Is this a revenge game for Pitt? Is this yet another breakthrough and first for this Pitt team that has taken Pitt basketball to a slew of firsts this season? I hope so.

The fun starts about 7 PM. Have your beverage of choice at the ready. It’s going to be a tough game. The link to the liveblog is below.

Let’s Go Pitt!

Okay, as usual there will be a liveblog tonight.

One thing that Pitt and Villanova share, hot coaches who have their names coming up a lot for big jobs. And we share the hope that they kick that interest to the curb. Good (and optimistic) piece on what it could mean if both stay.

If Jamie Dixon and Jay Wright stay put, if they decide to continue their run of excellence at Pitt and Villanova for the foreseeable future, then you are about to witness the beginning of the new hierarchy of the Big East.

It’s no secret that Jim Calhoun of Connecticut and Jim Boeheim of Syracuse are heading toward the end of their careers. They have been the two anchors of the conference from the ’80s until now.

Dixon and Wright have a shot to keep Pitt and Villanova as the two programs of record. One of them will earn his first Final Four berth with a win in Saturday’s Elite Eight match at TD Banknorth Garden in Boston. This is Dixon’s first and Wright’s second trip to the Elite Eight.

The Panthers have been a national program under Dixon the past six seasons, reaching the Sweet 16 three times during his tenure. Villanova just made its fourth Sweet 16 appearance in Wright’s eight seasons.

Pitt might have a senior-dominated starting lineup but the Panthers continue to recruit as well as anyone in the East and show no signs of slowing down. Villanova is expected to haul in one of the top 10 recruiting classes in the country, meaning the Cats won’t miss a beat, either.

“The best thing you can say about both our programs is just the consistency at a high level over the past five years,” Wright said. “That’s hard to do. And that’s challenging.”

…

And like Wright, Dixon is passionate about and loyal to his school. Forget about Dixon being a West Coast guy who has to be back on the Left Coast because he went to high school in Cali and his wife, Jackie, was raised in Honolulu. Dixon grew up visiting his grandparents in New York and said he was the only one who ever “summered in the Bronx.” He remembers more Big East games than Pac-10 ones. His loyalty to the Pitt administration runs deep with the way the university extended itself with a private plane to shepherd his grieving family to memorial services in New York and California after Maggie’s untimely death.

Dixon said he’s proud to be a part of Pitt, through whatever small role he has played since he arrived.

“That has been the most gratifying thing for me,” Dixon said.

So, here they are: the 47-year-old Wright and the 43-year-old Dixon on the verge of a Final Four berth. No one will be surprised if it is the first of a few for each as they potentially become the standard in the Big East.

That would work.

The players want to win for their coach.

“People talk about no Final Four appearances and no national championship,” he said. “I want him to get that.”

“Him” is coach Jamie Dixon, who can guide Pitt into the Final Four for the first time in the modern era when the No. 1 seed Panthers (31-4) play Big East rival and No. 3 seed Villanova (27-8) in an East Regional final at 7:05 tonight at TD Banknorth Garden.

Fields, who helped Pitt reach the Elite Eight for the first time in 35 years with his no-fear 3-pointer against Xavier on Thursday night, said he’s driven to see Dixon get his due.

“I think he’s a coach who deserves it,” Fields said. “I know the players play the game and the coaches get their credit. But he deserves it.”

There has never been a question that players love him and throughout Dixon’s tenure the most shocking thing has been games where the players have not played hard. That is a credit to how well Dixon has gotten them to play as a team.

Oh, and Sam Young is playing up the payback angle.

Pitt has thrived in “revenge” games in recent years, going 7-1 in their past eight postseason games against a team that beat it in the regular season.

“I definitely think it’s a payback game,” Young said. “That game kind of threw us off a little bit. Now, it’s on the biggest stage, and we’ve both got a little bit more to lose. I definitely would rather have this game than the last one.”

It helped that Pitt had 3 or 4 just last year in the Big East Tournament.

Another article on how Dixon is underrated. Yes and no. I think national media does not put him in elite status — but he hasn’t gotten there. No Final Fours, not at one of the handful of elite, historical programs. Not the most glib and media friendly. At the same time, there is no doubt he his highly respected and plenty of teams would love to have him. Arizona, Virginia, Georgia, Kentucky — just this year have all had some mention of Dixon being a possibility or hope to hire. I hope he stays at Pitt a long time.

Player puff pieces:

Sam Young recap.

Levance Fields as the embodiment of Pitt’s toughness.

Fields wants the pressure.

Fields and Roethlisberger comparisons continue.

Finally this made me smile a little.

I’ve spent the better part of the past two weeks thanking the hoops gods that I am not a Pitt fan. If I were, I’d be in the ICU by now. No one can beat the Panthers right now, but let it also be said that the Panthers can’t pull away from anyone either. I wonder if that’s going to work against Villanova, which has played nearly flawless basketball now for five consecutive halves. We will find out.

We’ll get to find out in large part because of the three that Levance Fields made with 53 seconds left in the game. It put his team up by one, and even as it left his hand I was thinking it was a bad shot. Maybe it was–it followed a no-pass, all-dribble sequence. Then again, it went in.

