I would have preferred a tepid “no comment” or the obvious lie of, “I’m not even thinking about that right now.” Instead, DeJuan Blair had to be too honest, too emotional, and provide too much to parse after accepting his co-Big East POY award.
“I want to stay at Pitt, just so everybody can say, ‘We loved him,'” Blair said. “It’s up in the air. It depends on this year. But I want to stay.”
Blair is a projected first-round draft pick, but he said his heart remains in the Steel City.
The 6-foot-7 sophomore center said the ceremony last week to retire Brandin Knight’s jersey got him thinking about his legacy at Pitt. Knight, a Pitt assistant coach and former All-America point guard, is one of only four Pitt players to have his number retired.
“I want my jersey to be retired like Brandin,” Blair said. “That’s an inspiration to look up and see your jersey every day. Just to stay and be loved in Pittsburgh. … I’m always going to come back. I’m always going to be here.
“We’re going to see how it goes.”
As I said when McCoy made his declarations of coming back, I’m not holding him to it. There’s nothing to hold him to.
I have no doubt he loves it at Pitt. I have no doubt he knows all about the possibilities of legacies and all those things. I also know the money is out there and that the NBA is another league heading for a major economic shake-up.
My hope is that he leaves, because he can stand up at a press conference and declare that he has accomplished everything he wanted at Pitt — including that trip to the White House.
At the very least, he will be going through the draft evaluation this year.
As for the co-Big East POY award and sharing it with Hasheem Thabeet.
Not that Blair believes it should be that way.
When asked if he was OK sharing the award, Blair said: “What do y’all think?”
His smile said the rest.
Few people seem to get how Thabeet got as many votes. All BE Commish Mike Tranghese has said is that it was one of the closest votes ever, and that five players received 1st place votes.
Coaches were not allowed to vote for their own players and had to submit their ballots Friday, the day before Pitt beat Connecticut for the second time this season.
Pitt coach Jamie Dixon declined to reveal his ballot but said he factored in which player led the regular-season champion.
“I always try to pick a guy from the team that won it,” he said. “I had (Louisville senior Terrence) Williams up there.”
For Blair, it was probably best, that the voting had to be in early. Sam Young and Terrence Williams both came up with big games for their teams.
