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March 19, 2010

Bracket Update

Filed under: Basketball,NCAA Tourney — Chas @ 8:31 am

Courtesy of Luke, here’s how the Pitt Blather Bracket is looking:

After a day one filled with upsets(putting me in 131st), we now advance to day 2 of the tournament.

Leading us into day 2 is George Lesko, with an interesting bracket. Mr. Lesko has Xavier over PITT(BOO!!!!!!), and BYU over Murray State in the Elite 8, to join other selected upsets such as Old Dominion over Baylor, St. Mary’s over Villanova, and Missouri to the Elite 8.

In 2nd place is Renato Miguel

In 3rd place in Brandon Murray, who seems to have an opposite bracket. He has Murray st., OK State, and Xavier in the Sweet 16.

All of them have Kansas winning it all.

March 17, 2010

Feeling Invisible

Filed under: Basketball,NCAA Tourney — Chas @ 10:13 pm

It’s probably a good thing, but Pitt is getting no buzz in the West region. What little mention there is, suggests Pitt will have a hard time making it to the Sweet 16 — let alone any further.

I get that. Syracuse and K-State are the top two teams in the region. Syracuse, especially, tends to dominate media attention.

Then there is the fact that a Pitt-Xavier rematch would be a toss-up. The two teams are so close statistically. It means that about half the punditry doesn’t even need to consider Pitt after the first weekend.

I am hoping that this is good for Pitt. The expectations are low. They have a very respectable seed, but not pressure. They get to keep playing with that same “no body believes in us” mentality that seemed to serve them well to start the Big East portion of the schedule. Or, at least that is what I am telling myself.

March 16, 2010

Everyone Looks Ahead

Filed under: Basketball,NCAA Tourney,Opponent(s) — Chas @ 12:20 pm

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.

March 15, 2010

Pitt Blather Bracket

Filed under: Basketball,NCAA Tourney,Uncategorized — Chas @ 4:08 pm

Thanks to Luke who is running the show and setting the rules this year. Take it away, Luke:

Welcome to the PITT Blather 2010 Bracket Pool

1st place nabs the winner:

“Baldwin for Heisman” t-shirt (spring practice also starts this week);

a “talking” Pitt bottle opener;

A $25 gift card TBD (Ed. note, if anyone knows where on the Pitt team store you can purchase gift cards it would help rather than defaulting to something like Dick’s.)

There is no prize for 2nd place.

The scoring system will be a little different. The total points for the round will be multiplied by the seed you pick to win. For example, if you took a 3 seed to beat a 14 seed, you would get 3 points, as opposed to getting 14 if the 14 seed won.

The full rundown on scoring can be found here. I just thought it was an interesting twist from the normal pool that you’re probably in.

1 Bracket per person.

The Pitt Blather Bracket.

Use the password: pittblather (all lowercase)

Thanks to Luke for setting this up and good luck.

Heading to Milwaukee

Filed under: Basketball,NCAA Tourney — Chas @ 3:01 pm

Well, here’s something predictable and not so predictable. Bob Smizik thinks Pitt can make the Sweet 16. Of course, he must preface it thusly,

I am not a huge fan of this Pitt team. I think coach Jamie Dixon has done the best job of his stellar career in getting this team to where it is. It does not have great talent.

But the Panthers are capable of winning two games and get to the round of 16. If they can do that, what already  has been season of unexpected highs will become a truly remarkable one.

I could be being sensitive, but it is typical Smizik to denigrate while complimenting. No one, even when Pitt was surging into the top-10 nationally, has claimed that this team has “great” talent. It has good talent that works hard and is well coached. The potentially “great” talent on the team is inexperienced, raw or redshirting (or coming next year).

Meanwhile Ron Cook says the obvious — while pretending others are saying otherwise — that Pitt has to win their first round game.

A lot of people around here will tell you that the Panthers don’t have to beat Oakland for this to be regarded as a successful season. They will point out, quite correctly, that Pitt didn’t look much like a tournament team at the start of the season after losing four starters to the pros from a team that went 31-5 and made it to the final eight in 2009. They will argue that its marvelous regular-season success — including a tie for second place in the powerful Big East Conference and wins against then-Top 5 opponents Syracuse, West Virginia and Villanova — assures that this will be remembered as a great year.

Sorry, I’m not among those people.

