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.