Did someone drag Fran Fraschilla to an apartment party in deep South Oakland (Insider subs.)?

If you’ve ever been to Pittsburgh’s campus in the Oakland section of the city, you have to know that the Panthers are not going to lose their toughness even if the janitor has to suit up for Jamie Dixon. No surprise to me that they beat Georgetown.

Grant Wahl did his “Magic Eight-Ball” predictions for teams that will win the national championship in his mailbag.

Are you going to be smart enough to have Pitt in your Magic Eight? The Mike Cook injury hurts and the Levance Fields injury hurts more, but if Fields is back for March then Pitt will be much better for it. Look at the depth that is being created by their absence. Three freshmen (two true, one redshirt) are getting tons of PT because of the injuries. I would just advise you to consider them as the dark horse candidate. When Fields comes back, they are going to go deep into March regardless of seed.
— Josh Grubbs, Gibsonia, Pa.

I couldn’t go far enough to put Pitt in the Magic Eight, but I’m awfully impressed by how Jamie Dixon has handled the injuries to Cook and Fields, and the Georgetown win was particularly striking. Dixon is making his bones as a coach this season, and if he can keep Pitt in the top three of the Big East he’ll be a candidate for Coach of the Year.

So after a week of absence, Pitt is back in the power rankings.

ESPN.com has them at #13.

Jamie Dixon has rallied the troops and the shorthanded Panthers stepped up big time when they knocked off Georgetown. Ronald Ramon and Keith Benjamin can knock down jumpers with regularity. Dejuan Blair and Sam Young will take care of the glass. So much for getting ready for next season!

Luke Winn at SI.com returns them to #15.

I’ll admit I was expecting the Panthers to fold after losing Mike Cook and Levance Fields — and they did, to a degree, losing big at Dayton and narrowly at Villanova in the following two weeks. But they’ve rebounded nicely to win three straight in the Big East, including a Power-Rankings-worthy victory over Georgetown on Monday. DeJuan Blair, who had 15 points and nine boards in that game, and did yeoman’s work defending Roy Hibbert, remains under-hyped in this freshman class. He well behind Mike Beasley in terms of production, but stacks up against the other power-forward phenoms:

I’d just like to see solid conference road performances at Cinci and St. John’s in the next week. Cinci is a lot better than expected — especially at home — and St. John’s has been an inexplicable nightmare for Pitt. The road in conference is looking like a nightmare this season. Pitt needs to get road wins where ever they can. The road games in February and March will be brutal (UConn, Marquette, ND, Syracuse and WVU). Pitt has continued to dominate at home — and that can’t change.