Awesome. CBS is sending Bill Raftery and Verne Lundquist up to Boston to continue stalking Pitt.

The truly obsessed and early arrivers can go watch Pitt practice on Wednesday from 2:10 – 3 pm at the TD Banknorth Garden. Xavier practices at noon.

For those who wish to make the argument or ask why other teams that struggled in the first or second round do not seem to be getting the same level of grief that Pitt has gotten. It is not some perceived disrespect. It is because Pitt struggled in both rounds.

The other teams in the Sweet Sixteen that were expected to contend for a national championship and did not blow out opponents in both games: Louisville, Michigan State, Memphis, Villanova, Duke and Oklahoma. They only had struggles in one game. You can argue fair or not. And I know that most Pitt fans feared the potential  Oklahoma State match-up far more than the Tennessee one because of the press and 4-guards. That just comes off as trying to justify and make excuses.

It’s unimportant. Pitt is in the Sweet Sixteen. It would have been nice to have done it with less drama, but teams that looked stronger than expected in the first round like Dayton, Maryland, Texas A&M, Wisconsin and UCLA are no longer playing.

All that matters is winning and moving on. Pitt has done that after the first weekend.

If you saw the first half of this game, you witnessed some amazing shooting from both teams. Of course if you wanted to see that glass as half-empty, I guess you could have called it poor defense–Bill Raftery quipped that both coaches must have signed a non-aggression pact. All during that time, however, the Panthers were also collecting offensive boards in bulk. They’ve been known to do that on occasion. The hero for Jamie Dixon’s team was Sam Young, who not only scored 32 points but also snagged five offensive boards. (He even recorded three blocks.) Right now Xavier coach Sean Miller is printing up T-shirts for his team: “Don’t Go for Young’s Shot Fake.”

Heck, right now, Pitt may be the heavy favorite to win on Thursday, but it is Villanova people love. Just like others are falling over themselves to jump back on the UConn bandwagon in the West bracket. It’s a weekend of perception. Lingering impressions of domination will do that.

Those who didn’t look closely, only took note of Sam Young’s awesome 32-point showing.

“I was hot,” said Young, who was 9-for-12 from the floor, including 3-for-6 on three-pointers, in the first half. “I felt like I’d be more aggressive.”

Pitt finally got OSU to cool off in the second half, limiting the Cowboys to 33.3-percent shooting. And although others may find fault with the Panthers’ performance in Dayton, don’t count Dixon among them.

“We had to find a way to beat a very good team on a good night, and we did,” Dixon said. “And we did it with rebounding and our toughness, and the defense really stepped up in the second half.”

And there is no question that Young was the headline for the game. He deserves a lot of love. When Sam Young is in a groove, he can take over a game and the offense really can fly.

What is important for the next game, though, is how Levance Fields looked.

2. Levance Fields has regained his pre-Big East tournament groove. Since injuring himself on Mar. 7 against Connecticut, the senior point has scored just six points in each of two games. But on Sunday, he went for 13 (three more than his season average) and added nine assists.

More importantly, he says he’s back to 100 percent health. He even indulged reporters after the game by running down a checklist of potential injuries that might be — but aren’t — bothering him. The finger he jammed seconds before the first half ended against OSU? “Aw, that’s nothing,” he said. Proof of that: he came back on the following possession to drain a three-pointer with three seconds left. He also went unaffected by a mid-court collision with Moses. (More on that later.) “And the other injury,” he joked afterward, meaning the groin tweak that’s been nagging him. “Nope. Not affecting me.”

Oh, and this is great.

From courtside, Fields’ second half collision with [Marshall] Moses looked a little fishy, particularly when Young leaned to the downed point guard’s level, whispered something, and came away smiling.

Afterward, Fields revealed how the exchange had gone. “[Sam] said, ‘You’re playing it up, right?’ ‘Yeah,’ I said. I was playing it up.” He added, “Someone probably should have warned me about that [pick]. Thank goodness I’m not the smallest guy in the league.”

Heh. Probably not as funny in Stillwater.

Coach Dixon acknowledged the importance of the game forFields.

Dixon said he just now is getting healthy again. “He didn’t practice for two weeks. He just started practicing again last week. Practice is important …

“This was a big game for Levance. He needed this, needed it for his confidence. We’re a different team when he plays like that.”

Fields had nine assists and just two turnovers. He set up Young for a 3-pointer that gave Pitt a 74-72 lead, then made a layup and a killer 3 to make the score 79-74.

“My coaches and teammates really believe in me and want me to have the ball with the game on the line,” Fields said. “There’s no greater feeling than knowing that. “

Of course, some people can only watch the game and think how next year those players won’t be there (sigh).

You know one of the nice things about heading to Boston for the regional? It means an old school hoop-head sportswriter in Bob Ryan is right there. He may be a general sports columnist, but his love has always been for basketball. He was in Dayton watching Pitt.

And then there’s Fields, a senior who’s on his last Panther roundup. He knows what the stakes are, too. But it’s been a long, tough road for the tank of a point guard, what with two injuries and a lot of frustrating recent moments on the floor.