What? Who, outside of the Pete would claim that losing to Oakland in the first round wouldn’t be a huge disappointment and put a bad taste in everyone’s mouth and discolor the accomplishments of the entire season? I mean, did you not notice the reactions when Pitt went down in their first game of the Big East Tournament to a hot Notre Dame team? You would have thought that Pitt played itself completely out of the Tournament.

Even the players are aware and think it would make the season a disappointment. You don’t think that goes for every team that is on the first four lines? It’s brutal when you are a #5 seed and it happens — and most people are conditioned now to expect 5-12 upsets.

Pitt is under no more or less pressure to win that game than any other team on those 4 lines. Get over the myopia.

Since the field expanded to 64/65, the #3 seed has been upset 15 times out of 100 opportunities.

The Golden Grizzlies of Oakland are looking for things to motivate and give them a chip-on-the-shoulder. Since they only have to go to Milwaukee, they are going with the seeding.

Oakland also played a tough schedule, featuring the likes of No. 1 seeds Kansas and Syracuse, Michigan State and Wisconsin.

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Yet it’ll face Pittsburgh (24-8), the regional’s No. 3 seed.

“It’s mixed emotion,” Kampe said. “I’m happy we’re not going to Spokane or San Jose. It gives our fans a chance to come and see us. We’ll have five or six busloads going there.

“I’m real unhappy with the seed. I don’t know how we got a 14th seed. Our RPI (Ratings Percentage Index) was 51 this morning. Maybe we’re new to it. Maybe we need to win. Maybe it’s our league.”

Kampe pointed out New Mexico State has an RPI of 91, but the Western Athletic Conference tournament champion got a No. 12 seed and will open against No. 5 seed Michigan State in the Midwest Region.

And their closest loss to those other BCS teams was 16 to Wisconsin (the other three were an average of 31 point losses). They also lost by 12 to Oregon and 31 to Memphis.

Oakland to their credit, did play a load of tough games. They went 6-7 in their non-con with 8 road games. Granted, as guarantee games, they probably made up the bulk of the basketball team’s budget, but that also gave them their surprisingly high RPI number despite the losses.

It’s about a seven hour drive to Milwaukee for Oakland, so they should have a decent contingent make the trip.

Pitt does have some extra scouting information via Chase Adams.

ll they have to do is turn to senior guard Chase Adams, who faced Oakland for the past three seasons when he was at Centenary College in the Summit League.

“They’re definitely a veteran team,” Adams said. “They’re a complete team. They have an inside game and they have shooters. It’s going to be a good matchup.”

I’m going to assume that he’s going into more detail for the coaches and teammates.

Like most fans, there isn’t a lot of complaining from Pitt players about things.

“We’ve got a favorable draw,” junior forward Gilbert Brown said. “We just have to try to make the most of it.”

…The Pitt players, however, couldn’t resist at least taking a peak at what might lay ahead.

“I know who’s possibly the next two teams,” senior guard Jermaine Dixon said, “but that’s something we’re not thinking about now.”

Added Brown: “You see the potential games that you could play, but your main objective is to focus on this first game.”

Come on, get those cliches going.

March 14, 2010

Brief, Bleary Bracket Thoughts

Filed under: Basketball,NCAA Tourney — Chas @ 11:00 pm

It’s been a long few days of watching lots of basketball.

Pitt got the 3 seed. No complaints about that part. I have no explanation how Villanova ended up with a 2 seed. Temple was screwed by 2 lines. I thought they had played to a 3 seed, but ended up with a 5 to face Cornell.

The Big East placed 5 teams on the first 3 lines. Another strong year and respect for the Big East.

As for the first round game with Oakland of the Summit League. I always worry, but this is a good match-up for Pitt.

They are not a strong defensive team. They don’t force turnovers. And they don’t shoot 3s real well. They do try to play more up-tempo than Pitt.

The one thing that they do, do well — or specifically what their center Keith Benson does well — is rebound. Benson. He’s a double-double and does grab offensive boards. He can also hit free throws at a 73% rate. Gary McGhee is going to have to put a lot of effort on the defensive end.

Beyond that I am not sure who Pitt will face after that. I really don’t have a strong impulse.

The Minnesota-Xavier game is close to a toss-up. Minnesota is playing great ball and they have an experienced coach in Tubby Smith. Xavier is just as good.

I’m thinking Coach Dixon should bench Gil Brown for the opening game and save his good game for the second round.

I don’t even know who Pitt would face if they got to the Sweet 16. BYU and K-State could be there. BYU would be having a home game if that happened. K-State has enough talent to win games. The one thing with them is they foul a lot. That could hurt them if they face BYU and the way they shoot.

