Here’s a shock, I know. The big key for Pitt will be Aaron Gray. Gray was hoping for Duke to win so that he could make his Uncle Steve choose team or family.

”We had a short conversation,” Gray said Friday during an interview session. ”He said he was going to be here [today], and that he would love to see us play against his alma mater, but that’s he’s just real excited about our team and that he’s said all along that he’s more of a Pitt fan than a Duke fan.”

Uncle Steve can express his loyalty when Pitt (28-7) meets No. 11 VCU (28-6) in the West Regional second-round matchup today. Tipoff is scheduled for 5:50 p.m.

Aaron Gray, before the tournament, also expressed desire to play Duke. His father, Michael, also aspired for the matchup of one storied program in Duke going up against a Panthers team that’s bidding for its fourth appearance in the Sweet 16.

”It’s funny because my dad was he was sitting there hoping for Duke to win, but that at time same time it was so hard for him to cheer for Duke,” Gray said.

It’s always hard to root for Duke. The only exception might have been when they were playing UNLV in the early 90s.

In a brief, somber aside, Gray’s 2003 HS class got a little smaller at the beginning of the month. Yesterday, she was laid to rest at Arlington National Cemetery.

One of the guys who will be going at Gray will be Michael Anderson — getting a puff piece from his local paper.

His role, however, could well be altered tonight. Anderson might be asked to match up with Pitt center Aaron Gray, a 7-foot, 270-pound senior. VCU’s other primary post player, Wil Fameni, broke his nose Thursday night against Duke. He was fitted for a plastic face mask Friday, but his level of effectiveness is in doubt.

“If I have to guard Gray, I’ll just try to use my quickness to my advantage,” said Anderson, who has started every game this season for the Rams, averaging 6.4 points and 4.7 rebounds.

Using his girth is not an option. Anderson is all of 190 pounds – exactly the build that chased him out of his first love, football, and onto the basketball court in middle school.

Anderson is a decent player and chose VCU over Providence.

As for the game, well Orlando Antigua was responsible for scouting the Rams. As soon as VCU had beaten Duke, Gene Collier had noted that VCU’s win should not have been a huge shock. To many, it wasn’t. VCU was a popular upset pick.

Having said that, everyone locally is writing, yes VCU is the kind of team that gives Pitt trouble and is fully capable of beating them. Having said that, they continue by noting that if Pitt loses, it will be a disappointing thud to end the season.

The Pitt players concede that they really didn’t know much about VCU. No kidding. They do expect a familiar approach from the Rams.

If VCU has an advantage at guard, Pitt most certainly has an advantage at forward and center. The Rams’ tallest starter is 6 feet 7, and Pitt coach Jamie Dixon expects Grant to employ a similar game plan that Wright State coach Brad Brownell did — double down on Pitt 7-foot center Aaron Gray and make the guards knock down outside shots.

“VCU will do the same things as Wright State,” Dixon said. “We’ve done a very good job with it all year.”

If that happens, Pitt’s outside shooters must be able to make shots again. Gray only attempted six shots against Wright State as the Panthers relied on the guards, who made 10 of 21 attempts from behind the 3-point arc. Pitt is shooting 38 percent from 3-point range for the season.

What VCU has that Wright State doesn’t is speed and athleticism at the guard position to recover on a pass from the inside-out to get a hand up in the face of the shooters. I’d love to say I’m confident in the perimeter shooting for this game, but I just don’t know what Ramon, Fields and Graves will do. It has felt like a crapshoot the past month. They have to shoot it, but I just don’t know if they’ll go down.

Gray knows he will get a lot of attention. And that he has to do well.

This will shock everyone. VCU will try to speed the tempo up. Pitt will try to slow it down.

This blog on Richmond.com following VCU in Buffalo is worth reading after a couple beers.

You know, last year, the Bradley upset of Kansas was barely a blip with all of the spectacular first round upsets. I mean, there was anguish in Lawrence and jubilation in Peoria, but the individual story was lost. Why? Well, Kansas losing early for the second straight year kind of killed some of the “Cinderella” part to be more of “Kansas loses early, again.” Plus, the whole issue going into the tournament that week was did the MVC deserve all their bids and about how deserving mid-majors were of getting in? That made every upset part of a collective story and a lot less media attention directly on the teams. It was more of, they play some ball in the CAA and the MVC type thing. The focus on George Mason didn’t really begin until the following weekend when they got to to the Elite 8 and Final 4.
Fast forward a year, and there were no 5-12 upsets. In fact the only real upsets were VCU over Duke and Winthrop over ND. Considering Winthrop was underseeded and was a popular “upset” pick, that makes this one of the least exciting first rounds in years. (Useless factoid that may only interest me, in the NCAA books (PDF, pg. 64), they don’t consider 10-7 or 9-8 upsets legit upsets. They only count upsets if the seeding is 5 spots or more. That actually makes sense.)

