Okay. Everyone calmed down a bit more?
Yesterday turned out to be a pretty good day for Pitt. Michigan St., Wisconsin, Maryland, New Mexico, BYU, Texas A&M and Baylor all went down. That’s a significant number of teams trying to claim a 2, 3 or 4 seed going down either in their first games of their conference tournament or needed at least two wins to stake a claim.
The odds remain that Pitt will still be a 3 or 4 seed.
Once more, the bigger issue that will decide whether Pitt is a 3 or 4 has to do with geography, how to place the other 7 Big East teams, and not putting a team against a team they have already faced this year in the first round or two (which is why projections putting Pitt against Wofford are a bit silly).
Not much left to say about the ND game. It was frustrating, but not one of the most frustrating (the second half of the 2004-05 season kind fills out most of the list). It just sucks when a game is that slow paced, and remains that close throughout, but Pitt could never get there. It also sucks when ND drills their open 3s early against Pitt, but then goes cold against WVU.
Credit should go to Notre Dame. They had won 5 in a row coming in — and lost just before that in OT at Louisville. They have been a hot team that had completely reinvented themselves on the fly. It is completely disconcerting to think Mike Brey might not be that bad a coach.
The thing I have seen with Pitt all season, is that they are a good team that has overachieved. The margin of error for Pitt in nearly every game just seems so small. They can survive if one player has an off game *cough* Gilbert Brown *cough* or is controlled by the other side, but if more than one player has a bad night it can be too much for the rest of the team to pick things up.
Oh, heck, I want something that makes me feel better. How about this tremendous story on Bill Raftery? I would love to have a drink or ten with him.
I think everyone likes to think that the announcers hate their favorite team.
I have horrible visions of the Chevy team going to Boise? and getting rolled. I was told that the team (supposedly) were chasing Mormon skirts all week…
Somehow though, I think this team might actually benefit from a far trip away from Pittsburgh and the East Coast. Youthfull, coachable, and flying under the radar.
“Hey, Joe, I understand that your 7th man at OSU. Good for you. You worked hard. How many minutes did you play in the blow-out? Just one???”