Any doubt ESPN may have had for signing Bob Knight to whatever amount they paid, has to be gone. While we keep watching, hoping, that he at least goes on a blue streak that gets a sustained bleep as if he were off camera — this and this are positively brilliant — people remain riveted to what he is saying.

He goes off and picks Pitt to win the NCAA Tournament on the ESPN Selection show and everyone notices. Even the players and coach. I think Knight got a bit caught up with Pitt. He made his debut on ESPN and had to primarily focus on the Big East Tournament. Just a bit of myopia.

He’s sticking with Pitt, though.

“They really, really impressed me because they won that game with Georgetown in a way where they didn’t have to make a miracle shot, they didn’t have to come from behind to do it,” he said.

“Pittsburgh just manhandled ’em. Played them off the court, really. I’m still high on Georgetown. One game changes the tournament committee’s opinion, never mine, but I’ll get to the tournament committee in a minute.

“Pitt with [Levance] Fields, and [DeJuan] Blair and [Sam] Young inside are just tougher than hell, and [Jamie] Dixon is a tough coach that really works them hard and stays on them.”

He is impressed, too, with UCLA’s Ben Howland, Dixon’s former boss at Pittsburgh. And don’t tell Knight that some people are going to say Howland can’t win the big one if UCLA doesn’t win the title after consecutive trips to the Final Four.

“That’s bull . . .,” he said. “Just getting there is such a difficult proposition. You’ve got to win big ones to get there. Jesus, I wish people would spare me that.”

As for why Knight was doing an interview in the first place.

“Obviously, I’m getting paid to do this,” he said nicely.

Knight was in L.A. for a one-day whirlwind tour as a spokesman to promote DirecTV’s Mega March Madness package.

I love that package.

But Mike DeCourcy at the Sporting News, disagrees.

Hall of Fame coach Bob Knight anointed Pitt as his choice to win the NCAA title. That statement proves coaching basketball can be easier for some than analyzing it.

If Pitt were to win the title, it would be one of the shortest modern teams to do so. The Panthers start a 6-7 center (DeJuan Blair) and 6-6 power forward (Sam Young). They typically use one reserve big man who stands 6-8 (Tyrell Biggs).

Knight’s prediction writes a check Pitt’s team can’t cash. Pitt fans who’ve wondered why their team can’t get past the Sweet 16 — generally, it has been because the other teams were better — will point to Knight’s prediction and claim the Panthers underachieved.

Nope — it’s Knight who underachieved. His analysis has dropped to the level of his wardrobe.

Gee, and I just assumed the sweaters with the ESPN logo was because ESPN wouldn’t let Knight sell the ad-space to O’Reilly Auto parts.

This is a post I never expected to write. Definitely not something I want to write. Not now on the day of the NCAA Tourney. Not ever. This is the first time I have ever come across plagiarism.

One of the things I do regularly on this blog is aggregate Pitt content. Read and gather as much as I can then try and put it out there in a post with a common thread. Whether it is a game recap or a storyline that various media folk follow.

So, very late Sunday night/early Monday morning, I finally got to posting the various links I had gathered over the previous 24+ hours after Pitt won the Big East Tournament.

One of the links in that group was the short piece from Eric Hall at the Beaver County Times about how Dixon has earned and should stand alone from Ben Howland (EH-BCT). The time-stamp online was for 12:56 am on March 16.

On Monday afternoon, while gathering more stories I found this story from Dale Grndic on Scout.com (DG-S) which I just lumped in my tabs as “Dixon love” after a quick skim. That evening, when I had time to put together a new links round-up I took a closer look at the story and felt like I had already read it somewhere else.

I had.

EH-BCT:

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.

DG-S:

It’s been questioned several times this season, but the phrase “Howland-Dixon Era” for the Pitt men’s basketball program should finally be vanquished.

