Ahh, it’s almost here. The start of the NCAA Tournament is close. Bad scare this morning as the DSL went out for more than an hour. Not a good scene. Rending of garments, teaching my daughter some new words, then trying to bribe her not to repeat them in front of her mother. The usual.

Of course, the 12 hours of good feelings and basketball will only be that way as long as Pitt wins. Does build a lot of anticipation with Pitt being the last game. Glad I have the DirecTV March Madness package. Just saw that Xavier is on at the same time and in the Ohio area, I already know which game they will be showing locally.

So let’s hit this quickly.

Keith Benjamin is right when he says the best thing to do with Wright State is put them down early.

The Panthers, he said, can’t come out slow again tonight in their NCAA Tournament opener against Wright State.

“You’ve got to go out and dominate the lower conferences and get them out of there,” he said. “You can’t let them gain confidence as the game goes on. That’s how you get upset.”

…

“Those guys are no different from us,” Benjamin said. “They are Division I basketball players. But, sometimes, they see ‘Pittsburgh’ or something like that, and it scares them a little bit. If after the first 10 minutes of the game, they are not afraid of you anymore, then you are in for a long game.

“But if you come out and do everything that you normally do and get Aaron Gray 10 points in the first 10 minutes of the game — and he’s dominating and we’re hitting our 3s — that fear becomes bigger because they think they can’t do anything to win now. They will just quit.”

Of course, you can also bet that this is going on the bulletin board for the Raider players. Not to mention the fear that Pitt will come out tight thinking about how they have to do this and, well, that’s just not a path I want to travel.

The whole team is stressing getting off to a good start.

Joe Starkey is demanding at least the Sweet 16.

Luke Winn at SI.com talked music with Levon Kendall. I’m still trying to figure out Canadian alt-pop.

Of course Wright St. is confident of a win.  The Horizon League teams haven’t fared poorly in opening round games recently.

In three of the last four years, Horizon League teams have won at least one game in the NCAA, and in six of the last nine years.

The Wright State coach says his team has to be very, very good to beat Pitt.

“We have to have an exceptional night,” said WSU coach Brad Brownell of his 23-9 team. “There’s not just one thing you have to do. We have to play well in all areas.”

Gene Collier at the P-G says that really, DaShaun Woods has to have an amazing night for Wright State to win. Antonio Graves will be the primary in stopping that from happening.

Coach Jamie Dixon has nice things to say about Wright State.

Among the Wright State keys to victory — avoid foul trouble for the inside players (their forwards) and get Pitt to take more 3s.

Hal McCoy is a legendary baseball writer in the Cinci area. As he is down in Florida for spring training he caught up with Dick Vitale to talk a little bit about Wright State.