A UConn and Pitt fan rationally discuss the UConn-Pitt game on Saturday.

Of great concern for Pitt has to be Levance Fields’ tailbone. I think he will be ready for the game. The issue is, should he? Over at FanHouse, I discuss why Pitt should at least consider sitting Fields. Hint: it involves the Blake Griffin injury defense to protect seed in the NCAA Tournament.

Of course, Pitt (and us) want to win every game.

But more than league championships and tournament seeding, this game has come to mean a lot to each team no matter the stakes. With the victory last month, Pitt and Connecticut have split the past 12 meetings in the series that has turned into the best rivalry in the Big East and one of the best in the country.

“We’re ready,” Jermaine Dixon said. “We’ve been waiting for this.”

In addition to the rivalry and the high stakes, it will be an emotional day for the seniors. It’s their last home game at the Petersen Events Center. They have a chance to become the fourth team in school history to finish the season with a perfect home record. The previous time it happened was when the 2002-03 team went 16-0.

“It would mean a lot,” senior forward Tyrell Biggs said. “We have great fans here. We want to keep a perfect record here for us, the fans, the coaches, everybody.”

DeJuan Blair vs. Hasheem Thabeet, round II is a big topic. If they don’t meet again in the Big East Tournament or the NCAA Finals, the next time the face each other might be in the NBA.

No matter how Thabeet plays, Blair’s toughest task might be controlling his emotions. It’s senior day, the final time teammates Levance Fields, Sam Young and Biggs play at the Petersen Events Center, where Pitt is 18-0 this season and 114-10 overall. That makes for an emotional day by itself, but …

“It could be my last game here, too,” Blair said, quietly. “I’m not saying it will be, but it could be.”

There has been speculation Blair — a sophomore — will leave for the NBA after the season. Some projections have him going in the second half of the first round of the June draft. You’re talking guaranteed millions if that’s the case.

Everywhere Blair goes on the Pitt campus, he’s asked about his plans. Most people beg him to stay another season. He’s not just a fabulous player, he’s one of our own, having grown up on The Hill and played at Schenley High School. Others merely say, “Hey, kid, you gotta do what you gotta do. If you stay, that’s great. If you leave, well, thanks for two great years of entertainment.”

“That means a lot to me,” Blair said.

Yes, senior day. The day to honor a class that still wants to do more.

Consider: in their four-year tenure, Pitt has had four consecutive 20-win seasons and 10-win Big East regular seasons — the only class in the league to do so in that span — and reached the Big East Tournament final three times, the NCAA Sweet 16 once and achieved its first-ever No. 1 national ranking.

Not that they’re satisfied.

“When me and Levance first stepped on campus, we told each other, ‘We have to take this program to a higher level,'” Biggs said. “We definitely wanted to get a ring. We always talked about that, especially with (former assistant) Barry Rohrssen. ‘Coach Slice’ told us, ‘This is the class that’s going to get the championship. This is the class that’s going to get all of those accolades.’ We believed in that. We always believed we had a team that could go to the championship. We failed a couple times but we truly believe this is the year we can win the national championship.”

First things first, the Panthers have to do something only six teams have accomplished — beating the nation’s No. 1 twice in the same season — and in a two-week span, no less, after a 76-68 victory over Connecticut Feb. 16 in Hartford. Prior to that game, they were 0-13 against top-ranked teams.

More to come.

Any chance they can push the start of spring practice to April?

No?

Pity.

Well, Adam Gunn and Pitt got a pleasant surprise from the NCAA. A sixth year.

Gunn, who redshirted during his freshman season, suffered a broken bone in his neck in the opener last season against Bowling Green when he collided with former Panthers linebacker Scott McKillop. He was knocked out of the lineup for the rest of the season.

Pitt appealed for a sixth year based on medical hardship and it was granted.

“We are very pleased for Adam that the NCAA has given him an extra year of eligibility,” Pitt head coach Dave Wannstedt said. “The next step is for him to visit with our doctors to see if and when he will be physically ready to begin playing again. We are, first and foremost, concerned with Adam’s long-term health and well being.”

