Okay. It’s Saturday night. I’ve been watching college basketball since noon. I’ve been enjoying the appropriate adult beverages.  So, why not do a liveblog.

Tonight, the game airs on Fox Sports Pittsburgh, SNY and ESPN’s Full Court package.

Come back at 8:30 and Click Here

This will be another emotional road game tonight. It’s senior night for Seton Hall. Granted, they have only one senior, but he is a meaningful player.

“I haven’t really thought about it, no,” [Paul] Gause said of reflecting on his time in a Seton Hall uniform. “I’ve just been trying to focus on the next game, and when the season is over, I’ll reflect. But right now, I’m just trying to get as many wins as possible before I get out of here.”

To most teams, the NIT is nothing more than a consolation prize for not making the NCAA Tournament. In Seton Hall coach Bobby Gonzalez’s book, that’s usually what it is. But this season is different. He is realistic in knowing it’s a long shot for the Pirates (15-12, 6-9 Big East) to make a run to March Madness.

Which is why he’s fighting to make the NIT — in part to reward Gause, a player Gonzalez didn’t even recruit.

“Paul Gause was probably — for me — the key guy to inherit for this program,” Gonzalez said. “Paul (will) have his just due (Saturday night). Here’s a kid who’s moved ahead of Shaheen Holloway in terms of career steals. If we play enough games — and that’s another reason why I’m fighting for the NIT — and we can extend Paul Gause’s career, he might be able to catch Danny Callandrillo with the school’s all-time steals record.”

Gause is their best defensive player. He will be harassing Fields tonight.

The Pitt players are saying that they learned something valuable from the loss to Providence.

Sophomore center DeJuan Blair said the biggest key to the game will be matching Seton Hall’s energy level and desperation. That shouldn’t be hard considering the message the Panthers received after the Providence game.

“It was huge wake-up call,” Blair said. “We’re not going to let this one slip away from us. We just have to come in with hunger. We just weren’t Pitt [on Tuesday], and it showed. We just have to take every game like it’s our last. If we do that, we’ll be good.”

Freshman Ashton Gibbs was more blunt and specific about some of the problems.

“I don’t think some guys came to play, including me,” said Pitt guard Ashton Gibbs, who had a career-high 15 points in the game. “We were not as focused as we should have been.”
…
“Jumping to the ball,” said Gibbs, on what the Panthers stressed on defense in practice.

“There were a lot of situations where guys got beat and we didn’t help out. Our rotation was bad. So we stressed jumping to the ball and being down on defense and covering up.”

Yes, you know defense was a big focus this week after letting Providence get so many good looks, and convert them. Seton Hall’s coach is playing up the underdog role.

“They are a great, great team,” Seton Hall coach Bobby Gonzalez said. “It’s probably the worst thing that could possibly happen for us is they lost to Providence on Senior Night in an unbelievable atmosphere. Now, I’m not saying they would have come in and we could beat them anyway, but … to expect them to lose two in a row is probably highly unlikely.”

Seton Hall, which won Wednesday at South Florida, is 0-11 all-time against No. 1 teams.

Seton Hall sophomore guard Jeremy Hazell is the second-leading scorer in the Big East at 22.6 points per game, and junior guard Eugene Harvey is averaging 12.3 points and ranks fifth in the Big East at 4.8 assists per game.

Gonzalez expects his team to play relaxed.

“We have nothing to lose,” he said. “We don’t have enough to probably beat the elite teams, but at the same time, we can hang with almost anybody on a given night.

“There is a lot of unpredictability. There is some excitement when we go into games. If we make shots and our guards play really well, we can cause some problems for people. It’s a fun position to be in.”

All the attention seems to go to the Big Fella, is it hurting Sam Young and Levance Fields?

Pitt’s Levance Fields and Sam Young aren’t getting much Internet support in their bids to win national awards that appear to be more popularity contests than based on actual merit.

Fields, the nation’s leader in assist-to-turnover ratio, ranks 11th out of 19 finalists for the Bob Cousy Award with less than 2 percent of the vote. Among those ahead of Fields is junior Darren Duncan of Division II Merrimack College. Florida State’s Toney Douglas leads the voting, followed by Marquette’s Dominic James, who’s out for the season with a broken foot.

Young, one of 10 finalists for the Lowe’s Senior Class award for excellence on and off the court, has received three percent of the vote. Louisville’s Terrence Williams leads the Internet voting at 31 percent.

If you want to help, here’s the Lowe’s link and here’ the Cousy. I guess, part of the problem is Pitt isn’t doing much in the promotion. Marquette as an example has a direct link on their basketball page. I’m not seeing that for Pitt.

What do you mean Blair gets all the attention?

An interesting concern for the game, will be how well the Prudential Center floor can handle having the ice underneath. The Florida Panthers and New Jersey Devils play at 1pm. I know the technology is far different from years past, but the floor might be a bit slick tonight.

