Aargh. I liveblogged this thing for AOL tonight. I already feel like I have a hangover.

Some thoughts on this. I expected to be angry if Pitt lost regardless of how they played. Can’t have them losing 2 in a row on the road or otherwise. That said, I’m disappointed in the loss but not in the effort and the way they played.

After the Wisconsin game, everyone was upset about the effort, the lack of focus and simply looking like they were coasting. That wasn’t happening in this game. Overall, the energy level was just much higher. Pitt was diving to the floor, getting after things.

Sam Young finally started looking like his explosiveness was returning. Unfortunately, along with the explosiveness, so was some of the mindlock silly fouls from last year.

Oklahoma State is a very good team. They impressed me. Neither team was able to impose their style for the whole game. Only spurts. Both Pitt and OSU had moments where they were playing their game, and there were other points where they found themselves in an unfamiliar style. As you would expect, the teams, despite different styles played a very even game.

Mario Boggan is a great undersized college forward. His game was the kind we used to admire from Chevy Troutman, outfighting the big trees underneath and getting the ball. Only Boggan can hit FTs. Boggan also did a great job of bringing Gray way out from under the hoop when Pitt was on defense. It is something Pitt has to adjust to, because teams will keep doing it — if they have any sense. With Gray away from under the basket, the Panthers are not a tremendous rebounding team inside. You wonder why Pitt was so outrebounded on the boards, that has a lot to do with it. Even if Gray isn’t grabbing the board, he’s clogging things up to give the other players a chance. It was a subtle adjustment OSU made early in the game. Gray grabbed 4 in the first few minutes of the game, then only a half-dozen or so after that.

I don’t know what has happened to Kendall. He is just playing without any confidence. Everytime he takes a shot, I don’t think even he knows if it will go down. I really thought when he hit his first jumper in the game things would go his way, but he is just looks lost out there. It reminds me of his sophomore year where he started breaking out, then he started missing some shots and his confidence disappeared.

Antonio Graves made a big mistake when he tried to foul and grabbed the guy around the neck/shoulder. Even if Eaton hadn’t gone down, that was too obvious a call not to make. It marred an otherwise effective game, even going 5-7 on FTs.

If Mike Cook could play defense, he’d be a candidate for an All-American.

More later when a more accurate box score comes out. Stats like rebounding, TOs, assists and such are notoriously unreliable immediately after a game.

Everyone’s waiting to see what kind of Pitt team shows up tonight.

So, the hook for both papers is that Coach Dixon played and was the MVP of the All-College Classic in Oklahoma City in 1986 with TCU.

Twenty years ago, a sharp-shooting senior guard from Texas Christian University stole the show at the All-College Classic by beating Oklahoma State and Oklahoma in succession.

For scoring 40 points in two games, Jamie Dixon received the Henry Iba Award as the tournament’s Most Valuable Player. His father still has the trophy — at least what remains of it.

“The one thing I do remember,” Dixon said, “is that the team manager was carrying it, and it broke on the plane ride.”

The Pitt Athletic Department helped with the storyline by passing out a copy of the box scores.

Pitt is the only other ranked team playing back-to-back ranked teams on the road in their non-con. That of course, has as much to do with luck — how other teams are actually playing and if they are ranked at the time — as anything else. I guess I should be relieved no one is going with the 2004 NCAA Tournament theme at least.
Coach Dixon of course, thinks Pitt will do well against the Cowboys.

Oklahoma State is led by senior forward Mario Boggan (20.5 ppg, 7.0 rpg) and junior guard JamesOn Curry (17.3 ppg, 2.3 rpg).

Boggan is a transfer from Florida and Curry a transfer from North Carolina.

“They were big-time players coming out of high school and they’re big-time players now,” Dixon said. “We’ll do a good job on them, I think. We’ll continue to rely on our team defense to do that. Our defense has been good. It wasn’t good the other day, but [Wisconsin] had a lot to do with that. We’ve shown some improvements. Our guys have realized all year long that we need to continue to improve. We’re looking to improve in a lot of areas.”

Oklahoma State has no plans to tone down their running style even down a guard. Like Pitt, they play man-to-man defense. They do want to reduce the number of turnovers, however.

In a 79-77 loss to Tennessee on Monday, their first loss of the season, the Cowboys faced a short-handed teams’ worst nightmare: a tough full-court press.

The Cowboys turned the ball over 23 times and watched a seven-point lead disappear in the last eight minutes.

Pitt doesn’t press and they don’t force turnovers. OSU, though, was already the most turnover prone team in the Big 12 before the Tennessee game. It’s just part of their style of play.

Oklahoma State is only favored by 1.5 to 2.