That means all attention is on VCU. So there are tons of stories about the team. How they have a symbolic chain of unity. The school is selling lots of t-shirts and getting lots of attention.

Online orders, which typically come in a trickle, have come in torrents this week. When Gonzales signed on to his computer yesterday morning, he found more than a hundred new online orders waiting to be filled.

“We’ve shipped everywhere,” he said.

A T-shirt is in the works commemorating VCU’s win over Duke, but Gonzales said there are licensing agreements to be worked out before it can be printed. A Sweet 16 T-shirt is ready for the printer if VCU beats the University of Pittsburgh tonight.

…

Cynthia Schmidt, VCU’s marketing director, said sports Web logs have been bursting with comments about VCU’s victory over Duke. When one blogger this week likened VCU to a community college, VCU’s alumni and friends fired back with both barrels.

Schmidt has collected many of the comments, trying to edit out the four-letter words before passing them along to higher-ups.

Someone make sure to pass along to the Pitt locker room that VCU is already to print Sweet 16 T-shirts. The attention is also reflected on people looking for more info on VCU.

“The cool thing is, a lot of things are going on.” VCU is the state’s largest school and one of its most diverse, he said. It has the nation’s top public arts college, the top graduate advertising school, and a leading medical center, he added.

People will learn that, Jarrett says, when they visit the school or even its Web site.

That may already be happening. A VCU spokeswoman said yesterday that hits on the VCU Web site in March are up 26 percent over last March’s hits.

She added that between 8 and 9 p.m. Thursday, while the game was being played, the Web site had 212,000 page views. Between 9 and 10 p.m., which covered the last stages and post-game, the total was 548,000.

The academic side never likes to hear it, but big splashes in the athletic field does wonder for attention, money and applications. I mean, I know I was unaware that VCU was the biggest state school in Virginia (or is that biggest “commonwealth school?”).
The kid getting the most attention and is most deserved is Guard Eric Maynor.

Welcome to “Maynor Mania,” as one questioner coined it during yesterday’s press conference preceding the second round of the NCAA tournament.

Maynor’s ability to elevate himself when games are on the line has created this phenomenon. The latest in a string of such clutch performances came Thursday, when the 6-2, 165-pound sophomore point guard scored six points in the final 1:24 to lift VCU to a 79-77 victory over Duke.

Maynor capped the flurry with a 15-foot jumper with 1.8 seconds left, sending the Blue Devils packing and the 11th-seeded Rams into a second-round pairing with third-seeded Pittsburgh today at about 5:50 p.m.

“That’s the first I’ve heard of it,” VCU coach Anthony Grant said of Maynor Mania. “I like the term.”

So, it falls to Pitt to be the Goliath in this game.

Reporters flocked to the VCU news conference yesterday and filled its locker room, wondering how many congratulatory text messages players and coaches had received (coach Anthony Grant estimated he’d received 80). They wanted sophomore point guard Eric Maynor to replay his game-winning shot and even came up with a cute, new phrase: Maynor Mania.

Third-seeded Pitt might as well have stayed at the hotel. About a third as many reporters attended its news conference. Even fewer went to the trouble of visiting its locker room.

It’s no secret. The Panthers will wear black hats tonight. This city has adopted VCU the way Pittsburgh adopted 15th-seeded Coppin State in a 1997 East Regional at the Civic Arena.

Most of the 18,000-plus fans on hand tonight and the majority of fans nationwide figure to be rooting hard against Pitt, even if a VCU win would screw up their brackets.

“That’s motivation for us,” said senior guard Antonio Graves, who will draw the assignment of guarding Maynor. “It puts a chip on our shoulder that we have to use. We have to match their intensity and play like we have nothing to lose, too.”

Senior center Aaron Gray doesn’t mind playing the villain’s role. He knows VCU has become a tournament darling and that people want Pitt to lose.