In their upcoming game, the Panthers will want DeJuan Blair have a better first half than the oddly subdued one he had against the Musketeers. In fact Pitt trailed by eight at halftime and I thought maybe their recent Sweet 16 losses were getting to them. Even after they stormed back in the second half, the Panthers played like a team aware of and defensive about their history. When Fields and Gilbert Brown got their signals crossed on a turnover with four minutes remaining, it seemed like they bickered about it for a little longer than players on a top-seeded team usually would.

It was a very thin smile.

I just don’t feel like getting all tense and stressed like I was on Thrusday. Doing the rundown of stories won’t help, but here goes.

Is the pressure off the team now that they’ve won a Sweet Sixteen game?

“I’m excited, nervous, anxious, ready … everything you can think of,” said senior point guard Levance Fields, who is playing in his fourth consecutive NCAA tournament. “But it’s being anxious and nervous in a good way. I understand this is the chance. It’s been four years knowing how hard it is and how much competition there is to get to this point. To have a chance is a blessing. I’m thankful for it.”

…

Several Pitt players yesterday expressed that the pressure had been relieved from their shoulders after beating No. 4 seed Xavier Thursday night. The Panthers, who have not played in an Elite Eight since 1974 and fell short in four previous Sweet 16 games, carried that burden with them into this tournament.

“We’re intense and ready for this game,” junior guard Jermaine Dixon said. “We finally got over that hump of not getting past the Sweet 16. We like what we’ve done. We feel good about it, but we’re still not satisfied. We’re still hungry. We want to win the national championship. We feel like this is the team that can do it.”

The ‘Nova fans in Boston made their feelings clear as their win over Duke wound down.

“We want Pitt . . . We want Pitt,” is what the Villanova crowd chanted with about 2 minutes left last night. It will be a brawl against brothers. It will be physical and it will be familiar. It will be wonderful and it will be hell.

Since Villanova beat once already, their coach, Jay Wright, has been trying to downplay that by saying it was all about a big night in Philly with the Spectrum.

The Spectrum didn’t have much to do with it, according to the Pitt players, who might have a different view than the Villanova contingent, at least in retrospect.

“That game we lost because of us,” Blair said. “It wasn’t because of nothing else.”

Wright’s recollection is obviously different, if only because he doesn’t want his team to have any false sense of overconfidence based on the earlier meeting.

“I know [our players] didn’t know anything about the Spectrum,” Wright said, “but in that second half when that place got going and it was so hot in there. I pride myself I don’t sweat too much. I was just sweating like crazy. . . . It was so hot and loud. That crowd got us going, whether they knew where they were or not, it got us going.”

Tied with 13 minutes to go, Villanova outscored Pitt 26-16 to the final horn. Reggie Redding, recently installed as a starter, led all scorers with 18 points. Shane Clark came off the bench to get huge rebounds. Corey Fisher and Scottie Reynolds both hit three-pointers in the second half that were like daggers into what was then the No. 3 team in the country.

And, yes, all right, the place went nuts.

Tonight, it will be a different place, a little less confined, a little more temperate, but the place will be going nuts again in the second half.

Of course, it was also ‘Nova’s signature win in the regular season and there is no reason that Pitt players and coaches won’t use the prior game as motivation and a bit of revenge.

Blair swears he won’t get in foul trouble and that he’s due for another big game. Hey, guess what? Blair needs to stay out foul trouble for Pitt to win.

A few links just on the match-up from:

USA Today;

Andy Katz at ESPN.com; and

Dick Weiss at the NY Daily News.

Crap. Now I’m getting all edgy.

DeJuan Blair’s younger brother got on his case after halftime.

“I walked out and my little brother (Greg) said something to me,” Blair said. “He said, ‘It’s the Sweet 16 and you’re an All-American. What are you playing like this for?’ I thought about what he said.”

Nice piece on Levance Fields.

Another story on gritty Pitt not winning style points. Just winning.

Recap from USA Today.

“They pushed us around in the first half but we responded in the second half as we usually do,” said Pitt coach Jamie Dixon. “I never get tired of watching Levance take big shots. He’s made them year after year.”

Blair finished with 10 points and 17 rebounds for his 20th double-double of the season.

“It’s great, the first time; it kind of gets the monkey off your back,” Fields said of getting to the Elite Eight. “But we came here to win two games, so we’re going to go back to the locker room and get focused for one of these two teams for the next game.”

When Fields jumped onto Coach Dixon and mussed up his hair, well Coach Dixon was more focused on other things.

“He was still mad, telling me the game wasn’t over,” Fields said. “I was excited for Coach. As good as he’s been for this university and picking up where Coach [Ben] Howland left off . . . the biggest knock has been not a Final Four appearance and not getting past the Sweet 16. So this is just a step towards that. And I just wanted to embrace him because he deserves it.”

I’ve mentioned Bob Ryan writing stories from the Boston regional a couple times. He’s a BC grad, who was one of the loudest voices opposed to BC leaving for the ACC. He preferred the Big East style and the geography. So, he likes to take the shot.

This used to be a Big East town, remember?

It will be once again tomorrow when Pittsburgh and Villanova meet right here in our town for the right to play in the Final Four.

…

No. 1 seed Pitt was in great peril in the opening game, but this is like saying J.D. Drew is going to get hurt. They’re always in peril of late. It’s who they are. The Panthers seem constitutionally incapable of seizing control of a game until they are on their backs and the referee is about to call it a pin, and then, well, then Levance Fields thinks it’s time to do something dramatic.