Jamie Dixon, deep into his fifth season at Pittsburgh (26-9), certainly should stand alone now. Sure, Ben Howland, his mentor, brought back the Panthers program. Dixon certainly maintained that high level from the outset, but this arguably has been his best season.

That’s better than reaching 31 wins in his first season, 2003-04, and better than the Sweet Sixteen performance last spring. Pitt’s 74-65 win against ninth-ranked Georgetown earned Dixon his first Big East title. Howland won one in 2002, but the Panthers didn’t have to go through what this season’s group has.

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 in itself and playing its best basketball heading into the NCAA Tournament.

EH-BCT:

Dixon managed to unite this team just before it was prepared to dissolve and just before the most imperative portion of the season was set to begin. His in-game moves, often criticized, were for the most part tremendous. He out-coached the likes of Rick Pitino and Tom Crean and John Thompson III.

It’s an impressive list. Those coaches have all been to the Final Four.

Dixon showed he’s worthy of being mentioned in the same sentence as those coaches.

He also proved mentioning Howland’s name in the same sentence isn’t necessary any more.

DG-S:

Pitt could have fallen apart completely, but Dixon wouldn’t let it. His in-game moves, often criticized, were for the most part tremendous. He out-coached Rick Pitino, Tom Crean and John Thompson III in a three-day span. That’s quite an accomplishment. Pitino has a national title on his resume, while Thompson III was in the Final Four last spring. Crean got there before as well.

However, Dixon’s name should be mentioned during any conversation about top basketball coaches in the NCAA. Howland is in that category as well, for getting Pitt its initial Big East title and two NCAA Sweet Sixteen appearances, as well as what he has accomplished at UCLA.

In case you hadn’t figured it out, the bold print are where the sentences are virtually identical.

This had me stunned. Frankly, I was hoping that there was some sort of mistake with the by-lines. Grndic has done freelance work for the BCT in the past, so maybe there was a mistake with that.

After all, Dale Grdnic has been a sports reporter on Pittsburgh sports for years. He has covered all the sports teams in Pittsburgh. He has written a book on the Steelers. He’s quality and his peers think well of him.

I fired off an e-mail to Eric Hall late Monday night and set about trying to find and e-mail for Dale Grndic’s. I didn’t get it until the next day around noon. By that time, I had already heard from Hall who confirmed it was his story and knew nothing about the Grdnic piece until I had sent him the link. He was very surprised.

I got a response from Mr. Grdnic shortly after I sent the e-mail. He asked me to call him to discuss it. I wasn’t able to make a phone call until Wednesday, shortly after 9 am. There was no denial.

So, yes. Dale Grdnic did commit plagiarism. The reason. The excuses. The justifications are ultimately irrelevant. It was done, and Mr. Grndic will have to own what he has done.

I take no pleasure in this. Frankly, there’s a significant part of me that wishes I hadn’t found this. It would have been easier. It also would have been easier to let it slide. It wouldn’t, however, have been right.

(more…)

AOL FanHouse did something similar to a “Choose Your Own Adventure”, but it was “Choose Your Own Cinderella Team”. Starting here and picking “Pay attention to the front of the jerseys” then “Pick a team with experience” followed by “You like a team that keeps coming back to the tournament”, you’re Cinderella option is Thursday’s opponent, Oral Roberts. Their experience-based preview is here.

Oral Roberts won’t be intimidated by the bright lights. They’ve done this. Sure, they get a very hot Pittsburgh team right now, but how many times have we watched the Big East tournament champion end up losing fairly early in the dance?

ORU has been to the tourney the previous three seasons as a 16 seed, then a 14 seed, and now a 13 seed this year. The “adventure” was fun and I thought was brilliantly done.

According to the Oral Roberts official site, their mascot is the Golden Eagles (changed from Titans in 1993). The name of the costumed mascot is Eli, both for it’s biblical meaning and it’s acronym: Education, Lifeskills, and Integrity. Um, maybe they need to add an ‘f’ for “fighter.” Eli found himself in a bit of a scuffle against the IUPUI Jaguar during the Summit League title game. Of course, like most things these days, it made it’s way onto YouTube.

