A nice bit of information about Oral Roberts and their offense with a couple of Summit League Coaches (the Summit League changed their name from Mid-Continent after last year).

“You’ve got to stay on them and make them beat you off the dribble,” Phillips said. “It’s going to hurt your help-side (defense) and other things. But you’ve got to hug on those guys. They will shoot anytime.”

Jarvis is not shy about shooting from anywhere on the court. His range is legendary in the Summit League. It almost as if he considers a 19-foot, 9-inch 3-pointer to be an insult.

“Jarvis is an incredible shooter. He has unlimited range,” said Kampe, whose team played Oral Roberts to a pair of close losses. “His range is one step off the bus, and he’s not afraid to shoot it from there. He will shoot anytime, any place.”

Said Phillips, “Jarvis’ range is ridiculous. He will shoot 26-27 feet. You’ve certainly got to be in full-chase mode.”

Always scary when facing a team that has a guy who shoots from outside, and can go way outside. That said, the defense of ORU — their strength — might have a mismatch issue with Sam Young.

“He’s a guy you try playing bigger men on, but he can pull them out on the floor because he can shoot 3s and put the ball on the floor,” Sutton said. “He’s going to be a tough matchup for somebody.”

Ideally, the Eagles would like to stick Yemi Ogunoye, their 6-foot-9 defensive stopper, on Young. But that could create a problem.

Young is strong enough to play power forward next to freshman center De Juan Blair in the Panthers’ deceptively small lineup. With no starter taller than Blair’s 6-foot-7, the Panthers finished fourth in rebounding against taller foes in the mega-competitive Big East, which sent eight of its 16 teams into the Big Dance.

They ripped Georgetown and 7-foot-2 Roy Hibbert on the boards 41-29 in the championship game.

If Ogunoye takes Young, the Eagles will be forced to use a smaller lineup — or have 6-foot-10 Shawn King or 6-foot-9 Marcus Lewis matched up on one of Pitts’ three guards.

“And that’s not something you want to do,” Sutton said.

The Golden Eagles have size in their frontcourt, but they rely on their guards to score. The Deadspin pants party preview also introduces us to a new Pitt blog — The Mosh Pitt. Welcome, guys.

I hate looking beyond. And I’m not, since I’m not assuming Michigan State even beats Temple — any team that can score only 36 points in a loss to Iowa, losing to Penn State and to a D-II team in an exhibition should never be considered a lock (even if they also beat Texas). I mean let’s face it, Michigan State can be one of the more unpredictable teams. That said, Tom Izzo is expressing a bit of confidence.

His expectations “are actually the highest they’ve been in a lot of years,” he added. “If we get some key guys playing well at the same time, we’re good enough to win the weekend.

“And if you’re good enough to win the weekend, it means you might have faced Pittsburgh, which has beaten (No. 2 seed) Georgetown and another two seed (Duke), and you’ve already played teams like (No. 1 seed) UCLA and (No. 2 seed) Texas during the season.”

It’s just getting them to play well all at the same time. Something they have struggled to do.

Well, not that it means much at this point, but after a 5 week absence, Pitt is back in both national polls — #17 AP, #19 Coaches.

As previously noted, Pitt is a hot pick, nationally. Great quote from Keith Benjamin.

“We’re in a good situation,” Benjamin said. “It was always one thing with us — heart. I never questioned our ability to play defense or play offense. It was the guys wanting to do it. And now I think the guys want to do it. As long as we want to do it, I feel like we can’t be beat.

“But you still have to want to do it every day. You can’t take any plays off. I don’t think we did that last week. That’s what got us through the Big East tournament.”

And obviously they can’t let that go.

Heart or “it.” Whatever you want to call it, the whole team seems to have it going.

This much is simple: There was not one reason for Pitt’s revival.

Maybe it’s best for the Panthers if they don’t try to explain why they finally got “it,” just figure out a way to keep it.

One thing Pitt didn’t have going in the BET, was free throw shooting. Levance Fields and the team promises to do better.

“You can laugh about it a little bit now because we got the win,” he said, “but we won’t miss 22 again in a game.”

Fields was 5 for 13 from the line against Georgetown and 23 of 38 in the Big East Tournament. It was big dip for a career 73 percent free-throw shooter who went 8 for 8 from the line in the win at Syracuse. Fields wasn’t alone. Sam Young was 3 for 8 and DeJuan Blair was 4 for 8 against Georgetown. In the four Big East Tournament games, Pitt shot 59 percent from the line. The Panthers missed 53 free throws. Young said it must be corrected for the NCAAs. Pitt needed overtime against VCU last year because of late missed free throws. The Big East semifinal game with Louisville also went to OT due to missed chances.