I mean, it would have been nice, but nothing has been accomplished yet.

A planned story was scrapped after Tuesday’s 81-73 upset loss at Providence. The magazine planned to do a lengthy story on the Panthers for early March and, according to Pitt media relations director Greg Hotchkiss, there was a “95 percent” chance it was going on the cover.

Pitt basketball has made regional covers of SI, but never the national release.

Not that there isn’t an excellent story on Sam Young to read. Sure there’s the usual stuff about his poetry, gymnastics and work ethic. Yet, this really fleshes things out a lot more including a quite a bit more insight into his generally loner stance.

Upon receiving his poetry assignment, Young doesn’t roll up his sleeves per se, but he locks in all the same. After spending nearly an hour staring at his computer screen, he has mustered just a few lines of verse, but they offer a window into how he views both the promise and perils of unfinished success:

Having yet to meet our potential, I love my team’s current credential
Not any team can do it; we fought in the fire to finally get to it
Pitt is on a mission and it’s no mystery, we only halfway done and already made history
We’re giving the university faith and gave hope to this town, it ain’t no way we can let them down

…

Yet, it is off the court where Young continues to make his biggest strides. These days he lets his playful side show more readily for his teammates, who still crack up when he does back-flips during practice or in his hotel room. He has even become something of a media darling. During a preseason photo shoot, Young picked up a sombrero and struck a goofy pose, and he hounded Greg Hotchkiss, Pittsburgh’s sports information director, for weeks until Hotchkiss got him a copy of the photo.

Even at a program that has long been defined by the hardscrabble ethos of the Steel City, Young has carved out a unique and lasting legacy. “We’re always going to use him as an example as a guy who improved and did it by working,” Dixon says. “Even today, I’ll ask the guys, who works the hardest in our drills? Who’s our best perimeter scorer? It’s always the same answer. It’s Sam.”

It’s well worth reading the whole thing.

Looks like the general view of the Providence loss, is indeed along the lines of, “these things happen.”

Just looking at a couple power rankings and Pitt only drops to #2 in both the FoxSports and Luke Winn’s at SI.com.

The term “consistency” gets thrown around by every coach and commentator, but there’s actually a stat to measure it on Ken Pomeroy‘s ratings site. There, consistency is determined by the standard deviation of a team’s scoring margin, and Pomeroy says, “Highly rated teams that are inconsistent [statistically] tend to look beatable more often.” While Pitt won’t hold on to No. 1 this week because of Tuesday’s loss at Providence, Panthers fans can take solace in the fact their team is at least the most consistent (or least vulnerable) of the top eight in our Power Rankings…

Kind of weird. It’s almost like the punditry might be giving Pitt some real respect or something.

And with the way the #1 ranking has been passed around like a hot potato, it seems like it is hard to hold it against Pitt this year.

Seth Davis at SI.com lists Coach Dixon as his second choice for coach of the year.

Coach Wannstedt did a Q&A with Brian Bennett at ESPN.com. Most of the conversation centered around the offense.

Let’s talk about your quarterback situation. Is Bill Stull still your starter, or will there be an open competition this spring?

DW: Billy is going to be our starter. We went 9-3 in the regular season with Bill Stull. It was the best record that Pitt’s had since Dan Marino was here. So people have a tendency to lose sight of that a little bit, too, because of the bowl game. Now, did Billy play at a level that we need him to play at to win a championship? No. Can he get better? Yes. He understands that.

Pat Bostick is looking for an opportunity, Tino Sunseri is looking for an opportunity and we have Greg Cross on our team, he’s looking for an opportunity. So I think that with a new quarterback coach coming in, a new offensive coordinator, it’s going to create a real natural sense of urgency on offense in addition to the quarterback position, which I think will be healthy.

All three quarterbacks will get equal opportunities in practice and scrimmage situations and we’ll see how it unfolds. I think we know these kids well enough that we can expect someone to surface and we can hang our hat on someone and say, “OK, this is the way we’re going into the fall.”

So Stull is the starter, but the other three quarterbacks will get equal opportunities — to be the back-up? Whee.

I can’t say I’m really surprised by this. Coach Wannstedt is not going to open up the QB competition. Like a starter doesn’t lose his job to injury, a position doesn’t re-open just because the OC is new.

Wannstedt seems very high on Dan Mason, even suggesting he could make the two-deep as a freshman. Not too surprising, I suppose given the depth issues at linebacker.

He also talks a little about LeSean McCoy going pro. According to Mel Kiper (Insider subs), he sees McCoy falling to the start of the second round (but the 3d back taken).