Take a Half-Day on Friday

Filed under: Basketball,NCAA Tourney,Schedule — Chas @ 10:17 pm

Here’s the schedule for the first round (PDF).

Minnesota-Xavier tips around 11:25 AM 12:25 PM ET. Oakland-Pitt tips off about 30 minutes after their game ends. That is roughly a 2 PM 3 PM ET start.

Selection Sunday Open Thread

Filed under: Basketball,Media,NCAA Tourney — Chas @ 2:34 pm

Just so you know, I’ll be running the liveblog over on Fanhouse this evening to discuss the bubble, seeding and Selection Sunday. The fun will be starting around 5:30 and will probably go 90 minutes or so. Stop on by.

I’ll be posting later on what happens with Pitt and seeding and match-up.

There will be a Pitt Blather Tournament Pool. Complete with a top prize. I am looking for a volunteer to be the bracket manager — and by that I mean choosing which automated major sports site tournament pool, setting up the private group and doing summaries of the leaderboard to post. If you feel like you want to do that shoot me an e-mail at pittblather-at-gmail-dot-com

March 9, 2010

Solid At #3

Filed under: Basketball,NCAA Tourney,Prognostications — Chas @ 9:24 am

I don’t see Pitt’s seed changing unless they win the Big East Tournament.  Based on various projections I’ve seen, here is my half-assed, amalgamated projection of the top four lines.

#1 — Kansas, Kentucky, Syracuse, Duke

#2 — WVU, K-State, Ohio St., New Mexico

#3 — Villanova, Purdue, Pitt, Wisconsin

#4 — Michigan St., Baylor, Tennessee, BYU

Others that could move up the line to #4 or possibly #3 with a big conference tourney: Maryland, Temple, Vandy, Texas A&M and Georgetown.

The top two lines look rather solid in my view. Meanwhile a Hummel-less Purdue and oddly unraveling Nova squad seem more precarious at the #3 seed.

Even if (god forbid) the team goes out in the quarter-finals, Pitt would still be a #3 seed. MSU seems like the most likely to be able to move up a line given the relative openness of the Big 11’s conference tourney as compared to the SEC and Big 12.

I would much prefer to see Pitt keep winning in the BET, but I don’t think Pitt will get much movement from it.

February 23, 2010

And so does the ranting over it when it goes wrong.

There was a question about Pitt’s seeding if in a hypothetical, Pitt finished 14-4 in the Big East and won the Big East Tournament.

Honestly, I don’t like to worry or think too much about seeding until the end of the regular season. Oh, I look at some of the projections. It’s just that things can change too quickly. Not just for Pitt, but the teams around them.

Really all Pitt can do is take care of business around them. They have one loss that haunts them.

The Hoyas are appearing in brackets as a three-seed, which one could suggest is generous for a team with the Big East’s sixth-best offense and, what do you know, its sixth-best defense. Meanwhile a team like Pitt, two full games ahead of Georgetown in the standings and equal to the Hoyas in per-possession terms, is popping up as a four-seed. Maybe that little “4” next to the Panthers’ name should be replaced with something more honest and direct: “They lost to Indiana!”

More specifically, “They lost to Indiana on national TV!” These are strange days when losing to Northwestern, Miami or *ahem* South Florida would be a better loss.

Honestly, if Pitt runs things, I think they will be no better than a #2 seed. Kentycky and Kansas look like locks. Syracuse would have to really stumble. As would Purdue and a few others. Really #2 or #3 would be amazing regardless.

One game at a time, though.

April 10, 2009

Brainwashing in China

Filed under: Basketball,NCAA Tourney,Uncategorized — Chas @ 12:36 am

I really hope no one goes to jail overseas for this.

April 4, 2009

Oh, the hell with it, I am.

Villanova has come out and missed their first 3 free throws against UNC. Now? Now Reynolds and Fisher miss free throws?

March 30, 2009

I tried to put this off. I was fielding calls all Sunday morning from family calling to see if I was “okay,” and then proceed to talk about the game and make me relive the whole thing all over again. Whee. Then I used the excuse of watching the games yesterday, other writing elsewhere, and probably a few too many drinks. But I need to put the final stamp on the game and ultimately the season with a rundown of the stories afterwards.

Then it’s on to the off-season speculations, thoughts and spring football. Somehow that just seems completely lacking compared to being able watching Pitt continuing to play meaningful basketball in April.