“Definitely, but I think the whole season people have wanted Pitt to lose,” Gray said. “I think people have kind of considered us overrated, ranked higher than we deserved. It’s nothing we’re not used to and nothing we can’t overcome.”

Hey, why not play the disrespect card at this point?

— Former Pitt hoops coach (1994-1999) Ralph Willard’s Holy Cross team wasn’t able to pull the 13 over 4 seed upset last night and lost to Southern Illinois 61-51. His Holy Cross team was also in the West Region to add to the Pitt connection. It’s down to Dixon and Howland as the best Pitt related guy in that part of the bracket.

— If there was any reason I wanted to play Duke before, after seeing this flop I’d want to play them and beat them so badly.

— Damn, those Dukies have broken an opponents nose in two of their last three games. First it was Tyler Hansbrough and now VCU’s Wil Fameni. He’ll be wearing a mask against Pitt which is an advantage for us. It seems to always take guys a few games to get used to wearing a big plastic guard over their face. If only it had happened to Eric Maynor…(Thanks to TMGPanther in the comments for the link.)

VCU’s upset over Duke has been chronicled all over the internet and TV for the last 8 hours. From what I saw and what you probably already know, they can beat Pitt. Conversely, Pitt can beat them. From what I saw, here’s a bit of a scouting report for you all out there.

— They play a great high tempo defense. Combining a nice full court press with a nice half court trap is one of their calling cards. At times I felt we were sloppy on the offensive side of the ball. Maybe it was because we got into that popular Pitt thought process that “we’re the higher seed so we don’t need to worry”. If we do the same thing against VCU they’re going to make us pay with those defensive strategies.

ESPN’s team page for the Rams tells us how to beat a team like this.

Will Lose When …
Teams are able to handle the VCU traps all over the court and slow the tempo of the game. If the Rams can’t create turnovers off their pressure, their offense can become stagnant.

Yup, that pretty much sounds like how it needs to go for Pitt. Now as for how it actually WILL go…

— Eric Maynor feels no pressure. He is their main man when it comes down to the end of a tight game. If you need to see it in video form, click here to watch the Eric Maynor Show.

He’s not even their leading scorer this year though. B.A. Walker leads with 14.6 per game, Maynor with 13.9, and followed by Jesse Pellot-Rosa with 13.1.

—They play pretty physically for a guard dominated team. None of the three guards mentioned above are afraid to get a little bruised up both on offense and defense. This Pitt team doesn’t have the toughness of past teams so this could be something to watch for. Chances are also that someone from either team will get a little bloody. There were 3-4 times when players from both teams had to leave the game to get some blood cleaned up.

–Wil Fameni might be prone to doing this. He is going to be starting at one of the forward positions and picking up 4, 4, 3, and 5 fouls in the last four games could leave us matching up someone like Mike Cook, Levon Kendall, or Sam Young on him in foul trouble or his lesser talented backup.

–All of America will be rooting against us. If you’re trying to find the way it affects the game, not only will VCU fans be vocal for their team but so will fans from Maryland and Butler who play in the game before and end up sticking around.

Anyways, tomorrow’s game is slated for a 5:50 tip so expect something 10-20 minutes later that originally planned.

I took it quick and superficial before crashing on an AOL post last night. Just noting some easy, thoughtless similarities between last year’s NCAA Tournament and this year for Pitt. Do not panic.

Ever see old Damon Wayans stand-up? Where he talks about playing snap as a kid? Basically it would be fine until someone decided to mention his club foot. Then he would just go off and ream them verbally. That seems to have been what happened to Wright State after trying to horse-collar tackle Aaron Gray.

The Panthers saw a 13-0 lead morph into a 22-22 tie before a turning point occurred with 6:41 left in the first half, when Wright State freshman Todd Brown threw Aaron Gray to the floor and drew an intentional foul.

Bad move.

“That kind of re-ignited us,” Gray said.

Pitt proceeded to score 21 of the next 30 points to take a 43-30 lead into the intermission. The bench provided a major boost, outscoring Wright State’s, 20-9, in the first half and 36-19 overall.

After that, it seemed that Pitt just said, “Oh, you want to make it real do you, Seymour?” It wasn’t like Pitt already had a size advantage or anything. No the Wright State players wanted to have Pitt fired up while playing the rest of the way. It impressed no one for Wright State to go punk.

