I have been writing all day. Sadly, this bit of joy has been last on the list.

Ron Cook says this BET Championship is better than in 2003.

The 2003 championship was something special because of the way coach Ben Howland and guard Brandin Knight willed the Panthers to the title. But that Pitt team was much better during the season than this one. It was a No. 2 seed in the conference tournament and had to win three games — against Providence, Boston College and Connecticut — to cut down the nets.

Respectfully, this championship trumps that one.

The Pitt players showed so much toughness here that one New York columnist suggested they change the team name to Gritt. I like that. It fits.

“For whatever reason, I don’t think we were playing as aggressive as we needed to, say, 10 games ago,” Pitt coach Jamie Dixon said. “We were able to get back into it and do the things we do. We have just been more physical, more aggressive. We’re more like we normally are. More like Pitt.”

I’m not going that far, because they were such different animals.

I wish they had shown more of the celebration on ESPN. They damn well better on the Pitt weekly propaganda show.

Pitt raised the Big East trophy at center court for the second time and ended years of frustration in this game. The Panthers had lost the past two Big East championship games and had won only once (2003) in six previous appearances.

The players brought the trophy over to Pitt fans that had made their way near the court, and the Panthers passed the trophy around like the Stanley Cup, each one of them getting to enjoy a moment with the hardware in their hands.

The rapid turnaround of Pitt is also a big theme.

ust 13 days ago, Pitt players were ripping themselves after an embarrassing loss at West Virginia, talking about how they couldn’t guard anyone.

Last night, they were ripping down the nets at Madison Square Garden, under the prideful watch of coach Jamie Dixon.

“I could have sat there all day and just watched them,” Dixon said.

Thirteen days ago, the Panthers looked like a team that had lost its identity, a team that couldn’t rebound or stop opponents from scoring easy baskets.

Last night, they completed a stunning four-game run that saw them topple Cincinnati, Louisville, Marquette and Georgetown on successive nights.

The revival/reversal/turnaround was oft-repeated in the stories. NY papers loved to play the local angle.

“Levance Fields is a huge Giants fan and he came out and told the team, follow the Giants’ model,” said Pittsburgh guard Ronald Ramon of the Bronx, referring to the Panther point guard, who is a Brooklyn native. “They came out and played hard and came to win.”

The Panthers outworked and outhustled Georgetown, outrebounding the Hoyas by 41-29 and beating them in dives on the floor, loose balls corralled and the typical blue-collar nuances that have come to define Pittsburgh basketball.

The Giants’ comparison runs deep. The Panthers (26-9) had a solid but unspectacular regular season, just as the Giants did. Because Pittsburgh was only a No. 7 seed, it did not receive a bye and needed to win four games in four days. The Giants were a wild-card team and needed to win four games to win the Super Bowl. Georgetown (27-5) was not undefeated, as the Patriots were, but the Hoyas did enter the game a perfect 14-0 as a No. 1 seed in the Big East tournament.

Fields and New Jersey’s Brandin Knight, a former Pittsburgh star and now an assistant, hatched the analogy at the team hotel Friday night. Knight and Fields are the team’s resident Giants fans and got a laugh at recalling the similarities.

And the local players.

Fields is one of four local kids — along with forward Tyrell Biggs and guards Ronald Ramon and Keith Benjamin — who play major roles on this team, which may have earned a top-4 seed with this emotional victory.

Dick Weiss may have captured things in his local NY column.

“Without question, we’re New York’s team,” Fields said as he climbed down the ladder after helping cut down the net. “Nothing against St.John’s, but we have a lot of New York City kids and we win a lot, especially in New York.”

There are five players from the metropolitan area – Fields, Ramon, senior forward Tyrell Biggs, junior guard Keith Benjamin and freshman center Austin Wallace – on Pitt, and they acted as if they couldn’t care less that Georgetown was considered by many a favorite to win the national championship. This was for bragging rights in the neighborhood and the Panthers were not about to give the Hoyas the keys to the city.

Maybe that is what makes the Big East so special. It is tough, old-fashioned basketball, the way it is played on the playgrounds here, where winners stay on and losers go home. Seventh-seeded Pitt refused to leave, becoming only the second team to win four straight games in this tournament.

Bob Ryan of the Boston Globe was at the game, no doubt to see the Hoyas take the BET and be a potential #1 seed. Instead, he gave glowing press to Pitt.

The Panthers simply shrugged their shoulders and went to work, dispatching Cincinnati, Louisville, and Marquette to get their shot at top-seeded Georgetown, which had looked so good in its own march to the championship game that many of us were thinking they had an outside chance for a No. 1 seed, assuming the Hoyas could get by Pitt.

Well, they couldn’t. Georgetown is good and Georgetown is tough, but last night Pitt was better, and there is no doubt Pitt was tougher.

In beating Georgetown, another theme was that Pitt broke through after coming close.

In recent years, Pittsburgh had often reached this point of the conference tournament before faltering. They had won but one championship in six previous Big East title games this decade. Now that the Panthers have raised that record to 2-5, they can look to larger horizons.

First under the coaching of Ben Howland and now with Jamie Dixon for the last five seasons, they have often entered the N.C.A.A. tournament as a highly rated team, only to disappoint. They have made the Round of 16 four times in the past six seasons, but have not advanced beyond that.

And Pitt does seek to break that barrier as well.

“National championship teams haven’t done what we’ve done over seven years,” Dixon said. “But at the same time, that is our ultimate goal — and we don’t have problems discussing that — but it doesn’t take away from what we’ve done.”

Much attention goes to Coach Dixon for what this team has accomplished this season.

Since everybody’s talking about voting do-overs these days, would a re-vote for Big East coach of the year yield the same results?

Probably not.

It wouldn’t be Notre Dame’s Mike Brey. Not after what Jamie Dixon pulled off Saturday night at Madison Square Garden. Really, what he’s pulled off after a bleak, injury-filled start.

…

Dixon’s a star now. He should be the Big East coach of the year.< Pittsburgh fans, you really should believe this team is going places.

Whether it really does dismiss the doubters is a different issue.

If any doubt of Jamie Dixon’s coaching ability existed, it disappeared this week. If any part of his success was still being attributed to Ben Howland, it vanished Saturday.

Dixon’s fifth season as the Pitt Panthers’ coach has been his best. Better than the 31 wins of his first season. Better than the Sweet 16 of last season.

The Pitt Panthers are the Big East champions after Saturday’s 74-65 victory over No. 9 Georgetown. That’s a statement few could have imagined a few weeks ago.

For the better part of two months while dealing with injuries, Dixon kept the team together though its common thread was hanging by one. And now that the Panthers are primarily healthy, Dixon has the group believing and rolling heading into the NCAA Tournament.

Yet, Dixon does try to downplay and deflect getting through this season.

Drake coach Keno Davis is a natural for coach of the year consideration, what with his out-of-nowhere rise to prominence, but Dixon may have done something even more unprecedented. He used band-aids, gumption and stubborn conviction to win what is easily the most difficult league in the country.

“I think people try to make it more dramatic than it is,” Dixon said. “There’s all this talk. I was who I was and I wasn’t going to change. Any change the players would have been able to figure out and realized I wasn’t real. I tried to not make it as big a transition to me and to others and I’ll continue to downplay it.”

But if this team possesses anything, it is Dixon’s personality. Even the unassuming Young is a closet Dixon. He doesn’t say much about being irked by naysayers, but privately he collects press clippings in his locker and warehouses negative comments, building a private Rolodex of motivation.

A little longer to savor this, before stressing on the NCAA Tournament.