I keep trying to at least keep perspective in that this goes down as one of the greatest games in the NCAA Tournament.

With a berth in the Final Four as the prize, Villanova and Pittsburgh waged a fierce, skilled, and dramatic battle that was not decided until Levance Fields’s attempt at a 75-footer hit the square above the rim and fell to the floor.

“When the ball left Levance’s hands,” said Villanova’s Scottie Reynolds, about and from whom more will be heard, “it was right on target. He gives a little less on that shot and we could be in another position right now.”

That position was a 78-76 victor. Villanova is going to the Final Four for the first time since an eerily similar Wildcats squad won it all in Lexington (the other one, silly) 24 years ago in a Final Four that featured three Big East teams. And if Louisville takes care of business today there will again be three Big East teams in the Final Four. But I can tell you right now none of them will have earned it more than Villanova.

I say this because the Wildcats had to beat Pitt, and they had to do it by making one more big play than a team that specializes in making big plays. Pitt is a team that lives famously on the edge. The Panthers had not had a smooth game in this tournament, but they had been able to out-tough and outfox the opposing team.

And the Panthers had come from 4 points down with 46.5 seconds to go, and again with 20 seconds left, tying the game on a pair of Fields free throws with 5.5 seconds remaining, having regained possession on a downcourt pass by Villanova’s Reggie Redding that went awry.

Given a second chance, Redding inbounded to Dante Cunningham, who tipped it over to a flying Reynolds, and the 6-foot-2-inch Villanova guard took off, taking it to the hoop with three Pitt players converging on him and sinking a runner with 0.5 seconds on the clock.

Somehow, that makes it sound simpler than it was.

But it wasn’t over until Fields launched his desperation shot, and, given his reputation for late-game heroics, it wasn’t surprising that what is a hopeless heave 99.9 percent of the time would actually be a very legitimate attempt to win the game.

No lesser ending would have done this game justice.

So, yeah, there were a few columns and comments on how this more than simply the best game of the Tournament this year. That it was an “instant classic,” and one of the best ever.

One shot, one play, one slight movement by a defender and maybe this doesn’t happen, maybe the game goes into overtime and the result is different. It was that close.

“We really felt like we should have won the game,” said Dixon, who continued to say how proud he was of his team, especially seniors Fields, Young and Tyrell Biggs. “We felt that we played hard, played smart, but it just didn’t go our way. … It was a split-second play.”

Coaches have said for years that the loneliest feeling in the NCAA tournament is losing in the Elite Eight. Reaching the Final Four has become the standard to which excellence is measured. Fair or not, the Final Four is what gets remembered most.

Wright lost an Elite Eight game in 2006, when the Wildcats were a favorite as a 1-seed. On Saturday they were the surprise as a No. 3 seed, beating the top-seeded Panthers. Wright said he was crushed after that Elite Eight loss to eventual champion Florida three years ago. The swing of emotion is even more dramatic when the game ends as it did for Nova on Saturday.

Tell me about it. The gut-wrenching pain of being on the wrong side of the game. The pain of being the loser.

Pittsburgh-Villanova featured 10 ties and 15 lead changes. The second half had eight ties and 13 lead changes. By the time Fields took the last, breathless shot, we no longer cared that the NCAA had stripped the building of all Celtics and Bruins banners and replaced the parquet with a generic court. By the time it was all over, we finally understood what all the fuss was about.

Villanova won.

The NCAA tourney won.

CBS won.

Boston won.

But Pittsburgh fell hard and it had to hurt.

There’s no easy way getting around the fact in the final few minutes it seemed to slip away from Pitt. Whether it was Jermaine Dixon’s turnover and foul for a 3-point play (whether still bothered by the groin pull from earlier or not), or Sam Young’s turnover, or the poor pass to Blair that resulted in a turnover.

Even then, though, Villanova made their own gaffes that appeared to even things out. And if Pitt had managed to send it to OT and won, it would have been ‘Nova that gave it away at the very end when they appeared to have it in hand — with their own mistakes. It didn’t go that way with the ‘Nova inbounds and Scottie Reynolds score. Instead, it was Pitt that gets the goat ears and Villanova that draws comparisons to their ’85 team. It sucks. It really does.

The one thing noted by many, this was on the supporting cast of Pittnot the three primary players. DeJuan Blair and Sam Young were named to the regional team. Fields hit the key shots to keep Pitt going.  Young did plenty in the NCAA Tournament to advance his draft stock while trying to carry the team many times.