Fifty seconds after Jordan Pleiman — WSU’s only true post player — was called for his second foul, Todd Brown threw together an audition for WWE that seemed to wake some sleeping giants. Brown was called for an intentional foul on 7-foot Aaron Gray with 6:41 left in the first half and the Panthers responded with a 19-7 run.

A balanced offensive scoring effort with 5 players in double figures and shooting more than 50%.

“If we knock down shots like that, we’re going to be a tough out in this tournament,” said junior guard Keith Benjamin, who added six points off the bench. “That was the best we executed on offense all year. We did a great job of executing. We’ll be hard to beat if we play like that.”

Pitt’s defense also played a big part in the victory. Antonio Graves did a fine job of guarding Horizon League player of the year DaShaun Wood. Wood, who averages almost 20 points per game, was held to 13 and shot 4 for 12 from the field.

Except for that frustrating stretch in after getting out to a 13-0 lead where the team just went playground to give Wright State hope and make every Pitt fan go insane, it was the kind of performance that you want to see.

Coach Dixon talked about being and praised the team for being 9 deep, and Pitt got to do that last night. Only Levance Fields played 31 minutes. After that it was Ramon, Gray and Graves with only 26 minutes. That’s important when you know that VCU will be pushing and pressing Pitt on Saturday.

Even the Wright State partisans couldn’t help but notice that the depth of Pitt took a toll and the size difference was very visible.

Forward Jordan Pleiman stands 6-foot-8 and weighs 240 pounds, but next to Pittsburgh’s 7-foot, 270-pound Aaron Gray, he looked like a calf standing next to a steer.

Even the guys of similar size looked big in Pittsburgh uniforms, which eventually caused the mismatch that was Pitt’s 79-58 victory over the Raiders, whose most successful Division I season came to a sudden close.

“We were gun shy early,” WSU coach Brad Brownell said. “I think the bright lights got us. I was really proud that we came back to tie the score, but that took a lot out of us to do that, and then they delivered another blow.”

Still, Wright State had a fine season and did play hard. Pushing Pitt at points. Plus, their fans showed some great loyalty to the team at the end.

That’s why the some 400 Raiders fans who made the trip to Buffalo stood and filled the arena with a proud chant near game’s end:

“We Are …Wright State!”

“We Are …Wright State!”

I said loyal. Not original.

This is it. VCU upsets Duke 79-77 and sends them home after the first round for the first time since 1996.

As the last game of the night, of course the prior game would run long. Jeez Maynor is a killer. I don’t know how many of you saw what he did to George Mason in the CAA Championship. He scares the hell out of me, assuming Pitt wins.

Tip time is 10:10.

10:14: Looks like this game will be called loosely. That benefits Pitt. So does the score. 13-0 Pitt. 17:05 still to go in the half.

10:32: Well, looks like Wright St. has some fight in them. 21-15 with under 11 minutes. Gray took an extended break. Solid WSU game plan to take their time on offense and then drive when presented the opportunity.

10:39: Call a TO. Pitt just stopped playing team offense. Everyone just started launching, sloppy. Tied at 22.

10:50: Fields has really struggled lately. He seems to be trying to hit the homerun in his passes and shooting too much lately. I don’t know what it is. He just is making reckless passes, way too often.

10:53: Speeding the game up actually helped get Pitt back the lead. Not running and gunning, but getting out ahead of the defense. The bright side, assuming Pitt wins, they won’t be taking VCU lightly.

11:00: 43-30 Pitt at the half. Everybody breathing. Just a little bit of highs and lows in the first half.

11:16: Anyone else notice that Eastern Kentucky has closed to within 5 early in the second half. After leading by 27. Fire Roy Williams.

11:52: Looks like Buffalo has cleared out as the game has remained a blowout throughout the second half. Graves did a fantastic job on making DaShaun Woods a non-factor for most of the game. Ramon had a good game. The cynical view is that, of course he did, he was shooting over guards that weren’t as tall as him and played too far off. Still he hit the open looks — just hope he still does that on Saturday.

12:06: Well, after watching Ramon get stripped twice in 10 seconds, I think he won’t be getting too cocky despite his solid shooting night.

12:07: Jeff Rizk hits 1-2 at the FT line.

Final score. 79-58 Pitt wins.

Now it’s VCU. Start reviewing what worked against Marquette and Louisville in the BET and really emphasize protecting the ball and getting it inside.