Gunn isn’t expected to be ready to practice — hopefully — until the summer. Still, assuming Gunn comes back healthy, he provides some needed depth and experience at the linebacker spot.

AD Steve Pederson is letting the local media know he still wants to get people in the stands.

Now, a year later, Pitt is pushing to sell out Heinz Field for a team devoid of bona fide superstars — after the graduation of middle linebacker Scott McKillop and early entry to the NFL by tailback LeSean McCoy — but coming off its first nine-win season in more than a quarter century.

To do so, Pitt is offering season-ticket packages ranging from $82 to $280 that increase prices by only $10 despite adding a seventh home game to the schedule this fall. Five of the visitors to Heinz Field earned bowl berths last season, including non-conference opponents Navy and Notre Dame.

“There’s ‘real’ momentum and, obviously, an excellent team,” Pederson said. “I kind of view this as an opportunity to see a bunch of new, young stars step up. In some ways, it’s even more intriguing to see who the new stars are going to be. … That’s what’s exciting.”

Pitt announced its non-conference schedule and season-ticket prices Monday, as well as new initiatives for the annual Blue-Gold Game. The Panthers will open at home against Youngstown State on Sept. 5, play at Buffalo on Sept. 12, play host to Navy on Sept. 19, at North Carolina State on Sept. 26 and receive the first visit since 2005 from Notre Dame on Nov. 14.

Pitt also will play host to Big East foes Connecticut, Cincinnati, Syracuse and South Florida, and will visit Rutgers, Louisville and West Virginia. The conference schedule, however, has yet to be released.

It all comes down to winning and expectations of winning. That will be what gets more people in the stands.

The things implemented last year remain, and the spring game gets jazzed up a bit.

Beyond ticket prices, the athletic department also will bring back the family tailgate on Art Rooney Avenue, the Great Lawn tailgate for students, the Pitt band tailgate and the revised student shuttle bus program. And once again everyone who buys season tickets is guaranteed the opportunity to buy a parking pass.

The one major new development for this season is in regard to the Blue-Gold spring football game April 11.

“Brand new for 2009 is that, for the first time, our fans are going to get to interact with our football team on that Saturday at what we are calling the spring football festival,” Pitt marketing representative Chris Ferris said. “It will be unlike anything we’ve done before, and like the regular football games, there will be something for everyone.”

The spring football festival will begin at 12:30 p.m. (gates open at noon) April 11 with two events for fans — a football clinic on the field for children 12-and-under conducted by Pitt players, and a “chalk talk” and question-and-answer session for fans conducted by the coaching staff in the club lounge.

Both events are free and will be followed by the Blue-Gold game at 2 p.m. There also will be an autograph session on the plaza and in the Great Hall as well as live entertainment, games and other activities to give the spring game a festival atmosphere.

Sounds like fun.

Finally, since one of the favorite topics of off-season Big East football is expansion. One of the overlooked aspects of conference affiliation still involves the academics of the member institutions.

US News and World Report put together a conference breakdown from their academic rankings. Here’s the Big East. Here’s Conference USA (where the most likely target for additions reside). Note where Memphis and ECU reside in the ranking tiers. In no BCS conference are there schools that reside down in “tier four.” The Big East has the most “tier 3” schools of any other BCS conference with 4 (Cinci, Louisville, USF and WVU).

That has to matter for the Pitt and the other 3 schools that actually have academic reputations.

All through the first half, I was trying to relax. Marquette was staying with Pitt, but they were doing it by shooting really, really well from outside. As good as their guards and Lazar Hayward are, they are not 60% shooters from the outside. Add in that their best players — Hayward, Jerel McNeal and Wes Matthews  — played 59 of 60 available minutes in the first half. Well, that has to take a toll. Out of the gate in the second half, they put that theory to the test with a blitz. They were hitting everything. On the perimeter they hit their first two to go 8-12.