The best Penguins blog on the web is The Pensblog. They say Pitt won’t win because of a tough first round draw.

What would Gary Roberts do? Probably play a solid 2-3 zone (“with man-to-man principles”)…

…by himself.

[Quick aside: Bill Raftery doesn’t just yell “onions” – he draws them.]

Chances are you probably saw or heard that Bob Knight picked Pitt to win it all. He also has reiterated it more than a few times on various SportsCenter segments that he’s sticking with them. If you missed it, the video is here.

TV coverage map for the afternoon time slot? Yes.

Just a final reminder about our Bracket Challenge. See if you can beat me (you will). Commenters, what’s the name of your bracket? Just so we all know.

Terrelle Pryor mania is over – and he’s attending “The University of Ohio State.”

I’ll be watching the game at the Pete tomorrow – you should too. If you’re a part of the “general public” then feel free to come.

Billy Donovan is a graduate of Providence and a legend there. Of course, even if Providence could somehow match the money he makes as coach at Florida, he’s not taking their vacant coaching job.

Just as Ohio State coach Thad Matta left his alma mater, Butler for the Xavier job, alumni ties only matter when the gig is better than the one you have. If the jobs are equal, then then money has to be better.

I mention this because the TCU job is now open. It’s not a particularly good job to take. It’s in the Mountain West. It’s behind everyone in the Big 12 and the school doesn’t put a lot into the program.

That doesn’t stop the silly talk.

He needs to go June Jones on Pitt coach Jamie Dixon.

Full-court press him. Money-whip him. Beg him. Make him an offer he finds himself unable to refuse because he has never seen that big of a number in front of that many zeroes. You know and I know you can afford it, Danny.

Of course, you are probably thinking: Why would Dixon leave Pitt, currently a No. 4 seed in the NCAA Tournament, for TCU, even with a truckload of cash for an incentive?

He is an alum, for starters. And he’s a beloved alum at that, responsible for “The Shot Heard Around The Southwest Conference.”

Dixon also wanted this job back when former AD Eric Hyman hired Dougherty. Oops. Yes, even from South Carolina, Hyman has to want a mulligan on what ultimately has to be chalked up as a monumental screw up.

The other thing is there is something a bit fishy about the whole Pitt situation because word always seems to be leaking about how unhappy this coach or that coach is there.

This is not to say Dixon is unhappy or eagerly awaiting a call from his former school. To get him to listen, to get him to consider jumping from a Big East power into an obvious rebuilding situation is going to take a lot of selling. And a lot of money.

I always love that. The presumption that a program that hasn’t really cared in quite some time, and has never spent the money will just change it’s mind and it happens.

Beyond that silliness is a simple reality of contingency planning from Dixon’s side of things. As the columnist points out, Dixon is a “beloved alum.” Dixon has also established himself as a top coach. To go completely cynical, if things were to suddenly go completely wrong and downhill over the next several years and Dixon found himself unemployed. Don’t you think TCU would still be happy to get him? A proven coach with a trackrecord of success and an alum from one of their best teams in the past 30 years?
Even if TCU found themselves with a successful coach in the intervening years, the nature of the business means that one would be moving on anyways. TCU is merely vital fallback/insurance for Dixon.

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.

Over at FanHouse, we did capsule previews of all the teams in the Field of 65. Here’s Oral Roberts. As noted, Scott Sutton is Oklahoma St. Coach Sean Sutton’s brother. That means he will get a full scouting report from someone who played against Pitt. Albeit, one that had Mike Cook still there.

On a personal night, one of my brother-in-law is a graduate of Oral Roberts. That’s plenty incentive to me for Pitt to win. Not that Jay cares that much. The wife is reasonably certain her brother doesn’t even realize ORU even won their conference.