Okay, so the afternoon games have hardly been shockers. A momentary scare for Maryland, but even that passed. Let’s face it, we are hoping for more of the same, at least as far as Pitt is concerned in the nightcap.

Antonio Graves got a nice feature story in USA Today.

“I got him on the phone,” Dixon says, “and now that I know him more I can imagine the smile he had through the phone, because when certain things come through that you work for, I recognize the smile he might have had.”

Four years later, Graves’ team bio still lists his happiest and most gratifying moment in sports. It’s the day he signed with Pitt.

Sometimes it’s better to be lucky on recruits. Not only with Graves but when Walter Walters failed to qualify and went to Cleveland St. for a week before failing out there. Considering the NCAA emphasis on academics, Pitt dodged an additional bullet with APR issues. (Seton Hall could be heading for a minefield with that issue once Pitt recruit Mike Davis possibly finally qualifying.)

The New York Post notes what Pitt has done over the years,

They are the Big East’s forgotten power in so many ways. They just competed in their sixth league championship game in seven years, a stretch of excellence that covers two coaching administrations and is unparalleled in conference history. They are one of only 12 teams that have played in each of the last six NCAA tournaments; no other Big East school can say that.

Yet, there is something about the Pittsburgh Panthers that is easy to overlook. Georgetown beat them in that finale last week, and the Hoyas are the fashionable selection among bracketeers to enjoy the league’s longest NCAA run. Just as much energy was devoted this week to who’s not here – Syracuse missing the NCAAs, St. John’s and UConn being left out of NIT – as to who is here.

Of course, we all know why, Pitt hasn’t gotten past the Sweet 16. Syracuse in the 80s couldn’t get past G-town in the Big East Championships for years before finally breaking through. Still at least they made runs in the tournament.
I think Ray Fittipaldo is about sick of getting the e-mails and messages about how bad Gray is. I can’t say I blame him. I try to attribute it to some anxiety about the team not succeeding in the Tournament, but some of it seems like downright hatred. To the point where people don’t even want to admit when he did play well. I guess it’s the problem when you harden your position to an absolute, there are no exceptions. And even if the facts disagree, you still argue otherwise.

Just a little something I had forgotten about Wright State Coach Brad Brownwell and how basically the AD and administration went ultra-cheap on Brownwell to shove him out the door.

Brownell said if he had felt better at his situation at UNCW, it would have taken a coaching offer “really special” to make him leave. But he and athletic director Mike Capaccio couldn’t reach an agreement on a contract extension and Brownell resigned March 30 to take the job in Dayton.

“I had a couple of chances to leave there as an assistant and a couple of other times as head coach,” Brownell said. “Just building a program, being a part of something that was really special, that took a long time, that you put so much of your heart and soul into, you want to reap the rewards of that.

“It’s really a special place, but sometimes things don’t work out. Things change and you don’t always know if you feel right.”

Last year UNC-Wilmington was in the NCAA Tournament. This year they had 7 wins. That AD better have some incriminating photos of key members of the administration.

Somewhat uneventful day today, at least in the afternoon games. All of the better seeds won and by pretty large margins. You probably knew that already since most people are like me — get to a TV or computer as often as you can.

Pat Forde gives us the best and worst case scenario for each team. Pitt’s includes the best case of making it all the way to Atlanta while the worst case would be losing to Duke.

PITTSBURGH (3)
Best case: Panthers finally break through the Sweet 16 ceiling, riding their punishing defensive style to a validating Final Four. UCLA cannot handle Aaron Gray in the regional semis, and Pitt outmuscles Kansas in the regional final. Push to Atlanta lessens the Iron City dread of another oncoming Pirates season.

Worst case: Pitt team that lost three of its last six grinds to a halt in the second round against Duke. Gray is outplayed by the more skilled Josh McRoberts, and nobody can hit a key perimeter shot. Media vows to keep Panthers out of the Top 10 until they can prove something in March.

We can’t lose to Duke if they don’t even make it though. They hold a 40-38 lead at the half in what has been basically what we expected…a close one.

In the Western Pennsylvania market we can’t see the Marquette-Michigan State game but so far MU has looked really bad. Took them almost 10 minutes into the first half to put points up. UCLA was challenged by Weber State for about 10 minutes before breaking that one open at the half.

Pitt and Wright State in about an hour and a half. Have fun.