They somewhat cooled off to finish that 21-5 blitz 2-5 on threes. At that point they had made 10-17 on 3s. The Golden Eagles never made another 3, 0-9. Coach Dixon said he wasn’t worried.

“You never want to be down nine but, at the same time, I felt like we were taking good shots,” Pitt coach Jamie Dixon said. “If you’re doing things right and you have confidence in the system, confidence in the players, eventually, those things will fall the right way.”

Pitt (27-3, 14-3) responded with a quick 9-0 run, capped when Blair violently dunked a Levance Fields pass for two of his 23 points. Then, after Marquette – losers of three straight games – took a one-point lead, the Panthers responded with an extended 19-2 run.

And Marquette just wasn’t missing. But then they started to hit the front of the rim on their shots more and more. You could see their legs getting less lift, and their drives to the basket a little slower. As you would expect, the Marquette players denied feeling tired.

By the time all was said and done, McNeal had logged his fourth consecutive 40-minute outing and fifth of the season, and Matthews his third consecutive.

“Coach does a great job of making sure that all the guys that play an extended amount of minutes are getting enough rest,” McNeal said. “I don’t think I’m feeling any effects, physically. It’s more mental than anything.”

Marquette coach, Buzz Williams, is hedging as to whether they were tired. But he was rationalizing it this way.

“But I guess the thing I would say in justification of Jerel playing 40 minutes and Wes playing 40 minutes is, I’ll take five of those minutes they’re playing when they’re tired as opposed to subbing because I think they give us our best chance to win.

“Are they getting tired down the stretch? Maybe that happens; I don’t know. But if we wouldn’t have played them when we played them, we wouldn’t have won 12 games. I think it’s a delicate balance. Do I want to rest Jerel for 26 seconds at 8:26 before the media time out? Or do I leave him out there knowing it’s 61-60, and it potentially is going to be a possession-by-possession game, just like it was at Louisville?

“Obviously it didn’t turn out that way. But the best players typically play the most minutes.”

Ultimately, he does not have much of a choice. They give them the best chance to win, and there just isn’t much behind them.

The one thing Pitt did well the entire game was stopping penetration off the dribble. McNeal and Matthews had a much harder time getting inside. This also protected Blair from getting into foul trouble from guards going right into him. Jermaine Dixon and Gilbert Brown did a great job on keeping them in front of them. Brown, especially responded on both ends with the opportunity to play 30 minutes.

It was a breakout game for Brown, who had scored in double figures only twice previously in Big East play. He had 11 points and three rebounds and three assists.

“Gilbert and I talked today,” Dixon said. “I think he can give us so much. He can make us a better team. He was very patient and played smart. He was big, and we need that from him.”

Brown had 11 points on 5-8 shooting, grabbed 3 boards and had 3 assists to only 1 turnover. The important thing, was he wasn’t standing around on defense. Even when Pitt has had some struggles on defense, the rule on Coach Dixon’s team is consistent for the bench. If you aren’t playing defense you won’t be getting minutes.

Blair finished with only 9 rebounds in this game, in part because he only had only 3 offensive rebounds. Pitt was beaten on the offensive glass. There’s a good reason for that, though. Pitt shot 63% for the game. There just weren’t many opportunities to get offensive boards.

Pitt shot decently on 3s. They finished 7-17 (41.2%), but what was nice was the consistency. 3-9 in the first half and 4-8 in the second. Not forcing it. There were points where it seemed they settled too quickly for the 3s, but they were open looks most of the time as Marquette was trying to keep Pitt from getting the ball inside.

Before the game started, Pitt surprised everyone by retiring Brandin Knight’s #20.

A banner featuring Knight and his No. 20 jersey was raised in his honor during a pre-game ceremony prior to Pitt’s game against Marquette. Knight joins Don Hennon (1956-59), Billy Knight (1971-74) and Charles Smith (1984-88) as the men’s basketball players in school history to have a jersey retired.