With his team trailing by 1, he got into the lane and whipped a pass to his left to fellow senior Sam Young, who had kept the Panthers afloat in a wildly exciting first half (49-49) with 23 of his 32 points. Young drilled his fourth 3-pointer of the game.

A Marshall Moses follow-up tied it at 74 for the Cowboys. Fields has been battling a pulled groin, and he only had gone to the hoop with authority perhaps twice since arriving in Dayton. But now he decided the time had come and off he went, slicing in for a pretty lefty layup, plus free throw (which he missed). But Pitt never would trail again.

Oklahoma State’s James Anderson missed a three. On the ensuing Pitt possession, a second-chance deal, Dixon called time out with five seconds left on the shot clock, and what transpired was a coach’s dream. Young passed up a good shot to give Fields a better one, and Fields nailed a right-corner three.

“Two good players making a play,” Dixon said. “We always talk about the pass making the shooter, and that pass made the play.”

…

Blair finished with 10 points and 12 rebounds, but Oklahoma State accomplished its goal of neutralizing the frightening pivot force. Confronted with a constant front and back double team, he only took one shot in the first half.

It’s a pick-your-poison strategy, of course. The Cowboys had to hope no other Panther would, you know, go off. But Young did. This is a guy who has dropped 31 on UConn and who has an almost old-fashioned game that combines good open shooting with lots of neat ball fakes leading to artful banked floaters and the like. He knows what he’s doing. He’s got a retirement party face and he really does play as if someone gave him a waiver in order to have a 10-year college career.

“I was kind of piggy-backing off my last game,” he said with a shrug. “I was feeling good and I wanted to be aggressive.”

Pitt has made its way to Boston with a C-minus/D-plus game against East Tennessee State and a B/B-minus game against Oklahoma State. The Panthers have been turning it over too much, and that has to stop. But they are coming, and Dixon is not apologizing for anything he saw in Dayton.

“If you’re still alive, you’re playing good ball,” he insists. “Any coach will tell you that. But you can always get better, and any coach will tell you that.”

Fields seemed to be finding himself — or simply getting healthier — in the Oklahoma State game.

Fields admitted he didn’t play well in the Big East tournament against West Virginia, when he had an uncharacteristic five turnovers. He also wasn’t happy with his effort in the first round against East Tennessee State, which pressed Pitt into committing 18 turnovers in the near-upset. Oklahoma State forced two straight turnovers late in Sunday’s second half by putting on a 1-3-1 press. Though only one of the miscues was assigned to Fields, he took credit for both.

“Being a leader and a point guard, I take the blame,” he said. “I’m not trying to take it to be a hero or a scapegoat. It’s just the truth. It starts with me.”

For Pittsburgh to finish past the Sweet 16, it will need more than Fields’ grit. No other No. 1 seed had as difficult a time getting out of its pod than the Panthers.

Well, yes, no excusing the performance against ETSU. Otherwise, though, aside from maybe LSU, there was no No. 8 as underseeded and playing as well as Oklahoma State has been playing. (To say nothing of being a horrible match-up nightmare for Pitt as we have been saying since the brackets were announced.)

The Panthers looked dreadful doing it, and on the heels of their first-round flameout in the Big East tournament against West Virginia — a 74-60 loss — Pittsburgh’s legitimacy as a No. 1 seed was under some scrutiny.

Not after this game.

Oklahoma State didn’t play like a No. 8 seed. Oklahoma State didn’t look like a No. 8 seed. And in reality, the Cowboys should’ve been seeded higher. Their RPI (No. 19) and strength of schedule (fifth nationally) and 8-2 record in 10 games leading to Selection Sunday all suggested the Cowboys were better than a No. 8 seed. And they were.

And they got Pittsburgh’s respect.

And now Pittsburgh has mine.

Big relief to you Pittsburgh fans, I know. Hey, great, Pittsburgh has a sportswriter’s respect. Let’s throw a party.

Good point. But after pointing out just how unimpressive Pittsburgh was Friday against ETSU, I must point out how impressive it was Sunday. And to do that, it must be made clear just how good Oklahoma State was for most of this game. The Cowboys played a nearly perfect first half, shooting 63.6 percent on two-pointers and 62.5 percent on 3-pointers and 100 percent on free throws. The Cowboys had 15 assists and four turnovers. They couldn’t have played any better.

And they were tied at 49 at the half.

That’s how good Pittsburgh was. Pittsburgh was as good as Oklahoma State, and Oklahoma State was damn near perfect.
…
Dixon tore into his team at halftime — “Man, he’s a motivator,” said DeJuan Blair — and after that, this game was Pittsburgh’s. The Panthers tightened up their defense and controlled the backboard, outrebounding Oklahoma State 41-21 for the game.

Not that Coach Dixon even admitted ripping into his team at the half.

Jamie Dixon’s locker-room message at halftime Sunday was a mixture of realism and optimism.

“I just said, ‘They’re not going to shoot it that well in the second half,’ ” the Pitt basketball coach said. “Maybe that was wishful thinking, but it did turn out that way.”