No one in this group comes remotely close to the talent and depth we had at this spot last year. I expect only two running backs, Ohio State’s Chris “Beanie” Wells and Georgia’s Knowshon Moreno, to go off the board in the first round. They probably won’t be selected until the mid-to-late portion of that round.

Pitt’s LeSean McCoy has first-round ability but more than likely won’t come off the board until the second round. That’s the same scenario I see for Connecticut’s Donald Brown, who could end up being one of the more productive rookie running backs in the NFL because of his all-around skills and tremendous character.

He puts Conredge Collins at the top of the fullback list.

Although this position basically has been phased out in the NFL, I like several prospects, beginning with Pitt’s versatile Conredge Collins and LSU’s experienced and highly skilled lead blocker Quinn Johnson.

Over on defense, he sees Scott McKillop going sometime in day two.

Dear god, I think some of the local sportswriters have lost their mind.

The Trib’s John Grupp speaks to a sports psychologist to confirm that being #1 was an impact and effect on the team against Providence.

“It is inevitable,” Dr. Todd Kays said, “that you are going to be aware of it.”

Pitt, which has thrived in the underdog role in recent years, fell at Providence, 81-73, on Tuesday night, one day after being voted as the No. 1 team in the nation.

That means the Panthers are 23-1 this season when someone is ranked ahead of them and 2-2 when they’re the team to beat.

Kays, president of the Athletic Mind Institute in Columbus, Ohio, said the best intentions are overwhelmed by the pressures of being No. 1. There is virtually nothing an athlete can do to neutralize it.

“As much as athletes say they want to stay humble, you can’t help but get exposed to that,” Kays said. “Everyone (is telling them) they are No. 1. On campus, in the newspapers, on the Internet, on ESPN. As much as they try to get away from that, they inevitably can not. … It’s an external factor over which you have no control.”

Doomed. Doomed do you hear me. Then he lets loose with the nugget at the end that he expects Pitt will be much better Saturday night. Geez. I actually think sports psychology can be incredibly helpful and works for individuals. This is just generalities that any armchair analyst would toss out, dressed up with a Ph.d.

Speaking of cliched generalities, how about another article about how Blair needs to stay out of foul trouble.

In Pitt’s three losses this season, sophomore center DeJuan Blair averaged 11.0 points, 8.7 rebounds and 24.3 minutes a game.

Compare that with Blair’s season averages of 15.9 points, 12.9 rebounds and 26.4 minutes.

Blair fouled out in 30 minutes in Tuesday’s 81-73 upset loss at Providence, and he needed only 20 minutes to foul out in a 69-63 loss at Louisville last month. He racked up four fouls in 23 minutes in Pitt’s 67-57 loss at Villanova.

You can rationalize Pitt’s three losses ad infinitum, but even good teams are capable of playing bad games.

If Blair can stay out of foul trouble, there’s no telling how far Pitt can go in the NCAA Tournament. With Blair in the lineup, the Panthers can win it all.

…

Former sports journalist Dave Heeren has written several books based on his Tendex point-per-minute rating system, and he has scouted for half of the teams in the NBA. He’s the Bill James of basketball.

Heeren ranks Blair as the third-best player in the country, behind Oklahoma sophomore Blake Griffin and Arizona State sophomore James Harden.

“Pittsburgh has a good chance to win the NCAA Tournament,” Heeren said. “The Panthers are very similar to Oklahoma, with one great player and a lot of good complementary players. However, Blair is going to have to start playing big minutes down the stretch. If Blair averaged 32 minutes, as Griffin has been doing, he’d be averaging 20 points and 16 rebounds per game, with more than seven offensive boards.

“Do I think Blair is as good as Griffin? Griffin is the target of every defense, plays many more minutes than Blair, has a better handle and more shooting range. Even so, Blair is a heck of a rebounder, should be right up there with Griffin and Harden. It’s hard to deny Blair should be No. 3 behind these two.”

Really what that says is that it isn’t the minutes Blair plays in a game, it’s the impact while he is in there. Against Providence, he played poorly. Five turnovers, with three of them coming early in the game and creating visible frustration that took him completely out of his game.

To repeat, he played 30 minutes in the game. He had only 1 foul in the first half. That first foul came in frustration and led Dixon to yank him for a bit to try and settle him. Blair played a bad game. It wasn’t fouls, it wasn’t the officiating. It was Blair being completely unfocused. The most disturbing sight came when he went for a shot fakes by Kale out on the perimeter. Kale has attempted only three 3s this season and missed them all. Yet, Blair jumped. As a player would if it was Blair, you let them take that shot if they dare. If he makes it, so be it, but you take that chance rather than give him a passing lane or simply an easy move to the basket.

Blair, simply put, had a lousy game and let himself get frustrated by it. The cheap fouls (and yes the non-contact foul) happen (just ask Hasheem Thabeet and Jim Calhoun about that 4th foul).  Of course teams are going to try and go at Blair to draw fouls. Some of that is on Blair to be in better defensive position, and some is on his teammates to do a better job of keeping attacking guards and forwards from getting past them to go right into Blair.

