— Former Pitt hoops coach (1994-1999) Ralph Willard’s Holy Cross team wasn’t able to pull the 13 over 4 seed upset last night and lost to Southern Illinois 61-51. His Holy Cross team was also in the West Region to add to the Pitt connection. It’s down to Dixon and Howland as the best Pitt related guy in that part of the bracket.
— If there was any reason I wanted to play Duke before, after seeing this flop I’d want to play them and beat them so badly.
— Damn, those Dukies have broken an opponents nose in two of their last three games. First it was Tyler Hansbrough and now VCU’s Wil Fameni. He’ll be wearing a mask against Pitt which is an advantage for us. It seems to always take guys a few games to get used to wearing a big plastic guard over their face. If only it had happened to Eric Maynor…(Thanks to TMGPanther in the comments for the link.)
Something to think about for Saturday: Houston coach Tom Penders, whose team faced Memphis, UNLV, Kentucky, Arizona and Creighton this season, told me that the most impressive team he saw all year was VCU, because of its speed, quickness, conditioning and relentless pressure, triggered by the Rams’ depth of quality guards. VCU takes on Pitt in Buffalo for a spot in the Sweet 16.
link to sports.yahoo.com