A Pitt point guard from 1999-2003, Knight’s outstanding play and leadership helped drive Pitt’s basketball renaissance. Knight helped guide Pitt to two consecutive Big East regular season titles (2001-02 and 2002-03), two NCAA “Sweet Sixteen” appearances (2002 and 2003), the program’s first-ever Big East Tournament title (2003), three consecutive appearances in the Big East Championship final (2001-03) and an 89-40 (.690) four-year record. A 2003 Wooden All-America team selection, 2002 Associated Press All-America selection and two-time All-Big East honoree, Knight concluded his career with 1,440 points, 785 assists, 492 rebounds and 298 steals. He earned the Big East’s co-Most Valuable Player and Most Improved Player awards in leading Pitt to a 29-6 record in 2001-02. Knight holds school records for career assists (785), career assist average (6.2 apg.), career steals (298), season assists (251 in 2001-02) and season minutes played (1,284 in 2001-02).

Sam Young, meanwhile with his 18 points continues a solid climb up Pitt’s all-time scoring list.

Senior forward Sam Young passed Billy Knight for seventh place in Pitt’s all-time scoring list. Knight, an All-American in 1973-74, scored 1,731 points from 1971-74. Young scored 18 points to give him 1,745 for his career. He needs nine points to pass Ricardo Greer to move into sixth place.

The next game Young plays, will also put him on top of the list of most games played for Pitt.

The immediate impact of the win is that it clinches that Pitt will have a double bye in the Big East Tournament. It most likely also clinches Pitt a #1 seed in the NCAA Tournament. Especially with Oklahoma (and Kansas) losing last night.

ESPN bracketologist Joe Lundari held a conference call today and here are some of the tidbits that Pitt fans will be interested in:

The only scenario where Lunardi sees Pitt losing a No. 1 seed is if the Panthers lose three consecutive games. They would have to lose tonight to Marquette, to Connecticut on Saturday and then in their first Big East tournament game.

He also said Pitt is very likely to end up in Dayton as the NCAA tournament’s No. 1 overall seed, but that distinction might fall to the Panthers based on geography more than anything else. The play-in game (the two lowest-rated teams in the tournament) is held in Dayton and because the selection committee’s preference to keep the play-in winner in Dayton and because of Pitt’s proximity to Dayton, the Panthers are all but assured of going to Ohio for their first- and second-round games.

Pitt has just one more regular season game remaining.

Pitt trailed by as many as nine points in the second half before routing the Golden Eagles behind a demoralizing 25-4 run that prompted the Pitt fans to start chanting “We Want UConn” with three minutes to play.

Blair is already anticipating Saturday’s showdown with No. 1 Connecticut, which Pitt beat three weeks ago in Hartford.

“This was a motivation game,” Blair said. “As you heard the fans saying, ‘We want UConn.’ And you know, we want UConn. It’s going to be a celebrity death match.”

A win over UConn gives Pitt a tie for 2nd in the Big East. At that point, Pitt will have to be in the odd state of rooting for a WVU win over Louisville to share a 3-way tie for the regular Big East title. But Pitt will hold the tie-breaker to be the #1 seed in the BET. First, though, Pitt needs to beat UConn in a game that brings back memories and is new.

When Pitt plays No. 1 Connecticut on Saturday, it will mark the first time a top-ranked opponent has visited Petersen Events Center in men’s basketball. The highest-rated opponent to ever play at The Pete was No. 4 Syracuse on Jan. 29, 2005. No. 20-ranked Pitt upset the Orange, 76-69. The last time Pitt played host to a No. 1 team was Dec. 12, 1998, when top-ranked Connecticut came from behind to win, 70-69, at Fitzgerald Field House. That’s the game in which UConn point guard Khalid El-Amin jumped on the scorer’s table at the final buzzer and taunted the Pitt fans.

Not that long until Saturday, but it can’t come soon enough.

Todd Rosiak of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel notes that last year Marquette was able to hold DeJuan Blair in check in both games.