The latter is very important. Just look at UConn a bit. Thabeet doesn’t get in foul trouble because he does take good positions and the UConn perimeter defenders don’t let the attackers get right past them. They funnel them and keep them from getting at a bad angle on Thabeet most of the time.

To DeJuan Blair’s credit, he seems to be acknowledging that his own play in the game was a big problem.

“I learned that if you’re selfish and don’t play defense and don’t play hard, then you’ll [lose],” sophomore center DeJuan Blair said.

The 81-73 setback was unlike the first two losses of the season at Louisville and Villanova. Pitt played well in those two games and led before foul trouble forced the Panthers to play in a different manner.

Pitt never had a lead against Providence. For the first time this season there were no easy excuses to explain away the outcome. Foul trouble had nothing to do with Pitt trailing by 18 points at halftime. The officials had nothing to do with Providence easily solving Pitt’s defense or the Panthers’ carelessness on offense that led to 18 uncharacteristic turnovers.

Riding high after ascending to No. 1 in the polls for the second time this season, the Panthers were delivered a wake-up call from the Friars. A loud and authoritative wake-up call.

“Hopefully, this is the loss we needed going into March,” Blair said.

From start to finish it was a thorough beating, and the only finger-pointing by the Panthers afterward was inward.

“We didn’t play well and they did,” Pitt coach Jamie Dixon said. “As I told our guys, the score was very indicative of that. We got beat. It was on us. We take responsibility.”

Just regroup and get ready to take some frustration out on the Pirates

If you know your Pitt basketball, then you know that Pitt has never won more than two games in the NCAA Tournament. In modern parlance that has meant not getting past the Sweet 16. In the early-70s, Pitt couldn’t get past the Elite 8.

Well, Pitt Blather made it into the Elite Eight of the Pittsburgh Sports Blog Tournament. I’m not optimistic as Blather goes against the strongest #1 seed out there in Mondesi’s House.

I’m not claiming any relation or tie-in to how deep the Pitt basketball team will go in March, but does anyone want to really take that chance?

Let’s just get this done.

On the bright side for the Big East, Providence is back on the bubble.

A night of magic for the Friar side.

Could it get any better for the Friars than Tuesday night?

Not really.

It was a Friar fantasy sprung to life, the kind of night that was promised last April when new coach Keno Davis was introduced, the symbolic start of a new era in Providence College basketball. The kind of night when the building is buzzing and it can get so loud you think the next Friar 3-pointer is going to rip the roof right off the building.

It’s the script Providence College was built on, the little school that defied all of the odds, the little school that always would find a way to knock off the big-time team that came to town, the Friars as a basketball dragon slayer.

Yada, yada, yada.

The big theme from Providence was that it was a night the seniors on Providence made things happen.

All season, and perhaps through the previous three seasons as well, the players at the core of the Providence College basketball program have come tantalizingly close to the type of upset win that would make the college basketball world stand up and take notice.

Tuesday night, with their backs fully pressed against the wall, they finally came through.

Especially the big men going against DeJuan Blair.

For those first 20 minutes, the 6-8 Kale was dominant, grabbing several balls over Blair on defense and stuffing down powerful dunks on offense. He punctuated some of his more impressive moments with motions to the crowd, whooping and raising his arms, urging the Friar faithful to get to their feet.

Kale said the Friars just wanted to keep the pressure on Blair at all times, and they did.

“We just wanted to keep a body on him, contest his shots, limit his rebounds. Make sure someone was putting pressure on him at all times. He’s so physical, he’s so strong, he tries to move guys. We just wanted to make sure that we crowded him, make things tough on him,” Kale said.

When Kale was out of the game, Randall Hanke replaced him, and Blair was able to get some traction on offense against the wiry 6-11 Hanke. But Hanke’s quickness forced Blair to compensate on defense, and the Pitt center drew two fouls in 15 seconds while defending against Hanke’s moves. That gave Blair four for the game, and sent Pittsburgh’s big man to the bench.

Hanke said he knew Blair was already in foul trouble, and consciously tried to see if he could push him into further danger by making strong moves to the basket.

Aggressive moves against, being out of position and late swipes by Blair will not add up to good work.

It really was the best game I’ve ever seen from Providence. And the Friar players don’t disagree.

“I think this is the most complete game, ever,” was the seal of approval Xavier (six points) placed on the monumental win. “We played together, everyone was picking up the slack; no one was going 1-on-1.”

Echoed Hanke: “We’ve shown flashes of the past (regarding the Friars’ potential), but we played together and did whatever it took. Everyone of these seniors played their role.”

