I thought Ray Fittipaldo made a great point when asked about DeJuan Blair’s chances to be the National Player of the Year instead of the de facto choice of Blake Griffin.

If I’m a Pitt fan I pray that Griffin gets national player of the year honors and then has to face Blair in the Elite Eight or Final Four. Chances are, Blair will use that as motivational material and have a monster game against Griffin. He’s done it against every big-name player he has played against this season. Georgetown’s Greg Monroe was getting tons of attention as one of the top freshmen in the country at the time Pitt played Georgetown. Blair went off on Monroe and dominated the game. When Pitt played Notre Dame, Harangody was the reigning Big East player of the year. He used that as motivation and put up 20 and 20 on him. Then he did the same to Thabeet, who had been among the favorites for Big East player of the year and was being promoted by Jim Calhoun for national player of the year.

This is what so many great players do. They look for motivation from any perceived slights and then back it up.

Still at least one writer in Utah is feeling the allure of Blair for POY.

By the way, it seems that whatever Jim Calhoun hoped to accomplish after Pitt beat UConn, plenty in the media have been unimpressed.

I was interested to hear your reaction to Jim Calhoun’s postgame press conference after the UConn-Pitt game. Do you think it was him shamelessly trying to influence how the refs call the game the next time these two teams play? Seems to me it speaks volumes about Calhoun that he’d revert to such a cheap and classless ploy when his team is already one of the most talented in the country.
— Jamie DeFrank, Washington, D.C.

I was standing in the back of the room during Calhoun’s rant, so my primary reaction was to bite my lip to keep from cracking up. I had this vision of me busting out laughing and Calhoun charging me the way John Cheney once charged at John Calipari. It is no secret that Calhoun is, shall we say, not renowned for showing excessive grace in the face of a difficult loss. (His blow-by of Gonzaga coach Mark Few during the postgame handshake following the Zags’ overtime win over UConn in Boston two years ago is a classic.) So I was more amused than surprised to hear Calhoun go off on the officiating the way he did on Monday night.

Still, Calhoun’s tirade was clearly inappropriate and more than a little unfair. Yes, it was a physical game, but it’s hard to argue either team was granted an advantage. After all, Calhoun’s own Huskies have built their success this season around the brute inside muscle provided by Hasheem Thabeet and Jeff Adrien. There’s no doubt the whistle Mike Kitts blew to give Thabeet his fourth foul was a bad call, but Thabeet had been largely ineffective in the game to that point. If that call hadn’t been made, he could have very well committed his fourth soon after. That call was a big play, but it did not decide the game.

It may be granting Calhoun a little too much credit to say he was making a calculated move to influence the way the game would be called next time around. I tend to think he was blowing off steam (and you have to at least give him credit for being honest). But you can be sure there were plenty of follow-up conversations between Calhoun and the league office, just as I’m sure there will be plenty more before the next game between these two teams. I’d caution Calhoun to be careful what he wishes for, however. If the next UConn-Pitt game is called much tighter, more than a few of those calls will go against the Huskies.

Just as long as Jim Burr isn’t officiating the game on March 7. This article while praising Blair, questions Pitt without him. It makes an interesting observation.

Keep in mind, it isn’t a particular kind of player that seems to bother Blair—Louisville has a muscular post presence in Samardo Samuels, while Villanova has more of a versatile center in Dante Cunningham. Rutgers center Hamady Ndiaye is a poor man’s Thabeet. Florida State Center Solomon Alabi has a classic center build: 7-foot-1, 241 pounds.

However, in three of these four games, Jim Burr was one of the officials. It doesn’t seem coincidental—Burr likes to keep close tabs on the inside jockeying for position.

Burr has been one of the worst refs to see when Pitt plays. He favors guard play, and hates banging inside. I didn’t realize that Burr had been reffing 3 of the 4 games. Yeesh.