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.