Young Mr. Fields is the Pittsburgh point guard, and among his other athletic charms he has a highly, and I mean highly, developed sense of the dramatic. His particular specialty is the backbreaking, you-know-what-busting moonshot three to break open a game.

Then there are the puff pieces.

John Feinstein does (yet another) piece on Coach Dixon and his sister. It’s a nice piece, but I’m more aggravated at Feinstein for mailing it in. I mean there were already a couple just as good pieces on this done just this year. Plus the recent HBO Real Sports segment. So he was able to regurgitate old stuff and toss in a few extra quotes from an interview on Wednesday with Dixon.

Associate head coach Tom Herrion is a Massachusetts native and rumored to be a possibility for the Boston U job. He gets a local story.

His two seasons at Pittsburgh have been a great experience. Herrion loves the school, the players and staff and he and his wife, Leslie, and their 3-year-old son, Robert James, have made a home in the area. A diehard Red Sox and Patriots fan, he’s even learned to tolerate Steelers’ supporters.

Herrion would like to be a head coach again.

“I did it at Charleston and had success so I feel confident about myself,” Herrion said. “It’s got to be the right situation. I’m at a different stage in my life and my career and you have a different perspective on things. When I was younger, it was how fast could I be a head coach. I’ve learned the best job is the one you have and I’ve got a really good job.”

Herrion’s name has been mentioned as a candidate for the vacant Boston University position. Herrion said he has not been contacted by BU and declined comment on the situation, saying, “I’m just focused on helping Coach Dixon right now.”

Send in the reserves for local pieces. Brad Wanamaker gets one from the Philly area.

Over the summer, everything changed.  A series of one-on-one meetings between Wanamaker and Dixon led to Wanamaker reasserting himself.

“I had confidence that I could play for this team, so I just put in the work and effort,” he said.  “I think I earned the minutes that I play.”

All 18.6 of them.  Wanamaker has even played 20-plus minutes in 15 games this year.  Not surprisingly, the more he’s played, the better he’s performed.

Those errant jumpers of a year ago suddenly started splashing.

“I don’t care about you making it.  You’ve just got to shoot the outside jump shot, which will open up the rest of your game,” said Dixon, recalling what he told Wanamaker in the summer.  “I think that was the biggest thing.  I didn’t put pressure on him to make the shot, just shoot it.

“Sometimes he was over-penetrating and using his strength.  That’s what he did in high school.  Just taking the open shot is going to open up a world of things for him offensively.”
…
“He’s going to be like three-quarters of the way to graduating after (this) year,” Dixon noted.  “He’s just a great, great kid.”

Ashton Gibbs gets some love in New Jersey.

“You look at what he has done, hitting that 3-pointer against Xavier, and that’s something you dream of. You dream about hitting that big shot as a kid,” said Gibbs. “Hopefully, I’ll get that chance when my turn comes.”

For now, the leading scorer in Seton Hall Prep history is content to watch and learn in a reserve role as a freshman with Pittsburgh, which faces Villanova Saturday night at 7:05 for the East Regional championship and a trip to the Final Four — thanks in large part to Fields’ clutch 3-pointer with 53 seconds to play in the Panthers’ 60-55 victory over Xavier Thursday night.

Gibbs, a 6-2 guard who has become a key spark off the bench for the 31-4 Panthers, knows his time will come.

“It’s been a big adjustment for me this year,” said Gibbs, who scored 1,882 points at Seton Hall Prep. “But coming in I knew we had three big seniors (Fields, Sam Young and Tyrell Biggs), and I knew we were going to be a good team. We were top 10 preseason.

“So I knew this team was already good and that I would have to sacrifice something, so I sacrificed my scoring abilities to help. I’ve always been team-first and me second. I’ve been playing well when I’ve had my chances.”

Hopefully both will have a good game tomorrow to help the team.

A gritty team and one that won’t be pretty or make it easy.

Pitt isn’t masquerading during the NCAA tournament. The Panthers are who they are: a defensive, rebounding-oriented team that has streaky shooters in Sam Young and Levance Fields and a man in the middle in DeJuan Blair who can play at times well below the rim. The role players are hardly predictable. But, in the end, all that matters is this team is filled with winners.

Then there are the “just lucky.”

This was as lucky a victory for a team as you’ll see in this tournament.

L-U-C-K-Y.

And that word describes the Panthers’ trek through the NCAAs this year. They flirt with danger, play down to the level of their opponent, and then sneak out a win at the end.

Fields defended the Panthers, as you’d expect, and as he should. “If we have to win a game [this way], we’ll take it.”

But can they win the remainder of their games this way?

You kept waiting for the Panthers to turn the Musketeers into the Mouseketeers, but fourth-seeded Xavier shadowed Pittsburgh for much of the contest, which at times was absolutely unwatchable. All that was needed was some mortar and a cement truck and these two teams could have built a brick road to Detroit.

Other than the fact that this is our team — so naturally it can’t be true — the problem with this is you are essentially saying that Pitt has been lucky for 3 straight games. If so, then the flip side is that this must be a “team of destiny.” No. Hardly true either. You cannot legitimately, if you follow sports to any level, believe a team can be “lucky” three straight games. Once. Sure. A bounce a call. Things just work out. Call it luck. After that, it is just the way the team is. Making their own “luck.”

