Unbelieveable. (hat tip to TJ):

Pitt senior safety/linebacker Elijah Fields has been dismissed from the team for disciplinary reasons.

Fields (6-2, 225) has had off-field issues throughout his career and had been disciplined several times — including being suspended for the entire 2007 season — but had seemed to pull it together enough to have his best season last year.

Still, he had several incidents of insubordination and other minor issues throughout the season, but the final straw came last week when he had a video posted on his Twitter page of himself partying with friends and apparently drinking alcohol.

If (big if) he can make sure his academics are in order, he can still transfer to a D-2 or D-1AA school in time to play his final season of eligibility and maybe pursue the NFL as the classic big talent on/big risk off player.

If there is one thing I think I have avoided doing on this blog, is taking personal shots at a Pitt players and coaches Avoiding much in judging their character or who they are. I, frankly, don’t know them and I generally find it unfair since I can really only judge them by their on-the-field performance (or when they end up in the news for other reasons).

Having said that, in light of his past history and now this, I don’t think I’m making any leap to say that Fields has shown just how absolutely clueless and unable to comprehend concepts of personal responsibility. It’s no longer a kid making a mistake or youthful indiscretions. There have been too many screw-ups. Too many punishments. It is so clear that he doesn’t get it and sad to say, I don’t think he ever will.

He has pro-level talent. People say he’s a nice enough guy. That’s not enough. He continually has made the wrong choices and assumed that he would be allowed to skate by.

His loss will be a hit to depth and talent level. He’s not worth it any longer.

UPDATE (2/18): Sigh. Gee thanks Spencer for finding this. In a nod to either his cluelessness or what not, while Fields’ Twitter account is deleted, he left his TwitPic mostly intact. No party pictures. Just a bottle of Grey Goose on a hotel room desk and more unnerving: Cash. Wads of cash.

There is no question that Marquette is hot. They have won 5 straight in the Big East. They have gone Samson on this, by not cutting their hair in the streak.

Of course, MU hasn’t lost since Buzz Williams decreed that players and coaches avoid the barber.

Williams was upset that MU wasn’t being “us” on every possession in a close loss to Syracuse. Then came the order.

“‘I’m not sure why you guys are forgetting that we have to be ‘us’ every single possession,” Williams recalled he told his team on the plane after the loss to the Orange. “‘So what we’re going to do is you guys can’t cut your hair. And I can’t cut my hair. And hopefully we’ll grow enough hair that there will be enough protection for your brain to not forget.'”

The team claims that it isn’t the reason for the streak, but they aren’t going to risk messing with things either.

That five-game winning streak is the same as Pitt’s best run in the conference. The only teams in the Big East with longer conference winning streaks this year are Syracuse (10), Villanova (9) and Georgetown (6).

Most of the conference can never get a chance to get rolling for very long. Nine teams have only been able to muster 2-game winning streaks — including Georgetown — and of course DePaul has only won one conference game this year. USF (4 games) is the only other team to win more than 2 games in a row in the Big East this year.

It’s also worth noting that is not too hard to lose at least a couple straight in the course of the season. Villanova and Syracuse obviously have not lost 2 straight to this point. The only other team to make that claim? Georgetown. They can’t seem to win more than a couple in a row, but they don’t lose more than one at a time Actually, even Georgetown doesn’t make it on this list when limited to the conference games only. They lost to Syracuse and USF in conference — sandwiched around the non-con Duke win.

It has not been an easy conference to get and keep rolling this year. That Marquette has been one of the few to do so is just another reminder of how tough a game tomorrow will be.

The Marquette game tomorrow Milwaukee is a big one. 9PM on ESPN. The ex-Warriors are having a “Gold Out” (What? You thought Pitt was the only one who could do that?) for the game. Pitt has never won at the Bradley Center. It seemed like a good time for a Q&A with Cracked Sidewalks. One of the older and best Big East blogs out there and still not assimilated by SBNation. Tim Blair and Rob Lowe provided the answers to my questions. You can find my responses to their questions here.

1. Like Pitt, Marquette lost their marquee triumvirate of Jones, Matthews and McNeal. The difference, is that despite their overpowering presence, Marquette still had Lazar Hayward coming back for his senior year plus seniors Cubillan and Acker. The emergence of Jimmy Butler and Darius Johnson-Odom is at least surprising to those outside of Marquette. Talk a little about what the strengths are of these two and whether you expected their emergence this year?

