Well, I hope the next coach at Providence proves to be as much a patsy for Pitt as Tim Welsh’s Friars. 10 years, and getting lucky with Ryan Gomes to show for it. Even then, they were one-and-done. A team that has no fundamentals. They just shoot. I can’t even respect them.

That said, I always worry. This team did beat UConn in Hartford because they were incredible from outside in that game. Always a fear. Great work on the liveblog Dennis. I have to say, though, if they had upset Pitt, Dennis would have been banned from basketball liveblogging at the very least in games with supposed patsy teams. No, I’m not blaming him for the Rutgers loss, but that would have been an unsettling trend.

Pitt won 82-63, and it was nice to get an easy win after so many stressful ones.
Not much to say about this game.

Pitt was a little lazy to start the game on the perimeter. Providence made them pay. Right away, though, it was clear how sloppy a team Providence is. They can shoot and run up and down. They have no defense and they don’t even pass real well.

In the first half, that style was clearly tempting the Pitt players. Pitt just wanted to run around as well. It is fun, but it meant Pitt got lazy on defense trying to outscore the Friars.

The good in the first half: Pitt was 18-32 (3-8 on 3s). Only 3 turnovers and 13 assists. Shockingly Blair had 0 rebounds in the first half. This was Young’s kind of game with the running.

Pitt also got Providence to commit 8  turnovers — okay, the Friars helped on several.

The bad in the first half: Providence shot 15-26 (5-11 on 3s). Lazy defensive effort. A bit of gambling on steals — because it was more fun — but gave up easy baskets.

In the second half, clearly the team got the message from Coach Dixon that they can play offense, but not at the expense of poor defensive effort. The Panthers went on a 21-4 run to make a 5 point halftime lead, a 22 point walk to the end.

It also helped that Providence was extremely streaky in their 3-point shooting. They were hot for the first 5 minutes and hot for the final 5 minutes. It was that other 30 minutes that killed them. The Friars finished 9-22 on 3s.

Pitt by contrast shot 5-11 on 3s, with Ramon making all 5 on 7 attempts. Between the poor Providence defense and some confidence by Ramon, he looked fantastic. He finished with 15 points, 6 assists, 2 steals and 2 turnovers.

Heck, probably the best thing about this game was that it was a confidence booster for the whole team on offense (well, maybe not Gilbert Brown’s perimeter shooting — but even he had good with 4-4 on free throws).

On the post-game interviews. Naturally Dixon wouldn’t give anything about whether Fields will play on Friday at Marquette: “it’s day-to-day.”

Sam Young’s interview amused the hell out of me. He actually cracked a smile. I really don’t know how easy it is to tell when he is pouting, and when it is his normal expression. He seems to have a naturally dour look. Plus his body language generally pushes a sense of discomfort. He kept hunching forward.

I could probably do a lengthy post on how bad a color analyst Mike Jarvis is, but his post-game interview was even worse. In doing some highlights with Young there, Jarvis actually said to Sam Young that he looks just as happy to make a good pass as he is scoring.

Sam Young just looked confused. Like he couldn’t even believe there was a comparison of the two. He didn’t actually answer with a yes to skip past the inane, softball question. He just kind of moved away from the question. Even Young couldn’t buy into that.

I’ve been shoveling snow all day, so tonight’s liveblog from the comfort of my very warm house will be nice to say the least. The biggest pre-game story for tonight’s game is that Levance Fields will not be returning tonight. It’s probably better that we don’t see him tonight anyways. I don’t think we’ll have too much of a problem with Providence and I’m scared he’ll maybe end up setting himself back (and risk further injury) by playing a regular season game. I’d rather have him completely and fully healthy for later this month and in March.

7:41 pm: Mike Jarvis is a much worse TV analyst than he was a head coach (364-201 overall record). We get the pleasure of hearing him all night. Plenty of empty seats at the Pete tonight; likely a mixture of horrible weather and a poor opponent. Providence hits two early treys but Pitt is going to be the more physically dominant team.

Jarvis says Fields wanted to return in time for Valentine’s day and asked, “I wonder who his sweetie is?” The answer is Pitt women’s hoops player Marcedes Walker.

And PC just hit another three pointer. That’s three 3’s in four minutes — please don’t tell me this is one of those times where a below average team shoots lights out against us.

7:46 pm: Sam Young is not a ball handler, as evidenced by his turnover. We’re not in good shape if he’s hurtling down the court with the ball on a fast break.

7:50 pm: Sam Young nearly not hitting the rim on an ugly three point shot: embarrassing. Geoff McDermott missing a dunk: much more embarrassing.

7:58 pm: Sloppy defense left a Providence shooter wide open to nail a three. If we’re going to let them have the open shots, it looks like they’ll be hitting them tonight. Defense needs to be tightened up a bit.