Ahh, it’s almost here. The start of the NCAA Tournament is close. Bad scare this morning as the DSL went out for more than an hour. Not a good scene. Rending of garments, teaching my daughter some new words, then trying to bribe her not to repeat them in front of her mother. The usual.

Of course, the 12 hours of good feelings and basketball will only be that way as long as Pitt wins. Does build a lot of anticipation with Pitt being the last game. Glad I have the DirecTV March Madness package. Just saw that Xavier is on at the same time and in the Ohio area, I already know which game they will be showing locally.

So let’s hit this quickly.

Keith Benjamin is right when he says the best thing to do with Wright State is put them down early.

The Panthers, he said, can’t come out slow again tonight in their NCAA Tournament opener against Wright State.

“You’ve got to go out and dominate the lower conferences and get them out of there,” he said. “You can’t let them gain confidence as the game goes on. That’s how you get upset.”

…

“Those guys are no different from us,” Benjamin said. “They are Division I basketball players. But, sometimes, they see ‘Pittsburgh’ or something like that, and it scares them a little bit. If after the first 10 minutes of the game, they are not afraid of you anymore, then you are in for a long game.

“But if you come out and do everything that you normally do and get Aaron Gray 10 points in the first 10 minutes of the game — and he’s dominating and we’re hitting our 3s — that fear becomes bigger because they think they can’t do anything to win now. They will just quit.”

Of course, you can also bet that this is going on the bulletin board for the Raider players. Not to mention the fear that Pitt will come out tight thinking about how they have to do this and, well, that’s just not a path I want to travel.

The whole team is stressing getting off to a good start.

Joe Starkey is demanding at least the Sweet 16.

Luke Winn at SI.com talked music with Levon Kendall. I’m still trying to figure out Canadian alt-pop.

Of course Wright St. is confident of a win.  The Horizon League teams haven’t fared poorly in opening round games recently.

In three of the last four years, Horizon League teams have won at least one game in the NCAA, and in six of the last nine years.

The Wright State coach says his team has to be very, very good to beat Pitt.

“We have to have an exceptional night,” said WSU coach Brad Brownell of his 23-9 team. “There’s not just one thing you have to do. We have to play well in all areas.”

Gene Collier at the P-G says that really, DaShaun Woods has to have an amazing night for Wright State to win. Antonio Graves will be the primary in stopping that from happening.

Coach Jamie Dixon has nice things to say about Wright State.

Among the Wright State keys to victory — avoid foul trouble for the inside players (their forwards) and get Pitt to take more 3s.

Hal McCoy is a legendary baseball writer in the Cinci area. As he is down in Florida for spring training he caught up with Dick Vitale to talk a little bit about Wright State.

Okay, I still have to do my bracket and a ton of others. Before I do, a confession/disclaimer. I absolutely suck at brackets. I used to be good at it, but then Pitt started making the NCAA Tournament and I have not been able to keep my biases in check. Not just pro-Pitt, but the Big East since I would see a lot more of them play and it just ruined me in picking brackets.

Reminder and thanks to Dennis for setting it up the Pitt Blather bracket challenge. My entry is under the name “Aaron Gray’s Ankle.”

Now for those that love video game simulations, this might make you happy. EA Sports simulated the Tournament on March Madness 07.  Pitt made the Final Four. Here’s their full bracket (PDF). [If that link doesn’t work, go here.]

Finally Roto Rob is doing previews of teams. Here’s their Wright State.

A hell of a resource on looking at teams is HackTheBracket.com.

Today’s shoot-arounds, practices and press conferences for the Tournament teams playing tomorrow. The Raiders left yesterday afternoon, and got to Buffalo. The disrespect, mid-major mistreatment perspective already being played.

Once in snow-free Buffalo, the team took a short bus ride to the Airport Holiday Inn, where they were greeted by a few clumps of green and gold balloons. Accommodations are doled out according to seedings — lowest seeds get the plushest digs — so Pitt is in a fancy downtown hotel a half hour away.

Hey, if you were a beat writer covering the team, you’d be pissed too about the team you cover getting stuck in the crappy hotel — because that means you are there as well.

The Dayton paper is doing what it can to find the local connections in the teams playing in Buffalo. Not to mention what could be a bad omen for Wright State.

At least two of those teams have Dayton connections, and I’m not talking about Pittsburgh coach Jamie Dixon’s flirting with the WSU job when Paul Biancardi got it four years ago. Pitt’s athletic director is Jeff Long, a Kettering native, and Virginia Commonwealth’s coach is Anthony Grant, a former basketball star at UD.