One other story to note. Another piece noting how Coaches Dixon and Wright are poised to be the faces of the Big East in the coaching front in the near future if both are not lured elsewhere.

Could Wright — who grew up in the Philadelphia suburbs, who said he watched teary eyed when the Wildcats beat Georgetown for the title, who was an assistant for five years under Massimino — become the Jim Boeheim of Villanova? Could he and Dixon, in his sixth year as the coach at Pitt, lead the next generation of Big East lifers along with the Hoyas legacy John Thompson III?

This is a conference that launched itself with coaching personalities that ran extra large. So it may sound strange to pose the following question about the Big East, which has Villanova and UConn going to Detroit next weekend and Louisville positioned Sunday to make it a threesome, but here goes: are the upper-tier Big East teams the generic power coach’s opportunity of a lifetime, or are they more a place to build a résumé on the way to the dream job and score?

Yes, we know how much Jim Calhoun makes at Connecticut, and how he is not giving a dime back. But Ben Howland left Pitt for U.C.L.A., opening the door for Dixon, his assistant, in April 2003. Tom Crean bolted Marquette to rebuild at Indiana. John Beilein traded his Big East post at West Virginia for the Big Ten at Michigan. Some people believe that Rick Pitino, a longtime adventurer, is about due to get restless at Louisville.

We will see with questions looming in the next few weeks.

The last word, though will go to assistant Brandin Knight (who impressed Andy Katz on the sideline) about the end.

The assistant coach bid a few somber goodbyes and walked slowly back to a quiet Pitt locker room full of shattered dreams and broken hearts.

“Anytime you see kids end their careers like this, it’s difficult,” Knight said. “Levance (Fields) has been like a little brother to me. It’s tough. The uncertainty of a guy like DeJuan Blair, what his future may hold.

“Levance, I will never get to see him wear that No. 2 jersey again. Tyrell Biggs the same way, and Sam Young. I am going to miss them dearly.”

We all will.

March 29, 2009

The disgraced ex-coach of Oklahoma and Indiana has very successfully screwed Pitt this year.

As you may recall, his reign at Indiana led to recruits heading to WVU — Devin Ebanks — and Xavier — Terrell Holloway. Both were released from their letter of intent (LOI). Ebanks of course, was a big reason Pitt bowed out early in the Big East Tournament. Holloway helped give Pitt a hard time in the Sweet Sixteen.

Then there was his time that ended at Oklahoma. Scottie Reynolds had committed to Oklahoma to play for Sampson. Then Sampson fled to Indiana as the penalties at Oklahoma came down. The Sooners let Reynolds out of his LOI and he went to Villanova. I think we all know what Reynolds did to Pitt last night.

Bastard.

March 28, 2009

I’m hurting a bit. I know I’m not alone on this.

I’m crediting Villanova on this. Yes, Jermaine Dixon screwed up royally on the turnover along with the foul. His offense was gone.

We can go through this game with a fine-tooth comb find plenty of things that “if” someone had done better (DeJuan Blair 2-6 on FTs, Ashton Gibbs 0-3 on threes, Wanamaker with one less dumb foul, Levance Fields 2-9 from the field, Biggs and Jermaine Dixon invisible, if anyone other than Pitt’s troika could have done more, if anyone aside from Young could have made a three, Coach Dixon saving one timeout to have set up the defense for the final play, etc.).

The fact is, Villanova won the game. They have some great talent inside with Cunningham and their guards.  They shot 95.7% (22-23) on free throws. Scottie Reynolds (7-7), Corey Fisher (7-7) and Dwayne Anderson (5-5) going 19-19. All three average around 80%. One miss for each, to be around their averages, and it is a likely Pitt win. They did not, and there was nothing that could be done by Pitt about that.

Pitt shot 21-29 on FTs. That’s 72.4%. Most nights, we would take that from a Pitt team. Only 11 turnovers for Pitt. The Panthers shot 47.2% (25-53). ‘Nova only shot 44.6% and 30% on 3s — the “hottest” team in the NCAA Tournament was in check. Except at the FT line.

You want to blame. You want to vent. Fine.

I’m sad. I’m disappointed. Frustrated even. This team, though, took Pitt further than it had been. It accomplished more than any team had ever done at Pitt. It has won more. I love this team. I love the coach we have. I’m sad that the ride — no matter how stressful — is over.

Next year may be step back, but for every step back Pitt basketball has taken this millenium, it has been  two steps forward for the program. The future just keeps looking better.

It’s the right now, that sucks.

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