After getting feted with flowers and framed jerseys, the Friars quickly checked their emotions at the locker room. Perhaps stunning Pittsburgh, who moved into the top spot on Monday, Providence stormed out to a 15-4 lead left the Panthers. The Friars penetrated the Panthers’ normally staunch defense with ease, attacking Pittsburgh’s low post with a series of dribble drive penetrations that produced easy buckets.

Desperation and seeing careers end without doing anything finally got through to them. Great timing.

It didn’t help that Pitt answered their intensity, desperation and effort with — well, blech.

“We played terrible,” sophomore center DeJuan Blair said. “We gave them the game.”

This loss was uncharacteristic of Pitt in many ways. Providence shredded the Pitt defense with mystifying ease. The Friars scored more points than any other team had this season against the Panthers and shot 49 percent from the field. The Panthers compounded that problem by turning the ball over 18 times and looking ragged on offense for long stretches of the contest.

“I didn’t recognize us,” Pitt coach Jamie Dixon said.

Join the club.

Another reminder that you don’t take anything for granted and you don’t presume you can turn it on and off.

“There is no one else to blame,” Jamie Dixon said.

Pitt trailed, 6-2, less than two minutes into the game, forcing Dixon to take a timeout. Three minutes later, Pitt trailed, 15-4.

Pitt trailed, 44-26, at halftime — its largest deficit at any point this season — and, 52-33, with 16:23 to play. But the Panthers went on a 9-0 run to pull to within 52-42 on Brad Wanamaker’s layup with 12 minutes left.

Blair picked up his third and fourth fouls in a 14-second span and sat for three minutes. Providence managed only one field goal in the final 6:20, but Pitt wasn’t able to pull off the comeback.

“I don’t know what happened in the first half,” Blair said. “The first half, we just played terrible. We dug ourselves a hole, and we couldn’t dig ourselves out.”

As expected, when you listened to ESPN analysis and anyone else, it was DeJuan Blair in foul trouble. Sure he fouled out. He also played 30 minutes and only had one foul in the first half when the Friars went up 18.

As I have said, this doesn’t take Pitt out of a #1 seed. Aside from Pitt, UConn, Oklahoma and UNC the other contenders for the #1 seed still are Duke, Memphis and maybe Michigan State. Two of those three will have to take it by winning their conference tournaments and having another top seed fail very early and badly. You might also put Louisville up there, but I don’t for a #1 seed.

The fact is, all teams are flawed and have a weak spot. Luke Winn makes this point and even goes through most of the issues for each team.

And while Louisville’s offense has been peaking in the past week and it may be the favorite to win the Big East regular season, the Cardinals did lose to Notre Dame — which might not even be an NCAA tournament team — by 33 points just two weeks ago. At the season’s outset, nearly everyone thought there was a perfect team. It was supposed to be North Carolina. Now there are none, and when brackets are filled in a few weeks, you’ll be forced to choose a champ whose flaws are the least troubling. Only if you worry most about whistles, you worry most about Pitt.

Really the theme generally for Pitt is, relax. These things really do happen quite a bit.

But the truth is all national champions go through this, often during the last week of February. It’s practically a rite of passage.

On February 26, 2006, Florida lost on the road to Alabama, a team that barely made the NCAA tournament as a 10-seed.

On February 24, 2007, Florida lost on the road to LSU, a team that didn’t even make the NCAA tournament.

On February 23, 2008, Kansas lost on the road to Oklahoma State, a team that didn’t even make the NCAA tournament.

Don’t fret too much about Pitt just yet. I’m not happy about it, and the performance made me ill.

Thanks to Rick for the bag.

There was nothing good about that loss other than Ashton Gibbs’ shooting. I don’t need to repeat all of that. A media recap will come later.

I’m going to chalk it up to Pitt having a really bad game. They happen in the course of the season. It is a reason for frustration but not panic. You would rather see them early rather than late, but definitely prefer it in the season to the post-season.

Pitt is still in fine position to claim a #1 seed in the NCAA Tournament.The room for a slip is now much smaller, but that is all. The team has to understand that in the final three games.

Not all computer numbers are necessarily updated, but rest assured Pitt will be in the top 3 or so in most computer rankings. In the RPI, Pitt still appears at the top.

Lets not be the signature win that Providence can claim puts them back in the bubble discussion. Take care of business tonight.

UPDATE: Pitt is crapping the bed. Down 44-26 at the half.

Pitt came out slow, sluggish and sloppy. Then it looked like Pitt was putting it together, getting it to 29-25 with 6+ minutes until the half. Then Providence went on a 17-1 run to the half.

Look, Pitt is playing horrible. No question. 10 turnovers. Only 3 assists (Fields has 0). A few shots haven’t fallen.

On the flip side, credit should be given to the Friars. They have moved the ball really, really well. 13 assists to 3 turnovers. We knew they could score and they are.

