I’m hurting a bit. I know I’m not alone on this.

I’m crediting Villanova on this. Yes, Jermaine Dixon screwed up royally on the turnover along with the foul. His offense was gone.

We can go through this game with a fine-tooth comb find plenty of things that “if” someone had done better (DeJuan Blair 2-6 on FTs, Ashton Gibbs 0-3 on threes, Wanamaker with one less dumb foul, Levance Fields 2-9 from the field, Biggs and Jermaine Dixon invisible, if anyone other than Pitt’s troika could have done more, if anyone aside from Young could have made a three, Coach Dixon saving one timeout to have set up the defense for the final play, etc.).

The fact is, Villanova won the game. They have some great talent inside with Cunningham and their guards.  They shot 95.7% (22-23) on free throws. Scottie Reynolds (7-7), Corey Fisher (7-7) and Dwayne Anderson (5-5) going 19-19. All three average around 80%. One miss for each, to be around their averages, and it is a likely Pitt win. They did not, and there was nothing that could be done by Pitt about that.

Pitt shot 21-29 on FTs. That’s 72.4%. Most nights, we would take that from a Pitt team. Only 11 turnovers for Pitt. The Panthers shot 47.2% (25-53). ‘Nova only shot 44.6% and 30% on 3s — the “hottest” team in the NCAA Tournament was in check. Except at the FT line.

You want to blame. You want to vent. Fine.

I’m sad. I’m disappointed. Frustrated even. This team, though, took Pitt further than it had been. It accomplished more than any team had ever done at Pitt. It has won more. I love this team. I love the coach we have. I’m sad that the ride — no matter how stressful — is over.

Next year may be step back, but for every step back Pitt basketball has taken this millenium, it has been  two steps forward for the program. The future just keeps looking better.

It’s the right now, that sucks.

Is this a revenge game for Pitt? Is this yet another breakthrough and first for this Pitt team that has taken Pitt basketball to a slew of firsts this season? I hope so.

The fun starts about 7 PM. Have your beverage of choice at the ready. It’s going to be a tough game. The link to the liveblog is below.

Let’s Go Pitt!

Okay, as usual there will be a liveblog tonight.

One thing that Pitt and Villanova share, hot coaches who have their names coming up a lot for big jobs. And we share the hope that they kick that interest to the curb. Good (and optimistic) piece on what it could mean if both stay.

If Jamie Dixon and Jay Wright stay put, if they decide to continue their run of excellence at Pitt and Villanova for the foreseeable future, then you are about to witness the beginning of the new hierarchy of the Big East.

It’s no secret that Jim Calhoun of Connecticut and Jim Boeheim of Syracuse are heading toward the end of their careers. They have been the two anchors of the conference from the ’80s until now.

Dixon and Wright have a shot to keep Pitt and Villanova as the two programs of record. One of them will earn his first Final Four berth with a win in Saturday’s Elite Eight match at TD Banknorth Garden in Boston. This is Dixon’s first and Wright’s second trip to the Elite Eight.

The Panthers have been a national program under Dixon the past six seasons, reaching the Sweet 16 three times during his tenure. Villanova just made its fourth Sweet 16 appearance in Wright’s eight seasons.

Pitt might have a senior-dominated starting lineup but the Panthers continue to recruit as well as anyone in the East and show no signs of slowing down. Villanova is expected to haul in one of the top 10 recruiting classes in the country, meaning the Cats won’t miss a beat, either.

“The best thing you can say about both our programs is just the consistency at a high level over the past five years,” Wright said. “That’s hard to do. And that’s challenging.”

…

And like Wright, Dixon is passionate about and loyal to his school. Forget about Dixon being a West Coast guy who has to be back on the Left Coast because he went to high school in Cali and his wife, Jackie, was raised in Honolulu. Dixon grew up visiting his grandparents in New York and said he was the only one who ever “summered in the Bronx.” He remembers more Big East games than Pac-10 ones. His loyalty to the Pitt administration runs deep with the way the university extended itself with a private plane to shepherd his grieving family to memorial services in New York and California after Maggie’s untimely death.

Dixon said he’s proud to be a part of Pitt, through whatever small role he has played since he arrived.

“That has been the most gratifying thing for me,” Dixon said.

So, here they are: the 47-year-old Wright and the 43-year-old Dixon on the verge of a Final Four berth. No one will be surprised if it is the first of a few for each as they potentially become the standard in the Big East.

That would work.

The players want to win for their coach.

“People talk about no Final Four appearances and no national championship,” he said. “I want him to get that.”

“Him” is coach Jamie Dixon, who can guide Pitt into the Final Four for the first time in the modern era when the No. 1 seed Panthers (31-4) play Big East rival and No. 3 seed Villanova (27-8) in an East Regional final at 7:05 tonight at TD Banknorth Garden.

Fields, who helped Pitt reach the Elite Eight for the first time in 35 years with his no-fear 3-pointer against Xavier on Thursday night, said he’s driven to see Dixon get his due.

“I think he’s a coach who deserves it,” Fields said. “I know the players play the game and the coaches get their credit. But he deserves it.”

There has never been a question that players love him and throughout Dixon’s tenure the most shocking thing has been games where the players have not played hard. That is a credit to how well Dixon has gotten them to play as a team.

