There will be a liveblog tonight. The game is on ESPN-U around 9:20. Liveblog should be up and running around 9:15. Your other option would be Maryland-Penn State at 9:15 on ESPN2. Think Duquesne is looking at tonight’s game as their warm-up before Saturday in Happy Valley? Probably not.

Nice to talk about a solid, stable, winning program. One not shrinking from expectations, downplaying them or making excuses. Damn. I’m trying to give that a rest. Maybe by tonight.

About tonight. Pitt has won 28 of the past 31 games against the Stage Magicians. The last win for Duquesne came in 2000. Yet, credit to Ron Everhart. He has made the games competitive the last few years since taking the reigns. An AP wire story even gives people outside of the area a little history/primer on the City Game.

Last year still gnaws at the Duquesne players.

If ever there was a game Duquesne was going to win in this lopsided series, it was that one. Pitt was young, inexperienced and dealing with injuries and suspensions. The Dukes built a 16-point second-half lead before watching Ashton Gibbs and the Panthers stage the biggest comeback in school history to send the Dukes to a heartbreaking loss.

“Throughout my whole four years here I feel like I let a lot of games slip away,” [Bill] Clark said. “And that was the biggest one, because it’s such a rivalry.”

It wasn’t pretty, and make no mistake, Duquesne did as much to blow that game as Pitt did to stage the big comeback to win it.

Pitt players seem to be motivated by a fear as much as anything else for this game.

“We don’t want to be that team to end the run,” Pitt senior Brad Wanamaker said. “Duquesne will come out swinging and firing. In the back of their mind, they feel like they can beat us. They feel like they let one get away last year.”

There is the familiarity. The players go at it all summer in the summer league and pick-up games. So there isn’t any sense of intimidation that would be typical — even for a middling A-10 team — playing a top-3 team.

Last year was about the last college basketball game at the Civic Arena. This is about the first college basketball game at the Con.

[Con GM Jay] Roberts worked hard to get Pitt and Duquesne to move their annual game from their respective home courts to Mellon Arena for last year’s grand finale and for future City Games at Consol. In addition to Pitt and Duquesne playing games at Consol every season, the NCAA tournament will return to Pittsburgh for the first time in a decade when men’s first- and second-round games will be played in March 2012 at Consol.

Pitt also is playing a Big East-SEC Challenge game against Tennessee on Dec. 11 at Consol.

“We’re excited about this thing,” Pitt coach Jamie Dixon said. “We have Tennessee and [Duquesne] has three other games here. We have the NCAA tournament [in 2012]. We hope we can build on it. Basketball is on the rise here. Playing in this arena is part of that.”

Dixon said there is no interest on Pitt’s part to move any Big East home games from the Petersen Events Center to Consol.

As has been typical for Duquesne, they want to play up-tempo. On defense, they will try to pressure and force turnovers. On offense that means scoring quickly.

“You look at it as an opportunity for your guys to put up or shut up,” Duquesne coach Ron Everhart said.

Duquesne is putting up gaudy numbers. The Dukes are averaging 91 points and an NCAA-best 11.5 3-pointers per game. Meanwhile, one of Pitt’s few weaknesses is perimeter defense. The Panthers rank a lowly 242nd in the nation in 3-point field goal defense.

But Duquesne’s prolific scoring came against some of the dregs of college hoops. The Dukes scored 110 against Division II Bluefield State, 90 at Bowling Green (344th in RPI) and 101 against Maryland-Baltimore County (340th in RPI).

Duquesne’s strength of schedule is 344th — out of 348. The Dukes’ RPI is 310, landing them between Binghamton and Texas-San Antonio. Pitt’s RPI is No. 4.

But regardless of their opponents, the Dukes are making shots. One reason for the improved accuracy is Bill Clark. The 6-foot-5 senior wing graduated early and turned A.J. Palumbo Center into his personal, odd-hours classroom. After clanking his way through an off-target junior season in which he missed 119 of his 165 shots from behind the arc, Clark is shooting 45 percent from 3-point range – the same number as Pitt sharpshooter Ashton Gibbs.

Of course, Robert Morris bottled them up and held them to only 63 points. The difference from that game to this game, is that Duquesne knows they are the underdogs and they will come out with a much harder effort from the start.