We don’t regard Jimmy Butler’s emergence as being that big of a surprise. Butler came on strong to close last season and his efficiency as a role player was off the charts good, so it’s not that surprising to see him increase his possessions and still be very efficient. Jimmy Butler’s strength is that he always stays within his role, never playing out of character. He gets a ton of offensive rebounds and draws a great deal of contact, and is generally very good from the free throw line. If anything, we’d prefer that he was a bit more selfish. However, his game-winning shot against UConn and increased focus on driving with the ball give us hope.

As for DJO, this is a total surprise. When we looked JUCO’s in the Big East we found that it was rare for JUCO players to make any sort of significant contribution. However, DJO’s ability to shoot the open jumper and drive to the hoop have been the key to success this season (IMO). The big thing that always stands out about DJO is a comment we heard from Buzz, (paraphrasing), where it was basically that DJO was the only player Buzz could ask to “go get a basket” and he’d be able to do that. Essentially, everyone else needs to have a play run or find a shot within the offense; DJO can go get one.

2. Year two of Buzz Williams. It seems that things are working out better than expected. How are you feeling about the program under his control? There’s a pretty good argument to be made that he or Jamie Dixon will be the Big East Coach of the Year.

Honestly, we see Boeheim as a more likely candidate for Coach of the Year right now. However, this year the coaching job by Buzz has been a real revelation. The conventional wisdom on Buzz was that he was a great recruiter and unknown coach. This year, I don’t see how anyone could regard his coaching job as anything but great. Marquette has been competitive in almost every game this season except for the second half of the NC State game. Plus, considering the low expectations for this season we’re pretty pumped to even be in the conversation on the NCAA tournament.

As far as the program under his control, our quibbles are relatively minor. They are things like “Is Buzz wound too tight?” “Can he develop freshmen players? “Can he sign and develop big men?” In the big picture, we’ll take good recruiting, a competitive team, and a team that responds well in the face of adversity. The future looks bright in upcoming years in terms of incoming talent and Buzz’ coaching.

3. This is the slowest tempo Marquette team since Travis Diener was around. That’s not completely surprising given the change in players, but do you see this as more of the future with Marquette, or just an adjustment given the change in players and issues of depth?

This as more an adjustment given the personnel and issues of depth. The focus is on getting a good look and many times that doesn’t develop until later in the shot clock with the offense. Last year the team played at about an average pace overall. We believe that when the team gets deeper they’ll play probably at an average pace.

(rob’s note – this gets into questions of playing a higher risk strategy, especially when coupled with threes, that might not be beneficial given the team’s positive overall efficiency margin.)

4. Having lost 7 games by 5 points or less, Marquette had been labeled one of the unluckiest teams. The Golden Eagles have now won 3 games by 3 points or less. Do you see this as part of a balancing out of things through the course of a season? A growth in confidence and improving in the season or something else?

It’s a little bit of luck and a little bit of responding to the situations. There’s definitely a view that lucky/unlucky trends tend to even out. However, part of the reason MU lost those close early games was because they frankly choked at the free throw line and/or failed to make stops in key situations late in games. What we’ve seen in some of the recent close games has been the team responding positively to pressure situations by making free throws, field goals or getting stops down the stretch. This improvement in tight games comes through repeated exposure to these situations and the maturation of a team forced to integrate a lot of new talent while dealing with a spate of early-season injuries and a player departure. Buzz’ team has proven it can take a punch and not only survive, but thrive.

5. One of the things — besides the key injuries — that seems to have hurt Marquette late in the season seemed to have been the players wearing down. It looks like Marquette is again playing a very short bench with several players getting at least 30 min/game in the Big East grind, are you concerned about that?

The short bench that Buzz employs has us concerned but more from a depth perspective. When MU was in the throes of late-game chokes earlier this year some fans cited the short bench and fatigue as a possible cause. Still, MU righted the ship in close games without amending the rotation all that much. As for wearing down late in the season, we don’t quite see it. If you’re referring to last year, that was more the Dominic James injury leading into the season’s most difficult stretch (UConn, @Louisville, @Pitt, Syracuse). Previous years (like 2007 with McNeal’s arm) are also more attributable to injuries. In our opinion, it’s more a matter of lack of depth — and the options a longer bench can give a coach — than wearing down.

Thanks again to the guys at Cracked Sidewalks for the knowledge.