Oh, and Sam Young is playing up the payback angle.

Pitt has thrived in “revenge” games in recent years, going 7-1 in their past eight postseason games against a team that beat it in the regular season.

“I definitely think it’s a payback game,” Young said. “That game kind of threw us off a little bit. Now, it’s on the biggest stage, and we’ve both got a little bit more to lose. I definitely would rather have this game than the last one.”

It helped that Pitt had 3 or 4 just last year in the Big East Tournament.

Another article on how Dixon is underrated. Yes and no. I think national media does not put him in elite status — but he hasn’t gotten there. No Final Fours, not at one of the handful of elite, historical programs. Not the most glib and media friendly. At the same time, there is no doubt he his highly respected and plenty of teams would love to have him. Arizona, Virginia, Georgia, Kentucky — just this year have all had some mention of Dixon being a possibility or hope to hire. I hope he stays at Pitt a long time.

Player puff pieces:

Sam Young recap.

Levance Fields as the embodiment of Pitt’s toughness.

Fields wants the pressure.

Fields and Roethlisberger comparisons continue.

Finally this made me smile a little.

I’ve spent the better part of the past two weeks thanking the hoops gods that I am not a Pitt fan. If I were, I’d be in the ICU by now. No one can beat the Panthers right now, but let it also be said that the Panthers can’t pull away from anyone either. I wonder if that’s going to work against Villanova, which has played nearly flawless basketball now for five consecutive halves. We will find out.

We’ll get to find out in large part because of the three that Levance Fields made with 53 seconds left in the game. It put his team up by one, and even as it left his hand I was thinking it was a bad shot. Maybe it was–it followed a no-pass, all-dribble sequence. Then again, it went in.

In their upcoming game, the Panthers will want DeJuan Blair have a better first half than the oddly subdued one he had against the Musketeers. In fact Pitt trailed by eight at halftime and I thought maybe their recent Sweet 16 losses were getting to them. Even after they stormed back in the second half, the Panthers played like a team aware of and defensive about their history. When Fields and Gilbert Brown got their signals crossed on a turnover with four minutes remaining, it seemed like they bickered about it for a little longer than players on a top-seeded team usually would.

It was a very thin smile.

I just don’t feel like getting all tense and stressed like I was on Thrusday. Doing the rundown of stories won’t help, but here goes.

Is the pressure off the team now that they’ve won a Sweet Sixteen game?

“I’m excited, nervous, anxious, ready … everything you can think of,” said senior point guard Levance Fields, who is playing in his fourth consecutive NCAA tournament. “But it’s being anxious and nervous in a good way. I understand this is the chance. It’s been four years knowing how hard it is and how much competition there is to get to this point. To have a chance is a blessing. I’m thankful for it.”

…

Several Pitt players yesterday expressed that the pressure had been relieved from their shoulders after beating No. 4 seed Xavier Thursday night. The Panthers, who have not played in an Elite Eight since 1974 and fell short in four previous Sweet 16 games, carried that burden with them into this tournament.

“We’re intense and ready for this game,” junior guard Jermaine Dixon said. “We finally got over that hump of not getting past the Sweet 16. We like what we’ve done. We feel good about it, but we’re still not satisfied. We’re still hungry. We want to win the national championship. We feel like this is the team that can do it.”

The ‘Nova fans in Boston made their feelings clear as their win over Duke wound down.

“We want Pitt . . . We want Pitt,” is what the Villanova crowd chanted with about 2 minutes left last night. It will be a brawl against brothers. It will be physical and it will be familiar. It will be wonderful and it will be hell.

Since Villanova beat once already, their coach, Jay Wright, has been trying to downplay that by saying it was all about a big night in Philly with the Spectrum.

The Spectrum didn’t have much to do with it, according to the Pitt players, who might have a different view than the Villanova contingent, at least in retrospect.

“That game we lost because of us,” Blair said. “It wasn’t because of nothing else.”

Wright’s recollection is obviously different, if only because he doesn’t want his team to have any false sense of overconfidence based on the earlier meeting.

“I know [our players] didn’t know anything about the Spectrum,” Wright said, “but in that second half when that place got going and it was so hot in there. I pride myself I don’t sweat too much. I was just sweating like crazy. . . . It was so hot and loud. That crowd got us going, whether they knew where they were or not, it got us going.”

Tied with 13 minutes to go, Villanova outscored Pitt 26-16 to the final horn. Reggie Redding, recently installed as a starter, led all scorers with 18 points. Shane Clark came off the bench to get huge rebounds. Corey Fisher and Scottie Reynolds both hit three-pointers in the second half that were like daggers into what was then the No. 3 team in the country.

And, yes, all right, the place went nuts.

Tonight, it will be a different place, a little less confined, a little more temperate, but the place will be going nuts again in the second half.

Of course, it was also ‘Nova’s signature win in the regular season and there is no reason that Pitt players and coaches won’t use the prior game as motivation and a bit of revenge.

Blair swears he won’t get in foul trouble and that he’s due for another big game. Hey, guess what? Blair needs to stay out foul trouble for Pitt to win.

A few links just on the match-up from:

USA Today;

Andy Katz at ESPN.com; and

Dick Weiss at the NY Daily News.

Crap. Now I’m getting all edgy.