Just a brief rewind, at the start of the BET, the log5 computations gave Pitt about a 3.1% chance of winning the BET.

The Pitt players aren’t worried about leaving it all behind in New York.

“This team will be ready,” said senior guard Ronald Ramon, who averaged 14.0 points per game in the Panthers’ four Big East tournament victories. “We got to come out and play hard, and play with the same focus we had at the Big East tournament. We need to just keep playing good basketball.”

Not at all.

“I’ve heard it a thousand times,” Pitt freshman center DeJuan Blair said, “and every time I heard it I said, ‘We’re not Syracuse.’ They probably just wanted to win the Big East. We’re looking for the national championship. Well, I’m looking for it. I’ve been in championships all my life. We have to stay hungry. The Big East, that is something we should have won. We just have to keep reaching.”

Coach Dixon isn’t backing away from his statements that Pitt is playing their best basketball. The players are with him on that.

“We won the Big East,” freshman center DeJuan Blair said. “But the best is yet to come.”

As for being a 4 seed, the team isn’t surprised and Coach Dixon isn’t going to complain about having to go out West — again.

Pitt is used to traveling west. The Panthers were sent to Boise, Idaho, in 2005, as a No. 9 seed for the first round (where they lost to Pacific) and were placed in the West Region last year in San Jose for the Sweet Sixteen as a No. 3 seed.

“We always seem to be out west,” coach Jamie Dixon said. “I always joke, ‘Do they know it’s Pittsburgh, Pa., or Pittsburg, Calif., without the ‘H’?”

Dixon isn’t concerned with the long trip. Pitt will fly to Denver on Tuesday and begin practicing for its seventh consecutive year in the NCAA Tournament.

“That’s just something that’s going to happen,” Dixon said. “When it gets down to it, they can’t satisfy everybody. That’s just the way it is. … Seven years ago, we stayed in Pittsburgh, and there was a huge uproar when that happened back then. Ever since, we’ve been making up for it.”

Dixon was on ESPN’s Mike & Mike this morning and repeated that theme when asked about being shipped out to Denver.

Kind of strange to read a columnist in Altoona write about Pitt needing to take another step in the NCAA Tournament.

Be ready.

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.

The Selection Show came and went without much surprise regarding Pitt. They fell in the 4/5 range that was expected and the biggest gripe right now is the location — our first (and second) round games are all the way out in Denver. The full bracket can be found here.

The top four seeds in our region, the South:

1. Memphis
2. Texas
3. Stanford
4. Pitt

Compared to the other regions, ours is not the hardest (East) nor the easiest (West).

The first game will be on Thursday, and game time is expected to be released tomorrow. Oral Roberts is the opponent — one of the most obscure and least-known teams in the field this year. Potential match ups down the road (should we win, of course) are interesting to look at:

1. The the second round we would face the (5)Michigan State vs (12)Temple winner. The quick thought is a Pitt-MSU meeting, but don’t put it past the Spartans to lose to Temple. If they can lose to Penn State, why not to a team that actually wins a few games?

2. Top seeded Memphis will likely await the winner of the Denver pod. So much has been made of “Calapari is a better coach than Dixon, we should have hired him” so how about settling it on the court. Memphis runs up and down the floor as fast as anyone, opposite of Pitt’s methodical and slower paced style.

Don’t get me wrong though, I haven’t forgot about Bradley and Pacific. Let’s get past Oral Roberts first.

The brackets are set so we might as well fill them ASAP. Like last year, the Pitt Blather bracket group will be on Yahoo. To join:

1) If you don’t already have a Yahoo account, sign up for one (easy and free)

2) Go here: http://tournament.fantasysports.yahoo.com/men/register/joingroup

3) Click join private group

The group ID is 67835 and the password is gopitt

If you somehow manage to crank out a perfect bracket, Yahoo will give you $5 million.