Pitt wasn’t pretty. They are not looking like the same team as they had in the season. No one is arguing that. Just like no one is arguing that they can’t  keep playing so tentatively and poorly in the first half of games. The trend is obvious. Up 3 at the half, to tied, to down 8. The quality of the teams increases and the halftime score reflects it.

They are, though, winning. They are advancing.

What Pitt did do (with a little help from some poor shooting from Xavier) was show that they can still play defense.

The Panthers ratcheted up their defense, pounded the boards, grew tougher as the game progressed and simply wore out their opponent. Yes, Levance Fields came up huge, with a go-ahead 3-pointer and a dagger of a steal-turned-layup. By then, though, it was in part because of the damage that Pitt normally does had been done.

“They pushed us around for the first half,” Pitt coach Jamie Dixon said. “But we responded in the second half, as we normally do. And we’re very proud of our guys, how they responded.”

This trend was perceived as a weakness as the Panthers came to Boston. Against East Tennessee State, the No. 16 seed, the Panthers were clutching a 59-57 lead with just 4:27 left. Two days later, they found themselves locked in a 74-74 tie with Oklahoma State with 2:42 showing.

In both cases, the Panthers pulled away late. But the idea was that those teams hanging around proved Pitt to be vulnerable.

The players saw it differently.

“We understand that no game is going to be easy,” Fields said. “Fortunately for us, in some ways, we still haven’t played our best basketball, but our opponents have been playing excellent. … It hasn’t been blowouts, but we’re making plays down the stretch when the game is on the line.”

Yes, this team can make you crazy in the Tournament.

This can’t be the same powerhouse that struck fear in the Big East Conference, the toughest league in America. Maybe I had Pitt pegged all wrong.

Then again, maybe not.

Once again, Pitt was Pitt, the most resilient team in America and a 60-55 winner against Xavier in the East Regional semifinals Thursday night at TD Banknorth Garden.

Keep asking senior forward Sam Young to do too much, and this is what you get: The Panthers doing double-time in the second half and pulling out another amazing victory.

The comeback Panthers keep giving their fans their money’s worth, while nearly pushing exasperated coach Jamie Dixon toward a nervous breakdown.

Trailing by eight points at halftime, the Panthers had another tournament opponent right where they wanted them.

Crazy as it sounds, Pitt plays better from behind.

The Panthers picked up their defense, got more easy baskets in the first few minutes than they did in the opening half and — surprise, surprise — led 40-39 with just over 12 minutes remaining and 46-45 at the 7:15 mark.

Why can’t they play that way more often? Pitt is a No. 1 seed for a reason, but it has played well in flashes rather than stretches during the tournament.

It shouldn’t take being pushed to the edge of the cliff before answering the bell, but that’s been Pitt’s frustrating modus operandi.

If you were on the liveblog, you would have thought Pitt was down 20 at the half and the players had walked off the court with a minute left on the clock and gave up. The frustration, vitriol and venting. Well, I’m guessing the message boards were not that different.

Hopefully tomorrow, the team will indeed put together a full 40 minutes? I’ll settle for about 30 minutes. I like the team’s chances — even against the white hot ‘Nova team — if they can do 30 (as long as 20 of the minutes are in the second half). We will find out if the pressure is really off of them now that they are past the Sweet 16 wall.

“This definitely means a lot,” he said of that whole Elite Eight business. “The players, the coaches, the university and the city have being waiting for it a long time. But, at the same time, we feel like we’ve still got work to do.”

The best thing is Pitt has yet to play its best game in this tournament. It was horrible in the first round against East Tennessee State and, in many respects, lucky to win. It had a bad second-half stretch against Oklahoma State in the second round, blowing all of an 11-point lead and falling behind by 1 before retaking control. And last night, Pitt was — in coach Jamie Dixon’s words — “pushed around” in the first half when Xavier took that eight-point lead.

But the pressure had to have a lot to do with all of that. No team came into the tournament with more pressure because of its wonderful regular-season success, which included making it to No. 1 in the polls for the first time, beating a No. 1 opponent for the first time and getting a No. 1 seed in the NCAAs for the first time. And because of those previous seven years of kicking at the Elite Eight door and ending up with nothing more than a battered and bruised foot.

Pitt was expected to be playing tomorrow for the right to go to Detroit for the Final Four.

Anything less would be considered a failure.

That’s a heavy, heavy burden.

Now that it’s been shed, don’t be surprised if Pitt plays a strong game tomorrow.

If the national stories weren’t about Pitt as a team, it kept coming back to Levance Fields.

Fields was just doing his usual thing. He made a few shots, had a half-dozen assists and looked completely average. With his short, rotund build, he resembles more of the guy you go up against at the local YMCA than the one who has the biggest cojones in college basketball.

After a couple of Young misses, Xavier took a 54-52 lead on Jackson’s drive in the lane. The 5-foot-10, 210-pound (he won’t divulge his actual weight) or so Fields came down and hit the dagger and followed it up with a steal and layup on the next possession to give the Panthers a 57-54 lead with 23.9 seconds remaining.

“They put the ball in my hands and I made a play,” Fields said.

Or as losing coach Sean Miller put it.

“That kind of says it all about a senior point guard,” said Xavier coach Sean Miller.

