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.