Ultimately, Pitt still cruised to a 74-60 win, but there are worries.

So, which of the Big Three for Pitt can the team least afford to lose?

To be undermanned on the front line isn’t something the Panthers can easily rebound from. Not planning to be without Blair may be a chance they can’t afford to take.

“He’s a great presence,” Young said. “When he’s out, it’s taking away from our team.

“When he’s out, you don’t know what the guy next to him is going to bring.”

That next guy may not be McGhee, and more due to ineffectiveness than injury. Biggs, if he can stay out of foul trouble, is probably Blair’s new backup, a difficult situation made only slightly easier with the return of Gilbert Brown from a foot injury (Brown can play the swing position, moving Young to the four and Biggs underneath).

While what happens without Blair is primarily uncertain — the confusion Tuesday was evident — this much isn’t hard to figure: Blair, not Fields, not Young, is the Panthers’ most important player.

“We had to play it by ear today,” Dixon admitted.

That doesn’t happen if anyone else is out of the lineup. Dixon always has a backup and a backup plan.

He’ll work on getting both even before he hears back from those X-rays.

My answer to which player? Yes. They are all extremely valuable and if any of them are suddenly unavailable, Pitt will struggle with the loss. That’s what happened last night.

“We erred on the side of caution,” Pitt coach Jamie Dixon said.

Dixon said he learned at 6 p.m. — an hour before tipoff — that Blair wouldn’t be available. Blair, who felt no pain and told coaches he wanted to play, underwent an MRI on Tuesday afternoon and is scheduled to have an X-ray today. By all indications, the injury is not serious (Dixon said afterward that many coaches would probably have played Blair in a similar situation).

Blair is expected to be available when Pitt meets Texas Tech on Friday in Newark, N.J. in the semifinals of the 2008 Legends Classic.

“He said that he is going to practice (Wednesday),” Dixon said.

That meant no preparation or practice for the whole team. No chance to really get Biggs and McGhee mentally as much as anything else ready to go and play big minutes in the forward-center spots. It didn’t help that McGhee turned his ankle in the game and further limited what there was inside. Biggs had one of his games where he couldn’t avoid the cheap fouls.

So, Pitt was struggling with rebounding. An initial struggle with rebounding, then getting it better, but ultimately Pitt was outrebounded 44-34. The absurd 25-5 offensive rebounding edge for Belmont, though is arguably mitigated by the fact that Pitt shot 62% — only missing 17 shots on the night (28-45) — while Belmont was locked down by the perimeter defense so they shot 21-73. So yeah, miss a crap load of shots, you are going to have more offensive rebounds strictly on volume, volume, volume.

Sam Young was the story otherwise.

It was his most prolific game in a Pitt uniform and the most points by a Pitt player since Ricardo Greer had 33 in a game at Syracuse in February 2000.

“I always like to take on the challenge of taking over a game,” said Young, whose previous high was 28 last season against St. John’s.

A slow start that got scorching as he finished with 33 points on 13-17 shooting along with 7 rebounds. Really, if you want to nitpick, the downside was he could have had more but for the 5-10 free throw shooting.

The good news was that Gilbert Brown returned to action in the game. He didn’t exactly comeback on fire. He had 2 points, but 0 baskets on 3 shots. He had 4 rebounds, a block and an assist. He also had 3 turnovers in 15 minutes.

The holding out of Blair was the smart move. It’s always scary when a player has knee issues flaring. Especially one that has had surgery on both knees. Hopefully the medical exams will come back clean and it was just a little sore.