Pitt also getting beaten on the boards — 19-14. Pitt only has 1 point on second chances. Providence has 8. Those are effort things, and Pitt isn’t giving the effort while Providence is.

FINAL UPDATE: Well that sucked. A 81-73 loss.

It was frustrating as there were points where it looked like Pitt was snapping out of it. About to really turn it on as the game started getting close. And then…

Well, we can expect plenty of stories on how Pitt lost because Blair was in foul trouble. It must be so since he fouled out of the game. No. Not this time. Blair spent most of the first half, playing half-assed. It was as if he expected Providence to give him the room.

Not that he was the only one. Pitt played a stand-around game. Poor ball movement to go with the sloppy ball-handling.

With the exception of Ashton Gibbs, guard play was a complete wreck. Providence was playing a 2-3 zone, which means the guards have to shoot and make plays. Wanamaker looked like he had never seen a zone. Fields and Dixon just seemed disinterested. And Gilbert Brown reverted back to enigma status. I was most frustrated by that aspect.

The officiating sucked. No question, but Pitt did plenty to themselves to lose.

Credit, though, also has to be given to Providence for playing a great game. They made their shots. They were much more active. They did their thing. Pitt didn’t.

Lots that I have neglected on the football side (and from a time crunch POV, I am absolutely dreading when spring practice begins as I hope the basketball team will be taking up most of my focus). I’m just going to take care of some things that are worth noting.

The combine has taken place. LeSean McCoy had limited impact/attention as he had the flu and did very little there except probably spread the virus.

The interview process is dead, long-live the ambush questions.

“I’m loving it,” Rutgers receiver Kenny Britt said at Lucas Oil Stadium. “They all come with their own crazy ideas.” The strangest question, Britt said, was, “If you die, what kind of animal would you like to come back as: a cat or a dog?”

Rey Maualuga, a linebacker from Southern California with long, thick, dark hair, said a coach had asked him if he would “flip out” if he were told to cut his hair.

Scott McKillop, a linebacker from Pittsburgh, said he was discussing his mother when a scout suddenly blurted, “Have you ever smoked marijuana?”

Blue! No, ye—–llllloooooooowwwwww!!!!!!!!!

Strangely, the article never told us what the answers given to these questions were.

Scott McKillop didn’t create a lot of buzz, but that wasn’t surprising. He didn’t hurt his status either.

C.J. Davis was there to be considered as a Center. Again, a very quiet time for Davis. That’s not a bad thing. Most of the time, the news is usually for those that hurt their status than the few that jumped.

On the flip side, is the recruiting for 2010. There was the junior day stuff, but most of it is behind pay firewalls of the recruiting sites or on the message boards.

Pitt has one early verbal as the sibling thing paid off. Derrick Burns — Redshirt freshman RB Chris Burns’ little brother — gave his verbal.

The 5-foot-10, 195-pound Burns gave a verbal commitment to Pitt, becoming its first recruit from the Class of 2010 less than two weeks after Signing Day.

“I feel pretty honored that they would accept me,” said Burns, who was recruited by running backs coach David Walker. “I was shocked that they called me so soon. I just stood there. I had no reaction. I didn’t expect them to offer me that soon. I didn’t know that they were going to offer at all.”

A three-year starter at fullback and inside linebacker for the PIAA Class AA champion Greyhounds, he projects as a tailback, safety or outside linebacker in college.

Call it a hunch, but I’m guessing the plans are to put him on defense.

Coach Wannstedt loves to stockpile running backs, though. He also offered a RB from Virginia.

Broad Run junior running back T.J. Peeler picked up his first scholarship offer from the University of Pittsburgh after attending Pitt’s Junior Day.

Peeler, a 6-foot, 175-pound versatile back, rushed for 1,145 yards and scored 18 touchdowns despite playing in just 11 games — he missed three due to a small bone chip in his elbow — helped lead the Spartans to a perfect 14-0 season and the Virginia AA Division 4 state championship, the school’s first ever football title. Under the radar until the Spartans started to make their playoff push, Peeler has also drawn interest from Maryland and several other D-I programs.

“The coaches were all nice and I just felt really comfortable there,” Peeler said. “They were showing me around the whole city, the school, facilities, everything was nice. I talked to Coach Dave Wannstedt and he was telling me he was really interested in me and liked my tape and I don’t know, I just felt really comfortable.”

Peeler also managed to create an anti-highlight reel moment that will be hard to ever live down. Now, to be fair, he lives in Virginia and there was snow on the field. Something that most Virginians don’t quite know how to handle. Still at least it wasn’t grandstanding. Just not being able to see where the endzone actually was.

The next round of the great Pittsburgh Sports Blog Tournament is underway.

It’s the Sweet 16.

Don’t forget to vote.

