’s because the landscape of college basketball is “flatter” — less variance between more teams — than in the past makes for more questions.

I also think that with all of the information, numbers, stats and analysis most believed they had the system understood and how things worked. Then the committee goes and behind closed doors makes their choices. The transparency of the system is abruptly cut-off and things don’t work out the way everyone was expecting. From questionable seedings to leaving certain teams out. There was a lack of consistency in how they made decsions. Strength of schedule, RPI, last 10 games, non-con. They were all applied inconsistently and without any explanation.

The Missouri Valley Conference seems to have figured out the system better than most mid-major conferences, and even they feel cheated by not having Missouri State make it.

Kent’s AD wants the MAC to have a similar plan.

Kennedy said, collectively, MAC schools should take a stand against major conferences and demand that they play home-and-away series.

Kennedy plans to discuss this, and more, with MAC administrators and coaches during May conference meetings.

Currently, if MAC schools want to play North Carolina, Kansas, Florida or other elite programs, they have to hit the road.

Recently, the Flashes discussed playing Duke. When the question arose if the Blue Devils would play at the M.A.C. Center in Kent, Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski responded: “Are you kidding? I’ve done my homework. I’ll play you, but not there.”

That same strategy allowed Syracuse to play 12 of its first 15 games at the Carrier Dome (Two games were played at Madison Square Garden). The Orangemen went 13-2 during the span, including a 78-66 win against KSU on Dec. 30.

Kennedy said scheduling the right top-50 teams is vital.

Looks like Pitt won’t be playing any MAC schools in its non-con for a while. That will be interesting because it potentially could reduce the pool of teams willing to travel for games. Driving up the guaranteed price and convincing more schools to schedule a little tougher if they have to do a home-and-home. I mean if you are going to do one would you choose to do it with another major conference team or a mid-major?

The article also mentions that Kent State will offer Christian a contract extension that would make him the highest paid coach of the MAC. (Which would probably still be cheaper than the lowest paid Big East coach.)

If you are feeling a certain deja vu reading Ron Cook’s column on how Pitt is still a year away, well that’s because his fellow columnist Bob Smizik wrote the same column back at the end of January.

I still have the same feeling on the subject. You never know.

Yes, on paper, the team would appear to be better, deeper and more seasoned with Gray, Graves and Kendall as seniors, Ramon and Benjamin as juniors, and of course Young, Fields, and Biggs having another year to learn. Cook even forgot about Mike Cook, the athletic guard/forward who is sitting out the year after transferring from East Carolina.

Last season was supposed to be Pitt’s big year and the team imploded late in the season. Consider, too, that Pitt has managed to avoid a key player suffering a serious season-long injury problem for years. Villanova, by contrast, has yet to get through a season without major injury issues to their incredibly talented players.

Imagine losing Gray or Young or Fields for the season. Young has been an impact all season, and should be bigger next year. No question. But what happens if he gets a knee injury or something. You just don’t know, and there is nothing dumber than anticipating next season when there is hopefully plenty more to do this season.

Coach Dixon, naturally, wants the team focusing on the game at hand. Not looking to next year or even to Sunday. The team, Kent State, was the best and most consistent team in the MAC this year. Everyone had Ohio University tabbed to win the MAC, but they proved wildly inconsistent. KSU, on the other hand, dominated the conference (15-3) and won their tournament.

Kent State was second in the Mid-American Conference in scoring (72.5 points per game) and a solid fifth in scoring defense (65.5 ppg). The Golden Flashes led the MAC in rebounding margin and held opponents to 33-percent shooting from behind the 3-point arc.

Like Pitt, Christian utilizes a deep bench and plays 10 players. He has seven players averaging 6.5 points or more per game. The leading scorer is senior guard Jay Youngblood, who averages 14.7 per game. But in the past six games, Kent State has had a different leading scorer five times.

“It’s been a strength of ours all year,” Christian said. “We play nine or 10 guys. We have different guys step up. We don’t rely on one or two guys. We utilize our bench as much as we can.”

The only common foes between the two are Rutgers and Syracuse. KSU lost to Rutgers by 3 on a neutral court, and of course, Pitt beat RU at the RAC. Kent lost by 12 to the ‘Cuse at the Carrier Dome and Pitt split with the Orange.

Kent’s only wins against top-100 RPI teams were Ohio (99) (twice), Miami (OH) (84), Akron (70) and Butler (82) (non-con). Kent has won 9 of its last 10 games.

Kent’s head coach, Jim Christian, now finds himself becoming a hotter commodity, after his continuing the success at Kent after Stan Heath left for Arkansas. This, despite, being unemployed as a coach for a couple years, following being purged from Pitt with Ralph Willard in 1999.

If you believe in trends, then the past 3 times Pitt has gotten to the BET Championship game, Pitt made the Sweet 16. Then, I guess, you should also believe that UConn isn’t going to win the NCAA since the last two times they won it, they also won the BET. Or is it just when the trend is convenient or only for Pitt?