Interesting facts on filling out a perfect bracket:

— Because there are 64 games played in the tourney (including the play-in) and each game has two possible outcomes, there are 2⁶⁴ possible outcomes. That equals 18,446,744,073,709,551,616 (18.4 quintillion!) brackets you’d need to fill out to guarantee you get one perfectly correct.

— If every one of the 6.5 billion people on Earth filled out a bracket, the odds of someone (anyone!) achieving perfection are still slim to none.

So at 6pm on CBS the 2008 bracket will be unveiled. Prior to the Big East Tournament, Pitt was sitting around the 8/9 line. Four wins in four days has skyrocketed us up towards the 3/4/5/6 area. Some questions:

Who would you like to see in the first round?

Who do you think we should root against being matched up against?

Which #1 seed would you want to be in a region with?

Fans from around the country have been waiting for this night for a few months — now it’s here.

Feels good, huh?

Tyrell Biggs needs to be recognized for his job well done in the last two games. DeJuan Blair found himself sitting on the bench a lot and Biggs came in and saw many more minutes than he’s usually going to see. The last two games he’s played 31 and 23 minutes respectively, more than Blair has played each game. Last night he made both shots he took as well as grabbing 4 rebounds. Without role players who can come in and hold down the fort, any team is going to have trouble. Biggs came in, didn’t look too overwhelmed, and it was good to see him perform so well off the bench.

Levance Fields ran the offense last night as well as he has in a while. Along with his 10 points, he added 6 assists and only turned it over once. If you’re asking for anything more than your that from your PG, you might be a little crazy. Sure he struggled from the line but it’s excusable for one game.

The team free throw shooting was poor (50%) but instead how about we focus on the positive – we got to the line 44 (!) times. Georgetown? Nine times.

Ronald Ramon put up a game high 17 points (tied with Hibbert) and drove the lane for at least three or four of his field goals, something we’ve almost never seen from him. What possessed him to drive to the hoop might be mystery, but he did it well enough to score or at least get fouled.

How about Gil Brown? He played the game of his career to date and it’s been great to see how he’s progressed this year. After Cook and Fields went down he was thrown into he mix and saw big minutes but didn’t look so comfortable. Now he looks like he’s found his spot and knows where to fit in. And damn, can he jump out of the gym or what?

Sam Young, thank you for playing defense. Three blocked shots including the early one on Roy Hibbert. Pitt thrives on emotion (what team doesn’t?) and when he pinned the ball against the backboard it got the entire team pumped up. Add the great job he’s done on offense the last four nights and Young got the well-deserved MVP. It seemed like more recently he’s been into the game the whole time, always alert even if he doesn’t touch the ball every possession. It’s a welcomed change.

From what I could tell through the noise at Buffalo Wild Wings in Robinson, the Pitt fans were far better than the Georgetown fans at the Garden. Were there just more Pitt fans than Hoyas? Someone who was there in person, let us know. The ESPN cameras panned over the Pitt students at least five times, compared to the one times they showed a few Georgetown fans. MSG really is our second home (and we went 6-0 in games there this year).

Talk about a physical game, this was it. This is classic Big East basketball – tons of pounding around the hoop, five guys going up for a rebound at once, and hands and elbows being thrown everywhere. Thing is, in 75% of NCAA Tourney games, this kind of physicality isn’t going to be good for Pitt. If we get an ACC or Big XXII ref crew, we could be in for a long game. Fouls that are usually never called during conference games will be easy whistles in the tournament. And you thought Blair was in foul trouble enough already.

The brackets will be released in under 8 hours (holy crap, Selection Sunday came fast), and I think after beating three ranked teams in three days on a neutral court plus an RPI of 15, we shouldn’t be anything less than a 5 seed. Sure the committee could screw us and slot us as a 6, but anything worse than that shouldn’t even be in the question. Also, the feeling is nice to know we kept the Hoyas from getting a #1 seed.

Great night, great week. Congrats to our Big East champs.