Miller was actually talking about the play after the three, where Fields came up with the ball when B.J. Raymond was surrounded and lost the handle after Brown forced him out, Blair was behind him and Fields was able to poke it free and take off for the lay-in.

No matter who lost that game, the losing team was going to feel like they blew it. Simply because both teams missed a heck of a lot of shots that they usually make. This very easily could have been Pitt’s lament.

“I feel like we just gave the game away, you know? We worked so hard to get here and we played so hard. And we gave it away in the second half,” junior Derrick Brown said.

“Stuff that we usually do, we didn’t do. Like make layups. Defensive rebounds. It’s just tough to lose this way.”

…

“We just didn’t get it done tonight. The main thing is we missed layups – point blank layups. That was inexcusable,” Raymond said. “I don’t feel like I did my best.”

Oh, and Fields took out a laptop for a sportswriter with one of his errant passes in the game.

Game time is set for 7:05 on Saturday night.

A rematch of earlier in the year.

Mizzou-UConn is the early game at 4:40

Big East is just slightly dominating.

Talk about rewriting a legacy in half-a-minute.

As great as Levance Fields has been for Pitt, the senior was hardly anything special for 39 minutes. He had 9 points, 6 assists and 3 turnovers. He probably should have had more turnovers. He shot 3-9 at that point. Only 2-5 on free throws. He just had not come up with much in the most important game of his career. It looked like he would go down small and his team would join yet another Pitt squad that couldn’t break that barrier of winning a third game in the NCAA Tournament.

Then. Then. Then it all changed. Drilling a 3 with under a minute. Deep. Hand in the face. A “NO.NONONONONONONO! YES!!!!!” moment. After that coming up with a steal when Blair poked it lose and racing like he never raced before to the other end with a lay-in. Wow.

Nothing about this game was pretty. I do not understand what is wrong with Pitt in the first half. Whether it is playing too tentative because they don’t know how the game will be officiated. Whether it is overconfidence. Whether it is tightness. Obviously, Coach Dixon has been reaching them at halftime.

Still, it was ugly. Credit also has to go to Xavier for playing that hard and tough against Pitt. They also do well in this type of game and clearly it was their game as well.

Ultimately Pitt did enough. Pitt was tough enough. Physically and mentally. Never gave up. Never stopped.

Now this Pitt team gets to keep playing.

I’m a tense, mess. I hate being this way. The brain can rationalize and intellectualize it all it wants. This game is big. Huge. It is a bit silly, but I almost feel that if Pitt can win it, so much else with the rest of the Tourney could fall into place. That’s a big lie in and of itself, but since Pitt has yet to win more than two games in the NCAA Tournament in any year, it has taken on that outsized importance.

Liveblogging will begin a bit before 7:30. You know the drill. Comments are under moderation. We’re all going to be tense, but try to keep some sembalence of control. Remember these are still Pitt guys, they were yesterday and they will be tomorrow.

The fun starts here.

I will be doing a liveblog tonight.

I am just hoping that the Pitt players and coaches are no where near as tense and uptight as  we Pitt fans seem to be.

One more scouting report on the East.

Big East Basketball report, breaking down the game.

Great, enjoyable read on CBS and ESPN analyst Bill Raftery.

Probably his best-known call came 21 years ago when Pitt’s Jerome Lane obliterated the backboard on a spectacular jam.

“Send it in, Jerome!” he said, shouting.

Late this season, Lane approached Raftery before a Pitt-Connecticut game. “With a big smile,” Lundquist said, “he said, ‘Thanks for making me famous.’ ” Raftery said, “It was the cutest thing, and the psychic reward for getting to know a kid a little bit.”

Somewhat connected sidenote, they mention that one of his daughters does PR work for Sports Illustrated. She’s the one who has been e-mailing me the cover images in the past few weeks. Did not make the connection until I read it.

Post-Gazette beat writer Paul Fittipaldo takes a question from a Xavier guy on the issue of point guards.

He even found time to do his weekly chat.

Where_is_Arvydas_Sabonis_: Pitt’s favorite ESPN analyst Doug Gottlieb said that this is the biggest game in Pitt basketball history? Do you agree?

Ray Fittipaldo: Yes, until the next one if the Panthers win. Then it becomes Saturday’s game. I agree with Gottlieb. Pitt has been on the threshold of the Elite Eight on four previous occasions and never got over the hump. This is the most talented of those teams, has the best offensive firepower and great experience. If the Panthers don’t get to a Final Four this year when are they are going to do it? The table is set. All they have to do is deliver.

Otherwise, no pressure. Speaking of pressure.

When Sam Young walks down the streets of Pittsburgh, he knows exactly what’s coming.

“All everybody asks you is whether we’re going to get past the Sweet 16,” the Panthers senior forward says.

“We’re sick of hearing it,” added Pittsburgh’s Gilbert Brown.

…

Pittsburgh is 0-5 in the Sweet 16 in the Howland-Dixon Era, and that’s all everyone wants to talk about.

“I tell them we’ll find out together,” Young said of his response to those on the street who ask him whether they can take the next step.

Dixon and his players are hoping this year is different, that this team is different.

That they can finally rid themselves of that dreaded Sweet 16 curse with a victory against one of their own — Xavier coach and former Pittsburgh standout Sean Miller.

If it helps, Pitt fans are sick of asking it and having to answer it to others. Boy are we sick of the latter.

