Now this is just plain funny.

DePaul is targeting Pittsburgh’s Jamie Dixon as its first choice for men’s basketball head coach, sources tell NBC 5.

Kansas State’s Frank Martin is the University’s second choice, according to the same source.

H/T to @PeteGaines.

There isn’t even anything worth adding to this bit of silliness.

Feeling a little guilty of thinking about what Pitt can do the whole way through the Tournament? Trying to convince yourself that you should only be focused on Oakland and not to the next round? Concerned you are jinxing Pitt or bringing in bad karma by looking ahead?

Don’t be. Xavier is doing plenty of it.

So, when a possibly second round matchup popped up against three-seeded Pitt in the second round, well, it brought a little extra spice to the draw.

“We know they are in our bracket, our main goal is to focus on Minnesota, nothing is guaranteed,” Jamel McLean said. “Minnesota is our prime objective. Hopefully we see Pittsburgh and we will take that game from where we left off last year.”

So, yeah, they are trying to focus on Minnesota, but their fans can’t stop looking ahead.

I am loving Xavier’s chances of making it into the second weekend of the tournament.  Jordan Crawford is the kind of player that a team can hitch their wagon to.  Minnesota will have a great defense set up to slow him down but I think Crawford is ready to shine on the big stage.  Terrell Holloway has been very strong recently and Mark Lyons has been a weapon off the bench.  I like our bigs against the Golden Gophers bigs.  Xavier can get scoring from a variety of spots on the floor and can be tough defensively.  IF we can get a second round matchup against Pitt I see Xavier exacting revenge from last season.  IF we get a second round matchup against Oakland Friday night is going to be one hell of a good time.

The Musketeers are yet another team that benefited immensely from the dark lord, Kelvin Sampson. He who resulted in Scottie Reynolds at ‘Nova and Devin Ebanks to West Virginia. Well, Xavier has post-Sampson, Indiana transfer Jordan Crawford and another Indiana decommit in Terrell Holloway. This, more than anything else worries me about facing Xavier in the second round.

Not that Minnesota, that barely made the Tourney, lacks its fantasy goggles.

But the Musketeers, who finished 14-2 in the Atlantic 10 to tie Temple for the regular-season championship, aren’t an overwhelmingly talented team like Texas was last year.

And that gives the Gophers a shot.

“We’re excited again to make it to the big stage,” senior Lawrence Westbrook said. “And I feel like we can make a run in the tournament. We have to play like we did in the first three games of this (Big Ten) tournament, then we will be good.”

If they can make it to the second round, Minnesota has one of the easiest paths to the Sweet 16 of any lower-seeded team. The Gophers definitely have more talent than Oakland if the Grizzlies pull off an upset. Pittsburgh’s physicality could pose a problem, but the Panthers lost twice this year to Notre Dame. They also suffered a 10-point loss to Indiana in December.

I guess pre-Tournament is like spring training and it seems any sport in preseason. Everyone thinks they have a shot, and can visualize how it can happen.

Oakland may not be dreaming Final Four, but they are believing in a Sweet Sixteen run.

At Oakland, no one is lugging any extra weight. Kampe has done an excellent job with two senior leaders — guard Johnathon Jones and forward Derick Nelson. And 6-11 junior center Keith Benson is an overlooked star.

From the crushing disappointment of a year ago, when the Golden Grizzlies blew an NCAA bid by blowing a 13-point lead in the final seven minutes of a loss, something strong grew. Kampe handed out T-shirts with the phrase “Can You Finish,” and Oakland proved it could, even as it starts anew.

Oakland has won 20 of its last 21 games, and although it got hammered early by top teams — including an 88-57 loss at Michigan State — it’s a classically dangerous 14 seed.

“We were a Cinderella last time — now I think we’re just a really good team,” Kampe said. “Millions of people are gonna look at our name and have to decide, ‘Is Oakland gonna be the team that ruins my bracket?’?”

Kampe smiled broadly in his cluttered office, amid signs of what’s unfolding. He held up a yellow brick, something each player is required to carry around, symbolizing the long road in the “Wizard of Oz.” Stray from the path, bad things happen. Stay on the path, who knows what’s possible.

The numbers may not make them that much of a “dangerous” team, Pitt still has to beat them.

Same week the NCAA Tournament starts, spring practices get underway. I realize they have to get the practices in while school is still in session — that whole education thing — it just does not make it easy with everything with the NCAA Tournament.

SI,com’s questions for the Big East spring practices, centers on whether Pitt can dethrone Cinci — which even after 2 years of Cinci on top still seems odd.

The Panthers have their own holes. They must replace three starters on the offensive line as well as both tackles on the defensive side. More importantly, they need a successor for QB Bill Stull. Vying for the role: sophomore Tino Sunseir and redshirt junior Pat Bostick, who started as a true freshman in 2007 but sat out last season to improve his mechanics.

With Pitt, there’s also the matter of mental hurdles. Did this group learn from the three-point loss to West Virginia and the one-point loss to Cincinnati that kept it out of a BCS game? If so, the Panthers could be legit contenders.

The QB question is also the big spring question from Brian Bennett at ESPN.com. It’s not a revelation that this is Pitt’s headline theme for spring practices. It also is not the only big issue.

Both starting corners from a year ago have moved on, and it wasn’t exactly a position of great strength beforehand. Gary and Reed have playing experience, with Gary starting the final five games of ’08 and once last season. But Pitt is counting on junior college transfer and midyear enrollee Saheed Imoru to claim one of the starting spots. If Imoru lives up to his billing, this could turn out just fine. If not, the Panthers may have to scramble to find answers in their pass defense.

And as Paul Zeise points out in an extensive and must read — all of it — post, not the only issue with the secondary.

The secondary is a mess, an absolute mess, because of injuries so the spring is probably going to be somewhat of a wash for that unit. With Dom DeCicco and Andrew Taglianetti sitting out with injuries and the aforementioned Mr. Fields on a voyage elsewhere, there is going to be a lot of mixing and matching and just trying to get enough bodies in certain spots to make it through camp. Antwuan Reed and Ricky Gary and Saheed Imoru will start spring as the top corners and Jared Holley will start at one of the safety spots but beyond those three there are a lot of questions. Eventually, once the season starts the secondary, at least the safety spots, will be solid which means Gary, Reed and Imoru and guys like Buddy Jackson better have a big spring and show they are capable of holding down those corner spots.

Obviously this is opening up some big opportunities for players. Wide open and a chance to seize a pole position on the depth chart. There’s also the possibility come the summer of someone like Todd Thomas might end up as a DB rather than WR, given the glut on that side. Again read Zeise’s in full.

Lots to digest and probably get you in the mood for some crazy obsessiveness for every tidbit that comes out of spring practice.