Oh, and Maryland’s coach is Gary Williams, who once coached an Ohio State team that played UD in UD Arena — and lost.

Once the Raiders arrived, they checked into their rooms, had lunch, rested, then went to practice.

The only bad part was on the way back to the hotel. Two cars in front of their bus slammed into two fawns trying to cross the street.

It wasn’t a pretty sight, according to sports information director Bob Noss.

Roadkill. Excellent.

Wright State was 13-15 last year, and then hired Brian Brownell from UNC-Wilmington (Sun Belt Conference CAA). Now they are 23-9 and going to the NCAA Tournament. That’s a turnaround, and the sort of thing that puts a coach on the “hot” list. Which, of course, means it is time to deny, deny, deny.

WSU athletic director Mike Cusack said that he has not been contacted by any schools hoping to talk to Brownell.

“I’m not a high-profile coach,” Brownell said Tuesday after he and his team arrived in Buffalo by charter flight. “I didn’t play at a big school (DePauw) or coach as an assistant at a big school. I’m not a known commodity.”

He’s becoming one after leading the Raiders to the regular-season and Horizon League tournament championships on the way to a 23-9 record and the school’s first NCAA tournament since 1993.

Supporters in his hometown of Evansville, Ind., think he’s a natural for the vacant job at Evansville University, a member of the Missouri Valley Conference.

Brownell said he isn’t looking.

His Wright State contract pays him $220,000/year, base salary. That actually seems pretty good for the Horizon League. One of his bonuses is another month’s pay for each NCAA Tournament game the team plays. That also applies to his assistants.
At least one of the WSU booster’s knows the score:

“Brad went out and did exactly what we were paying him to do,” said Bob Mills, whose name is one of three on the team’s practice facility. “But, you know, he went a little bit overboard. He did more. I really think you have to have a system that will reward clearly outstanding behavior in job performance.

“We may not be able to keep Brad (and his assistants) forever, but let’s try to keep him as long as we can, knowing he’s going to leave this place in a better situation than he found it.”

That’s what you have to hope for as a mid-major.

While screwing around on Facebook on Monday and filling in a bracket for one of the polls hosted there, I pressed the “randomize” button to see what it would give me. The first time I clicked it I got this.

The champions (over Albany in the final) are your Pittsburgh Panthers.
We also have the ESPN Insider projections.

Now I don’t know how they got these percentages or what they mean. The might have simulated it on a video game or let a monkey pick the winner out of a hat 100 times.

What does this all mean for Pitt’s chances Thursday? Absolutely nothing.

Look, we all know Pitt won’t go far if Aaron Gray isn’t playing well. To paraphrase another Big East Coach from last year, “we wouldn’t have won 10 [expletive deleted] games without Aaron.” I think that has fueled some of the harshness on Gray. Plain anxiety.
So, the piling on Gray seems a bit excessive. I freely admit the timing of him laying an egg in the Big East Tournament Championship leaves a lot to be desired. Gray admits he had a very bad game against Georgetown.

Gray barely looked All-Emmaus in the Big East finals. It was not what he was seeking when he returned for his senior season after flirting with entering last year’s NBA draft.

“It was a bad night,” said Gray, who averages 14.1 points and 9.6 rebounds. “I’m glad it happened in the Big East Tournament rather than the NCAA Tournament.”

Gray said he felt confident against Georgetown and wasn’t thrown off his game by the presence of 7-2 Hoya center Roy Hibbert.

“I didn’t take a shot, maybe one or two, that I didn’t think was going in,” Gray said. “Playing against big Roy, everyone was like, ‘Oh, were you a little timid going against him?’ My response is maybe I was a little too excited. My normal hook shots were going long. Shots are going off the back rim. Maybe I was moving a little big quicker.”

I do think he was too concerned with Hibbert getting a block, that he was taking too many hook shots and falling backwards, rather than trying to at or around Hibbert.

Still, you would think Gray has sucked for at least the last month the way he has been attacked by pundits and a lot of others. Joe Starkey wasn’t above overdoing it either.

What’s disturbing is the prolonged postseason shooting slump of senior center Aaron Gray. He made less than half of his shots in the first two games of the tournament and went 1 for 13 last night, including 0 for 9 in the first half. If he makes four of those, Pitt goes to the intermission down five instead of 13.