I’m seriously debating locking myself in a small, dark room with a TV and laptop. If you are more social than that, plenty of other metro areas have places to be with other Pitt alum/fans to watch.

If you are in Boston, it starts early.

Pitt Pep Rally/Pre-game Event
Thursday, March 26 – 4 p.m.
Johnnie’s on the Side
138 Portland Street
Boston, MA

Located just two blocks and an easy walk to TD Banknorth Garden.

With performances by the Pitt Pep Band and Cheerleaders and a special appearance by the Pitt Panther Mascot. Special Panther drink specials and complimentary appetizers (while they last!).

All of the following came from the Pitt alumni calendar:

Tampa/St. Pete’s

Courtside Grille I
110 Fountain Parkway North
St. Petersburg, FL 33716 http://courtsidegrille.com/home.html

Ft. Lauderdale

Miller’s Ale House in Fort Lauderdale
2861 N Federal Hwy
Fort Lauderdale, FL 33306
(954) 565-5747

Lancaster, PA

Trio’s Bar and Grill
3707 Marietta Ave
Columbia, PA 17512
http://www.triobarandgrill.com/

NYC

Village Pourhouse
64 3rd Ave at 11th St. East Village
New York, NY 10003 www.pourhousenyc.com

New Jersey

Fox and Hound English Pub & Grille – Edison
250 Menlo Park Drive Edison, NJ 08837
Phone: (732)452-9100

Hilton Head

One Hot Mama’s American Grille: Hilton Head-Bluffton
7 Greenwood Dr # A
Hilton Head Isle, SC 29928
(843) 682-6262

Washington, DC

Penn Quarter Sports Tavern
639 Indiana Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20004

Atlanta

Hudson Grille – Perimeter Mall
4400 Ashford-Dunwoody Rd.
Atlanta, GA 30346

Chicago

Gamekeepers Travern & Grill
345 W. Armitage
Chicago, IL www.gamekeeperschicago.com

Austin, TX

Fast Eddie’s Round Rock
100 Parker Dr
Austin, TX 78728
512-248-0646

Denver

Choppers Sports Grill
80 S Madison St.
Denver, CO 80209-3002
303-399-4448

Palo Alto, CA

The Old Pro Sports Bar
541 Ramona Street
Palo Alto, CA
650-326-1446

Santa Monica, CA

Yankee Doodles
1410 3rd Street Promenade
Santa Monica, CA
www.yankeedoodles.com

San Francisco

Giordano Brothers
303 Columbus Ave
San Francisco, CA
415-397-2767

If there are any other gatherings. Missed or impromptu, be sure to leave them in the comments below

Cleveland (thanks Pauly P, one of these times I’ll get down to join the crowd)

Bob Golic’s Sports Bar
1213 West 6th (corner with W. Lakeside, Warehouse District)

Some more onsite reports from the open practice.  Rush the Court, has some photos and observations.

Let’s get one thing out of the way. The East Region open practice might have been the most boring 5 hours of my life (not counting lectures). There’s a reason the NCAA makes this event free (outside of the fact that they more than make up for it through the $8 programs, $5 Cokes, and $23 baseball caps). The crowd was 95% white males in their mid-30s or above along with a handful of kids chasing autographs from players who they were looking up during the practices checking to see which ones had the best stats. My favorites were the old guys sitting behind me who kept on commenting on how good Gary McGhee and Brian Zoubek were (the tallest guys on the court) and what outstanding pros they were going to be.

Bill Raftery and Verne Lundquist were on hand to talk to each of the head coaches ahead of the games. No surprise that it was noted that they barely spoke with Coach Jamie Dixon. They just saw and spoke with him the prior weekend in Dayton (to say nothing of the fact that Raftery has called probably a half-dozen or so of Pitt’s games this year). Little has changed. The other 3 coaches played in other locations.

The Panthers seemed to be the loosest of the 4 teams. Despite being in drills, they were constantly playing around with DeJuan Blair,  Sam Young, and Levance Fields being the ring leaders.

Only Duke seemed to be going hard in the 50 minute practice sessions. So, it doesn’t seem like much can be read into these.

Nice article with Mike Rice (Robert Morris HC, ex-Pitt assistant) and Ron Everhart (Duquesne HC, A-10 member) talking about tonight’s game with Xavier and Pitt.

Both give the clear match-up advantage at point guard to Pitt, and at least imply that will be the difference. Rice also notes that there isn’t a significant talent differential. Pitt may have the stars, but the Xavier players are pretty damn good.

The Pitt players swear they are focusing on the game at hand.

Said Blair: “We’re not looking ahead. I’m not letting anybody look ahead.”

They know the dangers. Some of the Pitt players admitted they got caught peeking at top-seed Memphis last season.

“Not this year,” Panthers sophomore Gilbert Brown said.

The Pitt players are saying the right thing about facing their opponent.

Pitt seniors Tyrell Biggs and Levance Fields have been impressed with the Musketeers’ ability to rebound when they have watched their games in recent days.

“They’re really tall at every position,” Fields said. “So we’ve got to do a great job of boxing them out and not giving them second-chance opportunities.”

“They’re very athletic,” Biggs said. “That’s the one thing that jumps out at me. They have a bunch of guys who can really jump.”

Xavier is confident and one of the thing they stress, is their depth.