It hasn’t been pretty. The team knows they haven’t been as good.

“Right now, we’re not playing on all cylinders,” Fields said. “We’ve got to do better when we have leads. We took our foot off their throat today and they made plays. The thing that stands out for me is the turnovers. We had 18 in the first game, 14 today. We average about 10. But we did exactly what we needed to win, cut down on the turnovers, and outrebounded them by 20.”

Pitt outrebounded Oklahoma State 41-21 and collected 21 points on second-chance baskets. “Our guys were scrapping and clawing and doing everything possible. It’s just that we would go up 10 feet and DeJuan Blair and Sam Young would go up 11,” Cowboys coach Travis Ford said.

Young led Pitt with 32 points and eight rebounds. Blair, a 6-7, 265-pound sophomore, had 10 points and 12 rebounds, but scored just one point in the first half and was never the overwhelming factor he was against East Tennessee State, when he had 27 points and 16 rebounds.

At least Blair was in one piece after Oklahoma State point guard Bryon Eaton stumbled on a drive in the first half and crashed his shoulder into Blair’s leg. “It was a little stinger,” Blair said. “It was hurting. I was scared for a minute. But I had to jump up so everybody wouldn’t be worried. Then, I went to the back and I was aching. It was hurting. But I got stretched back there and it was all right. I’m just going to ice it and hopefully it will be better.”

Over on the Oklahoma State side of this, it was that they did not keep shooting 63% on threes in the second half.

Before Sunday, the school record for 3-pointers in an NCAA Tournament game was 10, set in a 2005 Sweet Sixteen loss to Arizona.

OSU matched the record by making 10 in the first half against a Pitt team that prides itself on defense.

But the season is over because Cowboy shooters committed the sin of cooling off.

OSU, which was 17-of-27 from the field and 10-of-16 from 3-point range in the first half, shot 9-of-27 from the field and 2-of-12 from 3-point range after halftime.

“I wish we could have kept hitting like we were in the first half,” OSU senior guard Terrel Harris said.

Maybe it was a bad omen for the Cowboys that the score was tied at halftime, never mind that they couldn’t miss and never mind that Pitt center DeJuan Blair had only one point.

We all make the comments of living by the three and dying by the three with a team like OSU. Beyond simply the Cowboys regressing towards their averages, the three by Levance Fields to tie the game before the half was as big a dagger 3 as anything.

You want cheap symbolism? I got your cheap symbolism right here.

Like most of the games played here this weekend, the Panthers and Cowboys filled 40 minutes with collisions, drama and swings of momentum and emotion.

Point guard Levance Fields sealed Pitt’s victory with a step-back 3-pointer from the right corner, a shot after which he stepped back too far and stumbled into a table.

The shot and stumble epitomized the Panthers’ play here this past weekend. It was neither graceful nor dominating, but it was effective enough for the Panthers to advance. After beating Oklahoma State, 84-76, top-seeded Pitt will face No. 4 seed Xavier on Thursday.

Fields acknowledged the obvious when he was asked if the Panthers were clicking in all aspects of their game. “Right now, we’re not,” he said. “But it’s about finding ways to win. We had two tough games, but we found a way to win.”

The lack of winning pretty is a theme.

Here’s the positive spin on that. When Pitt has had the letdowns this year, it seems to come right after big dominating wins. Where they totally dominated and everyone was singing the teams praises. That is not happening. Pitt is doing enough. There are still plenty of doubts and questions.

That makes it that much harder to start buying the press clippings and hopefully will make the team keep pushing.

More later

Thank goodness Pitt and Xavier played on Sunday and get to play at 7:27 on Thursday night. It means only a few days of the most obvious storyline between all the Sweet 16 teams.

You may have heard something about it. Apparently Sean Miller used to be a point guard at Pitt in the late 8os. He was pretty good and played on some pretty good teams that underachieved like no body’s business — though still fondly remembered. Oh, and he’s a Western PA native and the son of a longtime, successful high school coach in the area. At least that’s what I’ve heard.

Of course, these days Sean Miller is one of the top “young” coaches. Actually what he is is one of the better coaches not coaching at a BCS program. And therefore, atop the list of speculation every year when openings come. Last year it was Indiana and Oklahoma State in the rumor mill for him.

This year it’s Alabama, Virginia, Georgia, Arizona and maybe Kentucky.

Of course, Pitt coach Jamie Dixon has often been the subject of rumors for other programs coming after him — this year it is Arizona. That always fuels the speculation that Pitt would “bring Sean Miller home.”

That, and the always annoying segment of the Pitt fanbase, that feels it is most important that Pitt have a “Pitt guy” and a guy from Pittsburgh who “gets it.” The ones that have that touch of xenophobia.

So, yeah, for the last several years the two coaches have been interwtined in coaching speculation.

Now, they finally face each other in the Sweet Sixteen game.

Where Pitt is trying to do what no Pitt team has ever done.

Yeah, good thing there’s a relative short turn-around this week.