The Xavier-Pitt game is roughly scheduled to start at 4:50 PM ET. It follows the GT-OSU game that starts at 2:20 PM in Milwaukee. Regionally, it will be Xavier-Pitt, Texas A&M-Purdue or Cal-Duke for the later games. Gonzaga-Syracuse is the early game.

Plan accordingly.

Plenty of capsule previews before any NCAA Tournament. This one stuck with me heading into the weekend.

The Panthers are all about ball movement, working the ball around to get short jumpers, layups and trips to the line. More than 2/3 of their made shots come off of a pass, and when they get out of that approach is when they have trouble. They don’t shoot well for a tournament team, getting by on second chances and foul shots. Defensively, they play as if to beat their own offense: protect the glass, don’t foul, stay in position. Strangely, five of their eight losses came against teams that missed the dance. Oakland doesn’t present a problem; Xavier does in a second-round matchup that will play like a Sweet 16 game and be decided in the last minute.

The Xavier Coach, Chris Mack, got into a rather silly pissing match with a Minneapolis columnist. Both sides look rather foolish. Mack because the columnist always can get the last word (or pixel) in. The columnist because he comes off as a self-promoting asshat.

The story for Xavier, in case you missed it, was Jordan Crawford.

On the national stage, Crawford once again became a known commodity. When he arrived at Indiana, he entered as a high-profile recruit expected to help lift the program back to prominence. After transferring to Xavier following Kelvin Sampson’s demise, he watched from the sidelines for a year. After dunking on LeBron James in a summer camp, his two days of fame faded into a season toiling off the national radar in the Atlantic 10.

After Friday’s show, his show is not going anywhere. Well, except almost certainly to the NBA. But that is a story for another day.

Well, maybe sooner if the sophomore keeps it up.

The media play-up is that this is a rematch of last year. But at least one Xavier player put it in perspective.

Xavier has a few new faces, too — and a new head coach, Mack, who took over when Sean Miller left for Arizona.

“We’re two completely different teams,” Xavier’s Jamel McLean said. “It’s not a rivalry game between us. But we do know in the back of our minds that this was the team that knocked us out last year. We’re not going to try and make it bigger than it is.”

Primary starters from last year, Derrick Brown, B.J. Raymond and C.J. Anderson are gone as well.

Xavier needed Crawford to go off, because they got nothing inside from their senior center Jason Love. He’s slightly undersized, but has been a solid inside guy. Should be another good match-up for Gary McGhee. Love — obviously — expects a physical game.

Q: What’s the plan for hanging with their physicality?
JL: We’ve just got to do what we’ve been doing the last eight or nine games of the season. We’ve been rebounding so much better. Jamel McLean for instance, with 14 rebounds (Friday), he’s been rebounding the hell out of the ball toward the tail end of the season. Kenny Frease, (Friday), he stepped up for us. We’re physical, too. We’re not scared to bang other guys.

Q: What sticks out from playing them last year?
JL: Just that they’re the most physical team maybe in the country. They take a lot of pride in that. You have to match it. If not, they’ll punch you in the mouth, and you’re going to end up with a loss.

If you are wondering (and you probably are not), yes someone outside of Pittsburgh has noticed Gilbert Brown’s on-and-off game. I wish otherwise, but I believe Pitt needs him to somehow break the pattern for a win on Sunday.