One thing that stands out about both games as far as MU is concerned is the way it was able to hold down 6-foot-7, 265-pound forward DeJuan Blair. In the two games, Blair battled foul trouble en route to averaging just 4.0 points and 4.0 rebounds — obviously a huge boon for MU.

Except that the facts are wrong. Blair was 5-6 for 16 points and 8 boards in the Big East Tournament meeting in 33 minutes (he did have 4 fouls and 4 turnovers). In the embarrassment at the Bradley Center, Blair had 5 rebounds and 6 points in 23 minutes. Again he had 4 fouls and 4 turnovers. So, by my math, he averaged 10 points and 6.5 rebounds. Not great, but a little different. Clearly Rosiak must have meant the fouls and TOs.

The Golden Eagles showed against UConn and Louisville that they aren’t going to just fold and quit without James. Have to assume that Pitt isn’t taking this game for granted. Dominic James was not medically cleared to make the trip with his teammates. He has to suffer back in his crib and watch. Much like us.

Anyhow, there will be a liveblog. I repeat, for best results, view in Chrome. It responds best.

You can find the liveblog RIGHT HERE.

Courtesy of Sports Illustrated

I have to say, SI.com seems to be getting it with the whole outreach thing. The above is the cover for this week’s Sports Illustrated. They e-mailed copy of the article and the cover. Sam Young included with the stars from the other seven teams they see as most capable of winning it all.

As noted by Steve G. and another reader who e-mailed, the WSJ had some features. One on DeJuan Blair, master of the offensive boards.

Mr. Blair isn’t just the best inch-for-inch rebounder in the college ranks this season; he’s also the best Mr. Pomeroy has ever measured by a margin of nearly five percentage points. How Mr. Blair does this isn’t entirely a mystery. He has a better than seven-foot wingspan, and at 265 pounds, he outweighs most NFL tight ends. He’s also built for rebounding with a backside roughly the size of a Nissan.

And the other feature discusses why homecourt advantage in college basketball is so vital compared to any other sport. The Oakland Zoo gets some much deserved love.

Although it’s impossible to prove, activist fans are convinced they’re responsible for their schools’ home records. Pittsburgh, which plays No. 13 Marquette at home tonight, has won 113 of its last 123 home games, due perhaps in part to the Oakland Zoo, the school’s infamous student section. (Oakland is the name of the neighborhood the university is located in.) True to the group’s name, students often don animal costumes for games, but they hardly stop there.

Opposition research has become a prerequisite. Pitt graduate student Dave Jedlicka, the president of the Zoo, proudly recounts how Pitt fans found personal pictures of West Virginia star Kevin Pittsnogle and his wife on Facebook and brandished them at a game in 2006. Mr. Pittsnogle missed all 12 of his shot attempts that day.

“We’ve gotten really good about being witty and effective but not vulgar,” says Mr. Jedlicka. “I’ve only had to do two written apologies.”

And Seth Davis at SI.com has his “glue guys” for ’09.

Jermaine Dixon, 6-3 junior guard, Pittsburgh
Panthers coach Jamie Dixon doesn’t recruit a lot of junior college players, and the last thing his team needed this season was another scorer. Yet, there was something he saw in Jermaine Dixon, even as Jermaine was averaging 18.1 points per game for Tallahassee (Fla.) Community College en route to being one of only two players in the history of that school to score more than 1,000 career points. “It was just the right fit,” Jamie said. “We didn’t have anybody in that class — he’s our only junior now — and we felt he was the right guy that had the mental and physical toughness both to be a good fit. We definitely found the right guy.”

Pittsburgh had an opening in its backcourt starting lineup this season, and Dixon seized the opportunity by giving the team exactly what it needed: a lockdown defender, an athletic finisher on the break, and a timely shooter who wouldn’t commit a lot of turnovers. He has especially excelled on the defensive end, shutting down such high-scoring opponents as Miami’s (Ohio) Michael Bramos (two points), Washington State’s Klay Thompson (seven), Georgetown’s Chris Wright (five) and Notre Dame’s Kyle McAlarney (10). He is also highly versatile, as he demonstrated at West Virginia on Jan. 25, when Dixon started off guarding Mountaineers guard Alex Ruoff, then had to switch to 6-7 forward Da’Sean Butler when his teammate Sam Young got into foul trouble.