[Emphasis added.]

That’s cherry picking and massaging numbers to make the issue “prolonged.” Against Marquette, Gray was 7-16 and 10 rebounds (PDF). Yes, he was under 50%, but there was no one complaining that Gray was in a shooting slump for that game. He took a lot more shots than he usually takes — something everyone wanted. In the Louisville game, he was exactly 50% (2-4). So what Starkey was saying is that Gray shot 1 basket below 50% in the first game, but lumped the two games together. Lovely. Positively Smizik-esque.

Against Louisville, he couldn’t move without picking up a foul. Apparently that was all his fault.

All season, he has been at least equal to any big man he has faced straight-up (not one that steps out for 3s) until the BET Championship.

The Pitt women were rewarded for their good season last night during Selection Monday.

PITTSBURGH— The Pitt women’s basketball team (23-8) has earned its first-ever bid to the NCAA Tournament with a first round matchup against James Madison (27-5) on March 18 at 9:30 p.m. at the Petersen Events Center. The game will be broadcast on ESPN 2.

“This is an historic day not only for this program but also for this University,” Athletics Director Jeff Long said. “When Agnus Berenato came here, she asked for a seven year contract because that’s how long she thought it would take to turn this program around. What a testament to her and her ability to coach that it only took her four.”

Congrats to Coach Berenato and her team on making Pitt history. It’s going to be interesting since they’ll be playing a home game in the first round (and second if they make it) since you can play at your home court in the women’s tourney if you’re hosting it.

I might go to see how they do and I really hope we advance because that would mean we play Tennessee, the women’s hoops powerhouse. If that matchup happens I’ll be there for sure.

Everyone can support their team here.

At this time, I’m not aware of any Wright State blog. The best news source on the Raiders comes from their section in the Dayton Daily News (annoying free registration).

Of course, there is their official website.

A message board.

Wright State car mats available on eBay. Because, personally, I think the best way to show love to my school is put wet and muddy shoes all over the logo.

Raider fans discount their whuppin’ by LSU (in the comments) as just one of those things from December when they were still learning the system.
Now, you might think that as I live in the Cleveland area and Cleveland St. is in the Horizon League with WSU, I might have some knowledge. No. Watching Horizon League action was never high on my “to watch” list for basketball. Bad basketball is hard enough to watch, but couple it with poor coverage quality and the only way to somewhat enjoy it is completely sauced. And at that point, I’m just not getting much insight into the teams. But I digress.

The break down from the YSU assistant coach is encouraging. While DeShaun Woods seems to be the kind of guard that can cause problems for Pitt, their game is the kind that is what Pitt wants.

Wright State plays a similar game as Pitt. The Raiders like a half-court tempo with aggressive man-to-man defense, which they play about 80 percent of the time.

“They don’t want to get up and down,” Thorne said. “It’s strange. It’s the same thing as Pitt. They grind it out. They both run set plays. Wright State prides themselves on defense, similar to Pitt. They are very good defensively. They are always where they should be.”

Todd Brown, a 6-5 guard, and Vaughn Duggins, a 6-3 guard, were both named to Horizon League All-Newcomer team.

Naturally with Wright State making the Tournament for the first time in 14 years, they are giddy over their coach. Even as the whiff on Dixon was noted.

Four years ago, WSU athletics director Mike Cusack narrowed his coaching search down to two guys — Paul Biancardi and Jamie Dixon — as the replacement for fired Raiders’ coach Ed Schilling.

He chose Biancardi and you know how that worked out thanks to an NCAA violations mess that eventually followed the former Ohio State assistant from his days in Columbus.

Had Cusack hired Dixon — who now will coach his No. 3 seeded Pitt Panthers against the 14th seeded Raiders in the first round of the NCAA Tournament Thursday in Buffalo — there wouldn’t have been the headaches of the past couple of seasons. But then there almost certainly would be no Brad Brownell now either.

The present coach has been studying tape since the seedings were announced.

So instead of being happy with crumbs, he probably wanted a little more of the tournament cake — something better than a 14 seed.

Of course, some of that tightness behind the smile had to be because, as he put it, “We’re going to be here most of the night.”

Everyone at the paper seems to think it might be a good idea to definitely review the game tape of the Dayton-Pitt game.

Here are the game notes from Wright State (PDF). The entire history of the two teams are two meetings in 1998 and 1999. Pitt won both of them.