Please, please, please do better. My blood pressure would appreciate it.

Don’t forget, Dennis has set up the 2008 Pitt Blather Bracket Challenge. Follow the link to the information to join Pitt Blather’s bracket.

I think I would prefer more doubters like Grant Wahl at SI.com.

Bracket buster: Oral Roberts. Scott Sutton‘s 13th-seeded Golden Eagles are playing in their third-consecutive NCAA tournament, and they’re blessed with more size than any other low- to mid-major, going 6-8, 6-9 and 6-10 on their starting front line. They will be taller up front than first-round foe Pittsburgh, which is riding high after its Big East tourney title, but for this game in Denver I’m predicting a repeat of what happened the last time Pitt went out west for the NCAAs and got knocked off in the first round (by Pacific in Boise in 2005).

Instead, it’s mostly positive stuff about Pitt.

SI.com: Who has the hardest road?

SD: Memphis, no doubt about it. Pittsburgh won four games in four days at the Big East tournament … clearly, with Levance Fields back, that’s a different team. Memphis will have to get past Pitt, then past Texas in Houston, where Texas has a home-court advantage — it will be burnt orange wall-to-wall.

Seth Davis also thought Pitt should have been a 3 seed.

What Pitt did in the Big East Tournament seems to have inflated lots of expectations. Bobby Knight isn’t the only one willing to predict Pitt in the Final Four.

Instead, I’m going with No. 4 seed Pittsburgh, which just battled through the Big East tournament to win the title at Madison Square Garden. The Panthers will bump free throw phobic Memphis and then Texas, if things play out according to my bracket plan, to join the three remaining top seeds in San Antonio. North Carolina, the top overall seed, takes UCLA in a classic title game.

While not predicting Pitt to win the South, Pitt is the “darkhorse” to come out of the bracket.

So how about Pittsburgh? A fourth seed isn’t that big of a dark horse, granted, but nobody from seeds 5-16 has a chance in this region.

Pitt is the hot “darkhorse” or “sleeper” team right now.

The Panthers are seeded No. 4, which is startling considering that they entered the Big East tournament last week as a No. 7 seed. But it would be hard to find a hotter team in the country than the Panthers, who became the second team in Big East tournament history to win four games in four nights. (A note of caution: the last team to do it, Syracuse in 2006, lost in the first round of the N.C.A.A. tournament.)

But the reason to be high on these Panthers is that they are finally healthy after the starting point guard Levance Fields came back from a broken foot. Sam Young has emerged as one of the country’s best players, and the freshman big man DaJuan Blair is no longer playing like a freshman.

I hate being the sexy pick. I’m not saying I want Pitt to be the team everyone is predicting to flame out in the first round, but it is a little too much. I worry about the players reading too many press clippings.
This breakdown of the 1st round game, is pretty good. And not just because they go with Pitt.

Pittsburgh game plan: The Panthers will look to wear down the Golden Eagles with their efficient offense. Though not an especially high-scoring team, Pitt can push the ball to negate ORU’s defensive style, create mismatches in transition and ultimately tire out the Golden Eagles. Also, forwards Sam Young and DeJuan Blair must establish themselves on the glass.

Oral Roberts game plan: ORU wins with defense – it held opponents to 39.7 percent field-goal shooting this season. It has a pair of shot blockers in Shawn King and Yemi Ogunoye and quick-footed guards who make teams work for every point. By slowing things down, ORU might keep the game close enough at the end for guard Robert Jarvis to take over.

Jarvis generally comes off the bench, but is their leading scorer.

This story from the Tulsa paper has the Golden Eagles poor mouthing their chances.

“They’re athletic, they play hard and they play great as a team. There’s no one man. You can’t just stop one man and expect to win,” said ORU senior guard Yemi Ogunoye. “They’re playing great toward the end of the season. They’ve got all the confidence in the world right now. It’s gonna be tough for us to come out and win. Everything has to be be on that night for us,” Ogunoye said.

But it was hard to dampen the Eagles’ enthusiasm after receiving their highest seed in their three consecutive years of qualifying in the tournament.

“We’re making progress,” said senior guard Moses Ehambe. “Two years ago, a 16 seed. Last year, 14, and now a 13. So we’re taking steps up. Pittsburgh is a physical team, but I believe if we go out there and play hard and play our signature (defense), we’ll be all right.”

Worth noting that ORU is a bad free throw shooting team. Only 67%. Granted I would kill for that after what Pitt did in the last couple games of the BET, but I’m hoping the team is over those yips.

Here’s another capsule collection of the teams.

Finally a couple of the Colorado papers look at the teams coming to Denver here and here. Nothing too important.