As for taking care of the ball, Dixon has been especially remarkable in Big East play, committing just 10 turnovers (to 37 assists) in 16 games…

ANother tough draw tonight against Marquette for him.

Both papers had stories on the good health of the team this year.  Well, yeah.

Luke Winn isn’t picking a winner yet for the NCAA Tournament, but has a top-3 that you should lean towards.

4. Are you a Pitt person, a UConn person or a Carolina person? Those are the only three teams I’d advise picking to win the national championship in your bracket. Vegas still views it as the Tar Heels’ title to lose — it likes them more than three times as much it as it likes the Panthers — but all three are viable options. Which one you pick is a matter of taste: Pitt is a tough, offensive-rebounding monster that can look vulnerable if DeJuan Blair gets in foul trouble; UConn is an athletic, shot-blocking force that’s the stingiest team of the three, but is missing its best perimeter defender, Jerome Dyson; Carolina is a high-octane scoring machine that’s prone to huge lapses in its perimeter D. As of now I’m a UConn person, because I tend to side with the superior defense … but I reserve the right to change tastes before my bracket is filled.

Bob Knight breaks down Pitt’s poor rebounding when Blair is out.

Brandin Knight doesn’t want to hear crap from people.

Nevertheless, skeptics remain. When asked if Pitt needs to advance beyond the Sweet 16 for the season to be considered a success, Knight nearly recoiled from the question.

“Everybody now is like, ‘Oh, yeah, I’m a Pitt fan.’ You might have been a Pitt fan up until Charles Smith and those guys left, and then when things got bad you weren’t a fan anymore,” said Knight, 27. “Now, when you come back when things are going well, as soon as things get a little rocky, those are the people that turn around and are like, ‘Same old Pitt.’

“Everybody has their opinions. For some people, we have to get past the Sweet 16. Well, we have to get past the first round and the second round to get to the Sweet 16. Just getting past the Sweet 16 wouldn’t take this program to the next level. We want to win every game, and we don’t focus more on the Big East Tournament and just throw away the NCAA Tournament. We’re dedicated to winning every game.”

Love that. It just tells you how much the program means to Knight.

For all those wondering what Pitt was doing to get ready to deal with the press and teams trying to strip Pitt.

Pitt has averaged 20.5 turnovers in its past two games, and handling full-court pressure was a focal point at Monday’s practice. The whistles were put away.

“Coach Dixon told the press team to hack us and see how we are going to react,” guard Jermaine Dixon said. “We know we’ve got to cut down on the turnovers.”

Coach Dixon was apparently annoyed that the team spent too much time after turnovers whining at the officials. Let a team like Seton Hall chirp constantly. All it got them was 3 technicals in one game.

The national rankings dropped Pitt to 3 in the AP and 4 in the Coaches. The only thing more absurd than seeing Pitt voted #8 by two writers was seeing that one actually kept Pitt at #1. You can see the individual feelings from the writers. Shame we never get to see how the coaches vote.

The Power Polls were a little kinder. ESPN.com put Pitt at #3, only 1 point off of the #2 choice.

Gary Parrish at CBS Sports only dropped Pitt to #2.

The good news is that DeJuan Blair’s going to be okay to play.

Blair sustained a hyperextended left knee less than three minutes into the game when he banged knees with Seton Hall guard Jeremy Hazell. Blair returned to play 26 minutes, finishing with nine points and 10 rebounds.

Blair, the team’s second leading scorer and rebounder, underwent testing in Pittsburgh on Sunday after the Panthers returned from their 89-78 victory over the Pirates. Dixon said Blair had some soreness in the back of his knee, but no swelling.

“He seems pretty good about it,” Dixon said. “We will see how he feels (today). All signs are pretty good. It was a little scary there at first, but he seems all right.”