“That’s part of our success this year,” said junior forward Derrick Brown. “It’s not just sticking with five or six players. We’re a very deep team. That’s why on any given night different players step up. It’s not always one player averaging 25 points or anything like that because this is a team. We’ve got young players and different players in different roles and I think that’s why our program continues to be successful, because the experienced people get used in all different situations.”

Xavier comes into the game with a 27-7 record and solid wins over Portland State and Wisconsin in first- and second-round games last weekend in Boise, Idaho.

Brown has been a key factor, averaging 13.7 points and 6.0 rebounds a game. The core group includes senior forward C.J. Anderson (10.0 ppg, 5.4 rpg), junior center Jason Love (6.9 ppg), and guard B.J. Raymond, who leads the team with a 14.1-point average.

Miller, who is coaching against his alma mater, says the overall depth wears people down. “It is a big factor for us,” he said. “We have nine players. We try to have different players step up on different nights. We really are a team in every sense of the word and have a lot of different players who can beat you.”

Here’s the one thing about their depth. It is there, but it isn’t used right now. It’s the Tournament. Rotations shrink. While they didn’t have a hard time with Portland State, to allow them to play four bench players 11 minutes or more. The Wisconsin game was  a bit different. While they had 3 bench players with 18 minutes, he major reason was that starting center-forward Jason Love could only play 16 minutes with major foul problems.

You play your best players. Period. So will they throw some more players inside to absorb fouls against Blair? Certainly. But if they are getting burned at both ends, that won’t last. The multiple bodies weren’t enough to keep Love out of trouble.

As expected, the Sean Miller faces the team where he played is a popular theme. He acknowledges, but keeps trying to bring it back to Xavier.

“Yeah, I’ve watched them with a lot of pride over the last 8 years, as much as from a coach’s perspective, from the fact I once went there, and even the amazing job they’ve done, from Ben Howland and transforming their program from Fitzgerald Field House to the new arena,” Miller said.

“And watching Jamie Dixon take over and just the consistent success that they’ve had in the Big East Conference speaks for itself. And a lot of the things their program has become known for we, too, try to take great pride in what we do at Xavier.”

Pitt’s longtime trainer, Tony Salesi, is still close to Miller. As, apparently, are many of his old teammates who seem to feel they can root for their school and their friend/teammate.

“It is emotional,” Martin said. “It’s our alma mater. We had a lot of wins there. I love Pitt, but my heart is with Sean. That’s my man. I’m going to have my Xavier shirt on.”

Porter, who also has close ties to Pitt center DeJuan Blair, said he will be happy one way or the other tonight.

“I’ve spent a lot of years with Sean,” Porter said. “We were roommates and close friends. You always want your friends to do well. I’m in a no-lose situation. It’s either going to be Sean or DeJuan playing in the Elite Eight for the right to go to the Final Four.”

Andy Katz at ESPN.com says the pressure in this game is all on Pitt.

“We’ve just got to get back to the basics and it starts with defense,” Fields said. “The offense will come but we’ve got to outrebound teams and cut down on turnovers and we did that in the second round.”

The Panthers know they’re close. The three seniors — Fields, Sam Young and Tyrell Biggs — know this team is built for a six-game run to the title. This is easily Jamie Dixon’s best shot to win a national title in his six-year tenure at Pitt.

“It’s right there,” Fields said of getting to the Final Four. “But we’ve got to take care of phase three first.”

That’s Xavier. The Musketeers are in their second straight Sweet 16. They don’t have the pressure to win. Reaching the Elite Eight for the third time since 2004 would be quite remarkable. Xavier lost to UCLA in the West regional a year ago in the regional final. But like last season, and now this one, the X can play freely. Pitt cannot.

Oh, hey,  now we have a Sam Young story. All three get at least some attention.

Stories of Young’s devotion to his craft are legendary around Pitt. People talk about the nights he slept on an air mattress in the gym after hours of shooting alone, or how he would blow off social gatherings on weekends to find a pickup game on campus. That tunnel vision didn’t just begin in college, either.

“This is a guy who’d be at school at 6:30 in the morning working out or at the gym,” said close friend Chris Howard, Young’s teammate at Friendly High School and now a guard at South Florida. “When he was at Hargrave [Military Academy], there’d be times we’d call each other and be on speakerphone while we were doing push-ups.

“He’s not one of those guys you’re going to see in the club. Sometimes he’ll call me and say he’s going to movies, and I’ll joke around and say, ‘Who are you going with? Who’s the girl?’ And he’ll say, ‘I’m going by myself.’ That’s the kind of focus you’ve got to have until you get to the place you want to be.”

The aim of his focus wasn’t always clear to others. Pitt keeps rebounding statistics in practice, and Lombardi said Young easily could have led the team in that stat every single day with his leaping ability and strength. But whole practices would go by when he wouldn’t even try to grab a rebound, so intent was he on proving he was not just a post player.

Then there’s the head fake. Few college players are associated with a signature move as Young is. He’ll rise up almost halfway into his shooting motion, often even lifting one foot off the ground. Defenders will fly out to contest the outside shot, only to watch Young glide by for a short jumper or a dunk.

Big East opponents have bitten on this deception for years. Oklahoma State’s players, who had to have “stay home Young’s head fake” highlighted and underlined at the top line of their scouting report, still fell for it repeatedly Sunday.