A few open tabs I needed to clear off my browser.

One of the better possible explanations for the way the NCAA Selection Committee seeded things:

Lots of people are saying the NCAA Tournament selection committee made major mistakes in seeding the tourney. But give the committee members some credit. They’re by no means stupid. It’s all a clever ruse concocted to make some money. Think about it — they’re going to clean up in their office pools. When everyone else is going with chalk, the committee members will have a No. 2 seed like Tennessee or maybe even UCLA going out early in their brackets, while they advance teams that were given undeservedly low seeds, such as No. 5 Pitt and No. 7 Georgetown. So, you see, they’re just trying to win a few hundred bucks in their office pools. That, or they have absolutely zero knowledge of college basketball. It’s one or the other.

Sounds about right.

Actually I’m sticking by my theory that Pitt got jammed into a 5 seed because they didn’t have a good fit to place Pitt in the 3 or 4 seed locations that wouldn’t result in a potential/likely early round match with another Big East team. This tidbit seems to lend some credence:

The team that seemed to move the most around the board was Pitt, which settled at No. 5 in the Oakland region.

Now I know many of you have seen the SI.com Oakland bracket preview that called Pitt “overrated” and the “media darling.” Outside of some love from Michael Wilbon in the Washington Post, there wasn’t that much in most early previews I had seen. I started seeing some eyeing Pitt for the 5-12 upset.

This evening, my worst fears were confirmed. On ESPN’s “Around the Horn,” Michael Smith and (shudder) Jay Mariotti both tabbed Pitt for the Final Four. Talk about a kiss of death. If there was any consolation, it was that all 4 of the yappers picked BC.

You know, I’m really not that worried right now about Arizona State poaching Coach Jamie Dixon. I even felt that way before I read this from Andy Katz (Insider Subs)

Meanwhile, Pitt athletic director Jeff Long couldn’t praise Jamie Dixon enough during the Big East tournament in New York. The plan is for the Panthers to do everything they can to keep Dixon from even listening to other offers. Arizona State and Missouri already have sent out feelers and, if anything, Dixon might listen just to listen. Long is expected to discuss with Dixon’s representation a bump in pay and perhaps an extension.

The reason is, that there isn’t the constant drumbeat out of Arizona that Dixon is the guy. It seems to be more that he is on the list, but they aren’t sure how interested he really is.

There isn’t a message and leaks suggesting that it is Dixon or bust, the way there was for months leading up to Howland leaving for UCLA. And it isn’t a situation like that, where there were lots of other reasons — besides money — to take the job. Right now, ASU is still trying to present an image as an attractive option. Lon Kruger at UNLV, says he doesn’t want the job. Kelvin Sampson was thought to be a target and interested, but with Oklahoma facing some sanctions, he isn’t that attractive an option.

To get a coach like Jamie Dixon to leave a good situation, they have to offer more than money and a long contract. They have to have things in position to show that they are ready to upgrade the facilities, that there is lots of support, and that the support isn’t shallow. That doesn’t seem to be there at the moment. As we learned with Pitt’s pursuit of Skip Prosser, when a hot coach is in a good situation, he can really take his time.

I do expect ASU and even Missouri to take a run at Dixon, barring AD Long and Dixon’s agent working out a new deal in the next week or two, but I think like Skip Prosser, will end up choosing the new extension, familiarity and stability to stay where he is.

This is a little something extra. In the opening round game, Pitt won’t be the only team with a coach being eyeballed for other jobs.

Now that Kent State will be in this week’s NCAA men’s basketball tourney — airing on CBS — it’ll be interesting to see how network analysts address talk that Kent head coach Jim Christian is being eyed by Rhode Island to lead that program.

I guess Rhode Island and the A-10 is a step up from the MAC. That’s assuming the Jim Harrick stain has finally been scrubbed through.

There is nothing better than being the stay-at-home dad, with only a little work to do this time of the year.

Here’s the schedule of games for Thursday and Friday (hat tip, Jack). Seton Hall-Witchita St. kick off the first day (sorry, I don’t count Tuesday’s play-in game to be the sacrificial 4th 16th seed) at 12:20 pm. Don’t forget to sign-up for the free March Madness on Demand to watch streaming video of games not shown in your media market.

Games that have my interest for Thursday: Pacific-BC; Alabama-Marquette; Xavier-Gonzaga; Texas A&M-Syracuse; and SDSU-Indiana.

On Friday I think the highlights will include: Bucknell-Arkansas; Arizona-Wisconsin; NIU-Georgetown; SIU-WVU; NC St.-Cal; UAB-Kentucky; and of course, Kent St.-Pitt.

Reminder that PSB has a Group set up for ESPN’s Tournament Challenge. Group name: Pitt Sports Blather.