Dave of Friars Blog contacted me about a good old-fashioned Q&A exchange ahead of tonight’s game.

You can read my responses to his questions here. The responses to my questions follows:

1. Defense? How’s that going?

We knew coming into the season that Keno Davis was going to run an up-tempo offense that would produce a lot of possessions. So we knew a lot of points were going to be scored against us, but not like this. The top half of the league basically has scored at will against the Friar defense and its just maddening. PC’s man-to-man defense is simply not very good, so Keno is pretty much forced to use the matchup zone for most of the game. Well, that ain’t workin’ lately either, because team after team just gets completely wide open looks from behind the arc.

That’s why in my answers to your questions I joked about the only way for a Providence upset was for Blair to get into foul trouble. Obviously, any team can beat anyone if they have a blistering night from behind the arc. However, that potentially won’t matter — Providence made SEVENTEEN threes against Villanova, and STILL lost!

2. So, Providence had to “settle” on the 2008 national coach of the year, Keno Davis. How about a recap of the coaching search and tortured rejections that led to the hiring. How is everybody feeling about it now? Plus, why didn’t you just hire President Obama’s brother-in-law away from Brown? He could have been wearing a black-and-white striped scarf at the Inauguration for recruits to see.

What a roller coaster that was. First we had the low of a 6-12 season in the conference, followed by the high of firing Tim Welsh and thus having hope, which then led the embarrassment of getting rejected by several coaches. It felt like nobody wanted to coach us. It’s the BIG EAST damnit! I mean, someone willingly accepted the DePaul job. Thankfully, Keno Davis came along and Friartown was once again filled with hope and excitement.

As this season comes to an end, I think everyone is still on board with the direction Keno wants to take the team in. It’s hard to blame him for not getting this group of players who never been able to win to make a big leap. For next year, he has a lot of new faces coming in (2 JUCOS, 4 Freshman). Everyone is real excited to see what he can do with players that fit into his system. There may be some growing pains with the young team, but it will pay off.

As for Craig Robinson? Well, apparently PC needed more time to search, and Oregon State was able to offer him a job right away. I’m happy with Keno Davis though.

3. It seems that Providence has some good to very intriguing players, but they still haven’t seemed to connect as a team — Brooks, McDermott, Curry, Xavier and Efejuku. Is this a lingering effect of the Welsh era, does this go back to just wanting to run and not play defense, or is it something else and I’m oversimplifying?

It’s a complete enigma. Most of these players (McDermott, Efejuku, Hanke, Kale, and Curry) have been STARTING with each other for the past FOUR seasons. You would think they would have had time to gel and play better as a whole. I think part of the problem is that they got so much time as Freshman and showed such promise, that we gave them too great expectations. Curry has been the one who has showed the most consistent improvement as his career progressed (thankfully he’s coming back next year). Jonathan Kale has surprised and has come on real strong for his senior season. However, some of the other players have just been asked to do too much — McDermott is a great rebounder, but is extremely limited on offense and breaks down at the end of each season due to a bad knee. Xavier is a one dimensional offensive player. Efejuku has been dominant at times this season, but other times just coasts along. Hopefully it all comes together tonight, because it’s SENIOR NIGHT for all of them! While it’s disappointing this group hasn’t won as many games as one would like, I would want nothing more than to see them close out their career at THE DUNK with a victory over a #1.

4. Will there ever be a Big East commissh that isn’t tied directly to the Friars?

Just for asking that, the BIG EAST office has dispatched two goons over to your location to go stab you.

5. Which team will make the NCAA Tournament first and why: Providence, St. John’s or Seton Hall?

I’m going to be a homer and say Providence. St. John’s is well, St. John’s. Seton Hall has actually been to the tourney most recently (2006) — Can my reason for them not making the tournament first be because Bobby Gonzalez is a d-bag? Besides, why would top players from NJ pick Seton Hall, when they can be coached into the ground by Fred Hill at Rutgers?

Game predictions you wish to make?

I have a weird feeling that it’s not going to be the blowout I initially thought…I think it’s only fitting if we keep it close for most of the game, with Pitt pulling ahead in the last few minutes. Pitt 82-78.

Thanks to Dave for taking the time and initiative on this. Hopefully the Friars will get a chance to win one game in the B ig East Tournament and make a nice showing in the NIT.

There is still this little thing called the game. It’s tonight. It’s at Providence. Frankly, I’m not sure of my status by then. There’s a hideous bug running through the household. It has laid-out everyone in its path, and I’m next. I’m just trying to get stuff done before I end up passed out on the bathroom floor.

Later today, I’ll have the results of a Q&A with Friarsblog.com.

For Providence, it is about facing the #1 team.  A team that sure seems scary when someone else writes about them.