Gilbert Brown seems to be bothered with a sprained ankle.

The issue of turnovers has everyone a little on edge. There’s plenty of blame.

The turnovers are coming from every position on the court. Every starter except for Dixon had at least two against Seton Hall. Teams are testing the Panthers and their ball-handling ability at every opportunity.

But the majority of the miscues in the past two games have been coming from DeJuan Blair and Sam Young.

Of the 41 turnovers in the two-game span, Blair and Young have committed 17. Young had a team-high five turnovers against Seton Hall and had nine in the past two games. Blair had eight in the previous two contests.

“We’ve got to be more active,” Jamie Dixon said. “We have to meet passes. We had 13 in the first half [against Seton Hall]. It’s not the press. It’s the frontcourt. We had no turnovers against the Providence press. It was all in the frontcourt again. We have to make better decisions in the frontcourt once we get across.”

Young had three turnovers in the first half against Seton Hall called by the officials. Two called for palming and one off of his shot fake that the official bit on.

With Blair, it has been when he is not right by the basket the past couple of games. The minute he drops the ball below his waist, usually a guard comes to help and take a swipe. I’m thinking that is something that other teams have figured out in scouting. That if they can get him a little further from the basket, they have a shot at getting him to put it on the floor and can get a strip.

I’m not as concerned with Fields’ turnovers. When his assist-to-turnover ratio is 10:3 in a game, I can live with that. Hopefully he Fields will go down as the most successful point guard in Pitt’s history.

I was frustrated by the first half turnovers in Seton Hall, but the Pirates shot their wad in that first half trying to do it all.  I mentioned this in the recap, but Pitt had 14 TOs in the first half, 2 in the final seconds when it was an empty bench. Most of the second half was much better by Pitt. Obviously, we want to see Pitt do a better job for an entire game. That said, I can’t be surprised that a team like Seton Hall was going to create a lot of turnovers against Pitt. Look at their conference stats.  They are 3d in steals and 2nd in turnover margin. Their defense is predicated on forcing turnovers.

I’m not trying to minimize concern over turnovers. Given Pitt’s offense is based on efficiency, and does not play at a high pace, possessions matter. I am saying certain opponents style are going to create more turnovers. The unforced turnovers that we saw a lot of in Providence was much more worrisome than what Seton Hall got. Especially since Pitt did a fine job on getting back on defense and minimizing the harm by keeping Seton Hall from getting easy baskets off of the turnovers.

In the seven games prior to Providence, Pitt had a total of 70 turnovers. In 9 games this season, Pitt had 15 or more turnovers. Pitt is 6-3 in those games, and only 1-3 against teams that are NCAA Tournament bound (or on the bubble).

Here’s the thing, I expect around 15-17 turnovers against Marquette on Wednesday. Connecticut takes care of the ball nearly as well as Pitt, and they had 15 turnovers against Marquette. The Golden Eagles are another aggressive defense that tries to get steals and force turnovers. Again, the key is not the turnovers as much as making sure they don’t get out in transition quickly for easy scores.

Finally, UConn has a week to get ready for the season finale. They are already talking about it.

One thing that they can agree on: They’ll have no problem maintaining their competitive edge given what’s still at stake – winning a Big East regular-season championship.

”That’s not going to be too hard,” Calhoun said. “We have Pittsburgh Saturday. The most important thing is to win at Pittsburgh. I’ve always considered the regular season very important. If you can go through 18 games in this league and finish with the best record, you’re probably a very good basketball team.

”We have one more giant test.”

And Pitt has two.

It wasn’t as comfortable as I would have preferred. I think the hope was that Pitt would come out from the opening tip, impose its will on Seton Hall. Not turn the ball over, shred and dismantle the Pirates and hold them to perhaps 30% shooting. Is that about right?