Ramon hits his second three of the night. Compared to the days after coughing up the ball at the end of the Villanova game, he has to have so much confidence right now after the shot to beat WVU.

8:05 pm: A nice alley-oop finished by Young finally gets the crowd into the game and then McDermott comes right back down an nails a three very long two.

8:07 pm: Pitt has 24 points in the paint compared to PC’s 12 and yet the Friars have managed to keep the game close. They’re hitting shots, plain and simple. It’s gotta stop at some point, right?

8:14 pm: The wisdom of Mike Jarvis: “Shooting 33% from the three point line is equivalent to shooting 50% from the two point line.” I wonder…where is this mysterious two point line?

Also, DeJuan Blair has had a very quiet 7 points so far. I don’t recall a game this year when I’ve almost completely forgot he was even on the floor.

8:23 pm: Pitt leads 42-37 at the half. Can’t say I was expecting this many points, and usually when games reach such high numbers, we’re probably not going to win. The Panthers “thing” for years now has been tough, low scoring games. I’m sure we’ll be fine in the second half though — Providence is going to start missing their deeper shots (hopefully) and don’t count out the halftime adjustments Jamie Dixon is known to make. He hasn’t disappointed us out of halftime yet.

The official count on the number of times we’ve seen the Russel Stover “Get your woman a box of chocolates for Valentine’s Day or she’ll divorce your sorry ass” commercial: six and counting.

8:34 pm: Already I see we came out looking much more pumped up and ready to go. Aggressiveness and physicality on defense are going to be huge. Didn’t see much in the 1st half but it’s picking up now.

8:43 pm: Providence is playing the 2-3 zone but Pitt has been passing well enough to beat it and get solid looks. Remember: passes beat zones, dribbling usually doesn’t.

8:49 pm: Tim Welsh calls a timeout after Pitt once again passes the Providence zone into confusion ending with a Ronald Ramon three pointer. He’s 4-6 from deep and just added an assist to his stat line with a nice pass to Benjamin. Pitt is up 20 now — PC is struuugggggling.

8:59 pm: With a 20 point lead, Pitt is just going to play safely and keep the cushion as it is. From the start of the second half until now, this is the Pitt team we wanted to see.

9:13 pm: Whoa, a minor computer crash. Since about 8 minutes to go, this game has been a snooze fest. Two minutes and we’re done.

9:34 pm: The beginning was a little closer than we’d have liked but the Panthers came out with a spark in the second half and put it away. Were we looking ahead to the big game at Marquette on Friday night? In the post game interview, Dixon hinted that maybe, just maybe, they were. I’ll admit I definitely was (as if it matters what a blogger is looking forward to). Kudos to Ronald Ramon for defending Jeff Xavier well. Xavier made three early treys but was kept pretty quiet for the remainder of the game.

Programming note: On FSN Pittsburgh at 10:00 pm tonight, Under The Lights: Pitt Road Trip will be shown. The previews for it look entertaining as they follow the Panthers trip to New York for the game against St. John’s.

Watch it or DVR after the Providence game tonight. Liveblog/open thread on the way…

The one thing most people are going to say about this game is the possible return of Levance Fields. He’s been practicing with the team after he was cleared by doctors, and he could possible see a few minutes tonight.

“It will be his decision,” Dixon told reporters on Saturday. “It’s going to be day-to-day. There are going to be some ups and downs as it goes, as you would expect when he hasn’t done anything for six weeks.”

Following Ramon’s winning three over WVU, Fields ran faster off the bench faster than any other Pitt player. And just as Pitt starts to get a starter back, Providence is realizing how many players they are starting to lose. Sharaud Curry is out for the year while Jeff Xavier and Geoff McDermott are playing through pain. Ray Hall has been suspended and Weiyinmi Efejuku has simply played poorly. Also working for Pitt’s favor, the Friars have not won in the Petersen Events Center.

Providence AD Bob Driscoll is hearing from fans about the underachieving Friars team.

“My reaction is I’m disappointed we haven’t been better,” Driscoll said. “There are lots of reasons you can point to. We’ve had injuries and a few other issues but, at the end of the day, we’re judged on our record. It’s not what I wanted it to be.”

Head coach Tim Welsh’s seat is getting hotter. A win over Pitt would undoubtedly be huge for Welsh and the whole team, so they’ll be coming out ready to play. Don’t count out Pitt though. The Big East goal continues to be winning the Big East championship, even without Mike Cook and with Fields missing a chunk of time.

“Every game is huge from here on out,” said Benjamin, who’s averaging 12.6 points as a starter. “The Big East is a crazy league, and you never know when you’re out of it. We’re playing well on defense and once we get back to playing like I know we can on offense, we’re going to be a tough team to beat.”

Tip at 7:30 on ESPN Full Court and FSN Pittsburgh locally.