No one seems to be giving Providence much of a chance despite being above .500 in the conference. Perhaps that is because they just have won and lost the games that were expected.

Throughout the Big East schedule, the Friars have fought through a remarkably predictable, and frustrating, series of results. Providence has beaten the teams it’s supposed to beat and has lost to the teams that are rated higher. The lone exception was an upset of No. 15 Syracuse last month.

Throw out that win over the Orange and the Friars haven’t surprised anyone else. They certainly threw scares into both Marquette and Villanova, but couldn’t close the door in either game. An opportunity to beat back a surging Notre Dame team on Saturday was also lost with the Irish draining 13 3-pointers and running past the Friars, 103-84.

The problem is that if PC continues to follow this expected form, the Friars’ season will end in three weeks without an NCAA Tournament berth. Even a spot in the National Invitation Tournament is far from assured.

Asked about his teams’ inability to spring another major upset, especially on its home court, coach Keno Davis agreed that the season has played out unconventionally.

“It’s easy to go through your schedule and say these are the games you should win and these are the games you’re probably going to lose. It rarely works out that way,” the first-year PC coach said. “It just for some reason has for us this year.”

Just one of those oddities of absolutely no oddity.

It’s senior night for the Friars. Time to honor some players that have shown flashes individually, but never put it together as a team.

The point is, you can make a case for all of them individually.

But collectively?

Collectively, it gets more complicated.

Their legacy figures to be that they underachieved.

But is that accurate?

You look at some of the individual seniors — Efejuku and McDermott — and I can’t help but think that they have been players that most teams would want to have. McDermott has battled against bigs his whole career in the Big East and held his own. Efejuku can be inconsistent, but so clearly has some talent. Same with a junior like Sharaud Curry.

Back to Pitt, is it any surprise that part of how Sam Young snapped out of his slump was to hit the gym a little harder.

So when Young went 2 for 11 from the field against Notre Dame on Jan. 31 to prolong a two-week slump, you knew where to find him. At Petersen Events Center, morning, afternoon and night.

It’s no surprise Young is shooting 60.6 percent from the field in the past six games.

Young was asked how he made the turnaround. He gave an answer training camp football fans will appreciate: “Three-a-days,” he said.

As long as the knees stay strong.

Perhaps a bit of an overstatement, but the players see it correctly.

Senior guard Levance Fields added: “It is a compliment to us, but I think this time around it is not as big as it was the first time. We had it already. It is a good thing, but we’re over that part of it because we went through that phase already, so now it is about finishing strong and getting ready for March.”

In part because they already had confidnce in how they were playing.

“I think in our minds,” Sam Young said, “we were already No. 1 before yesterday.”

Added senior Tyrell Biggs: “We know that we’re No. 1.”

Not that Coach Dixon isn’t proud of his team and what being #1 at this point means.

“I think later in the year it reflects more of a long-term accomplishment, more on what you have done almost the entire season because there’s not too many more polls left,” Panthers coach Jamie Dixon said.

Consider this. UNC held the top spot the longest, then it has been Wake Forest, Duke, UConn and Pitt all taking turns. Pitt is the only one to reclaim the #1 spot this year. The rest have all been or gotten to the top but not back at this point.

Some of that is obviously timing. Winning at the right time with teams in front losing. Still, it speaks to just how well Pitt has played all season.

That said, it is about getting that #1 seed for the NCAA Tournament. Aside from that, the only other time it really matters about having #1 next to the team name is after the Tournament ends.

Why is a top seed so important? Last season, all four No. 1 seeds made the Final Four for the first time since the bracket expanded to 64 teams in 1985, but even before that No. 1 seeds advanced to the national semifinals with greater frequency than any other seed.

But the top overall seed will help Pitt geographically. The Panthers will be the most protected team, meaning the NCAA Tournament selection committee will keep them as close to Pittsburgh as possible. That equals first- and second-round games in Dayton, Ohio, and regional games in Indianapolis. If Pitt isn’t the overall No. 1, they could be placed in any of the other three regionals — Boston, Memphis or Glendale, Ariz. — because of the other teams vying for No. 1 seeds, namely Michigan State and Memphis.

The Final Four, of course, is in Detroit, meaning the Panthers could play all their Tournament games within a six-hour drive of Pittsburgh.

I realize that more Pitt fans would show up in Philly and Boston, rather than Dayton and Indy. The flip side is that there will be less family and friend distractions. The philly kids wouldn’t be coming home. The NYC kids would not be dealing with as many making the trip down and up the Northeast (and ticket demands). Only Gary McGhee, as a Indiana native, would have the distractions.

In the end, the goal is clear from the head man down to the players.

“We need to win a national championship,” Pitt coach Jamie Dixon said last week. “That puts you on a different level. That separates you. We need to win one to put ourselves on the same level with those schools that have.”

It’s where we want to see Pitt.