There will probably be a liveblog tonight. I’m hedging a bit because of some things I’m trying to clear away (the kids) might force me to DVR delay.

Jim Calhoun says nice things about Pitt and Coach Jamie Dixon. That’s fine. Get him to say those things right after a UConn-Pitt game he loses and I’ll be more impressed.

I’m not letting Calhoun’s words do anything to diminish some good hate.

“Pitt and Connecticut,” ESPN analyst Jay Bilas said, “is a rivalry of the highest order.”

Curtis Aiken, who played at Pitt in the mid-1980s, said the rivalry has evolved.

“The big rivalries when I played were Villanova and Georgetown,” he said. “Now, you would have to put Connecticut in there — maybe at the top.”

The rivalry includes Pitt’s first-ever game on ESPN; a game played during a blizzard that shut down the Northeast; three consecutive meetings in the Big East championship game; the largest on-campus crowd to ever see a basketball game at Pitt; and DeJuan Blair flipping Hasheem Thabeet like a rag doll while battling for a rebound last season.

From Ben Gordon and Chevy Troutman to Ray Allen and Jaron Brown, the top players at both programs turned Pitt vs. Connecticut into something special.

“If you ask any other school, they all think that we’re their rival,” Pitt coach Jamie Dixon said. “But the history (with Connecticut), especially the recent history, is obvious.”

Ah, lots of memories.

And now for some exaggerations.

The lightning-quick Dyson leads a transition attack that is the top defensive priority for surging No. 16 Pitt heading into the 7 p.m. tipoff with No. 15 Connecticut in their heated Big East rivarly.

“That’s our emphasis,” Pitt coach Jamie Dixon said. “This team might be as good as any they’ve had as far as transition.”

Pitt (13-2, 3-0 Big East), which has won six in a row and trails first-place Villanova by one-half game, limited Syracuse’s vaunted transition attack to 10 fast-break points in an 82-72 victory over the Orange on Jan. 2.

The challenge will be even greater against Connecticut (11-4, 2-2), where Dyson, speedy sophomore guard Kemba Walker and high-flying 6-foot-9 senior forward Stanley Robinson turn just about every long rebound and turnover into a dead sprint the other way.

“UConn is probably the best transition team we’ve played this year,” junior Brad Wanamaker said. “Keeping them out of transition and making them execute in half-court is our plus.”

Actually, by virtue of what they have done, stats and all those objective standards, Syracuse is the best transition team in the Big East and therefore the best Pitt will have faced. Don’t get me wrong, UConn is good and it goes without saying that stopping them from getting out in transition will be very important.

“Before we played Syracuse I told them that was the best transition team we’d play,” Dixon said, “but after watching Connecticut, um, this is the best transition team we’ve played. They were in a tied game against Seton Hall when they scored 10 straight transition points, five baskets. The thing is, their big guys probably run better than Syracuse’s.”

That said, Dixon is hardly The Boy Who Cried Transition.

Transition defense is not something Pitt’s gifted head coach puts on the menu when the potential ingredients dictate as much. It’s part of Pitt’s bedrock preparation.

“We do a defensive transition drill every day, every practice, before every game,” Dixon said. “It’s always an emphasis and it’s probably why we’re pretty good at it. Because we do it no matter what. From the first practice until we’re done.”

Maybe UConn’s bigs run out better than Syracuse, but they haven’t been the key. The Huskies, can and have been taken out of their transition offense. When that happens they struggle. In no small part because sophomore point guard Kemba Walker still does not handle it well.

“He’s got to find open people and stop just trying to challenge everybody in the world,” Calhoun said. “It’s not working out. It hasn’t worked out. … We have to find the right people the ball. And it’s not just Kemba. I don’t think that Kemba is playing as well as he should.”

Calhoun added that Walker is very talented. Walker also is confident in his abilities, maybe a little too much judging from some of his decisions. Sometimes he forces action, leading to turnovers.

In the last seven games, the erratic Walker has 30 turnovers, or 4.3 per game. He also has 46 assists, or 6.7 per game.

Just an aside, but Walker was one of the late scratches from joining the U-19 team — opening the door for Ashton Gibbs. Instead Walker opted to go to the LeBron Skills camp and stay at UConn for the summer. Scary to consider that he might have actually learned more about operating the half-court better under Caoch Dixon and Purdue’s Painter if he went.

You can bet that shutting Walker down will fall to Jermaine Dixon.