That didn’t quite happen. For the second straight game, Pitt was the big game target on Senior night. Seton Hall came out extremely fired up to play. Specifically Hazell and Mitchell shot very well in the first 10-15 minutes. That allowed Seton Hall to fire up the press and actively attack on defense. Pitt struggled with turnovers for the first half. 14 turnovers in the first half. It also didn’t help that DeJuan banged knees and only played 12 very quiet minutes. Despite all the problems, Pitt held a 5 point lead at the half.

In the second half, Pitt completely took control. Not with switch flipped, but slowly and steadily. Just being the superior team — and taking care of the ball. While Pitt had 9 turnovers in the second half. There were really only 7 that took place in meaningful minutes. And against a team that presses and is that aggressive, I’ll take that. Two of the steals came in the final 45 seconds when Pitt had all bench (Frye, Tiesi, McGhee, Robinson and Gibbs) in the game. All that did was allow Seton Hall to make the final score look closer than reality. They scored 8 points in the final 45 seconds to make it only an 11 point road win.

Looking from the perspective of those in NJ, Pitt was simply a better team.

There was a ton of energy in the building at the opening tip and that rubbed off on the Pirates to start the game, but Pitt took their best bench and stayed upright. Considering how well the Hall played in the first half, it didn’t bode well when Pitt walked into the locker room with a five-point lead. A 25-8 rebounding edge helped that along.

We tend to look at it only in terms of what Pitt did and didn’t do. The fact is Seton Hall was playing very well to start the game, but Pitt did not get overwhelmed or flustered — unlike what happened in Providence. One of the beat writers from the NJ Star-Ledger had running updates during the game. Again, the theme was that Seton Hall was playing some of their best basketball early, but Pitt was just stayed with their game plan and steadily took control.

Seton Hall’s coach, conceded after the game that Pitt was just plain superior.

“It was just Pittsburgh being better than us,” Hall coach Bobby Gonzalez said. “We didn’t have an answer for Sam Young. … We didn’t have an answer for them on the backboards. So many of them can make a play.”

Pitt’s big three – Young, DeJuan Blair and Brooklyn product Levance Fields – had strong second halves as the Panthers pulled away. After intermission, Young scored 17 of his 29 points, Blair had all of his nine and Fields contributed eight of his 10.

Here’s the difference with the Providence game and Seton Hall, with regards to the turnovers. Pitt didn’t stand around looking stunned and off-balance. They got back on defense.

Unfortunately, they couldn’t do much with those opportunities. Pittsburgh turned the ball over 23 times, but the Pirates could only turn those into 19 points, while the Panthers turned Seton Hall’s 15 turnovers into 23 points.

“We’re a team where we usually convert other team’s mistakes,” Pirates guard Paul Gause said. “For some reason, we just weren’t able to do it. It had a little bit to do with them, but it had to do with us too. We have to take that into account and try and fix that.”

And once more, 4 of those points off of turnovers came in the final 45 seconds.

Sam Young had a tremendous game against the Hall.

Young scored 29 points and grabbed 10 rebounds to lead No. 1 Pitt past Seton Hall, 89-78, last night at the Prudential Center. The victory came five days after the Panthers lost in an uninspiring effort at Providence, one day after regaining the No. 1 ranking.

“Sam is a great scorer,” junior guard Jermaine Dixon said. “When he rebounds like that he’s going to get a lot of points. He saw we were struggling a little bit there, and he stepped up.”

The scary point came early. Not from Seton Hall playing close in the first half, but DeJuan Blair lying on the court in pain after banging knees.

When DeJuan Blair fell to the ground after banging knees with Seton Hall’s Jeremy Hazell early in the first half Saturday night, a shockwave rippled through the Pittsburgh bench.

“The first thing that comes to mind is, ‘Oh my God,'” Pitt senior guard and Brooklyn native Levance Fields said. “He had two ACL injuries in high school. It’s a scary sight. You hope for the best.”

Part of why Pitt was able to handle Seton Hall was that even without Blair, Pitt outworked Seton Hall for rebounds. Pitt pounded them 44-21 on the glass. The Pirates just could not get second chance shots.