And according to the story, Coach Dixon tried to break his head fake in favor of a more conservative manner. Interesting. Otherwise, it’s mostly a review of a lot of his background/history we’ve read before.

Okay, there is no shortage of articles relating to Pitt. I’m skipping all the capsules that every newspaper does.  I think we get it with the base stats on each team.

It’s a big game, with a few days building behind it. So, there are plenty of stories on DeJuan Blair. The New York Times focused on his rump — an amusing and decent piece.

But Blair’s game has more nuance to it than simply rocking his hips and pushing people out of the way. The Pittsburgh associate head coach Tom Herrion marvels at how Blair uses his rear end to create angles, something he said took more than physical strength.

“What’s amazing about him is how subtle and legal he plays with that,” Herrion said. “He’s not a brute player. It’s all subtle. His feel and his instincts allow him to take advantage of his body.”

The maestro of properly using one’s backside is Barkley, who earned the nickname the Round Mound of Rebound and angled his way into a Hall of Fame career. In a 1984 Sports Illustrated article, the 6-4 Barkley articulated why he had success against taller centers like 6-11 Melvin Turpin.

“It’s easier for me to get low,” he said. “I can put my butt on Melvin’s legs, but Melvin can only put his legs on my butt.”

Blair puts it this way: “It’s hard to get around my wide body. Why not push people out of the way with it?”

Ron Cook apparently wasn’t expecting much since Blair wasn’t too talkative on the subject

As a companion, this Wall Street Journal article on the return of the big man in college is well worth reading. The focus is mainly on Blake Griffin, but it is interesting and provides a quick little history lesson on their lessoning impact.

There’s also a couple stories from the Boston papers. One trying to look forward.

Asked if a trip to the White House to meet with the president gave him any added motivation to want to win it all, Blair perked up. “Yeah, yeah, yeah, that would be cool,” he said. Then, turning serious, he added, “I’m not worried about that right now. We’re in Boston right now, we’re not in Detroit. When we get to Detroit, we can talk up a storm about that.”

The only thing on Blair’s mind yesterday was getting past Xavier tonight.

“Xavier is a tall and athletic team,” he said. “They like to play and they like to run and they have an excellent rebounding team, so it’s going to be a little challenge for me. But I’m just going to try to do what I can do.”

The other just recapping his story.

“He’s a very unique player,” said Xavier coach Sean Miller, a former standout point guard at Pitt. “He reminds me of a guy I played with, Jerome Lane, and Jerome led the nation in rebounding. And DeJuan is right there.”

While his body type and game frequently draw comparisons to Lane, as well as players such as Karl Malone, Blair shrugs them off like so many opponents who battle him inside.

“I’m just trying to be me,” Blair said. “That’s all I am.”

The similarities are not lost on Pittsburgh coach Jamie Dixon, who sees certain qualities that allow such players to make up for their lack of height inside.

“Oftentimes you have to have soft hands and good feet,” Dixon said. “If you have a combination of those things, you can have success. He’s got all those attributes, I think, so that’s what he builds around and plays around.”

The players are trying to stay loose as the game looms.

In winning their first two tournament games, Blair and the Panthers settled down and allowed their talent to take over. They started playing more and thinking less, putting them in the right frame of mind for tonight’s game against a dangerous Xavier team coached by former Pitt standout Sean Miller.

“You want to have fun, especially with this being our last go-round,” point guard Levance Fields said of himself and fellow seniors Sam Young and Tyrell Biggs. “You try to have fun, but at the same time, we want to be as focused as possible.

“As the (second-round) game (against Oklahoma State) went on, we loosened up, got a little bit more excited and played better.”

…

“You want balance,” said Fields, who’s 82-16 as a starter at Pitt. “You want to be determined but also a little loosey-goosey. You don’t want everybody to be uptight and feel the pressure’s on.”

The only other Pitt player to get feature stories is Levance Fields. Seems to be the focus on NYC point guards thing. I always wonder if it is some sort of hive thing with media. It’s one thing when it is a pool of local beat writers but this is a bit different.

Pitt will survive or burn out with The General.

That’s the sometime nickname of Levance Fields, Pitt’s senior point guard and the most important player in the Panthers’ universe. The stocky 5-10 guy from Brooklyn, from legendary Xaverian High School and from the long list of big-time New York City point guards, is the one who runs the show for the top-seeded Panthers, the one who will be staring down Xavier tonight at the TD Banknorth Center.

Just ask him.

“DeJuan, Sam, those guys are our two horses, our stars,” Fields said. “When the game’s on the line, I’m going to have the ball. The biggest thing for us is confidence. I feel confident when I have the ball and I want to take that last shot. And my teammates and coaches feel the same way. They want me to have the ball.”

If you feel a bit put off by Fields’ bravado, well, two things: He’s from Brooklyn, so he doesn’t care; and he’s got a pretty solid resume to back those words up.

Just look back to Sunday in Dayton. Oklahoma State was throwing all it had at Pitt, hitting shots from all over the court. Down by a point with 3:30 to play, Fields turned it up a notch.

He drove and kicked out to Young for the go-ahead three-pointer. Next trip down, a putback by Fields. Next one, a Fields three. Game over.

Okay, that was a NYC area paper. So it is almost standard to bring in the local hook. But a New Hampshire paper with this?

“People brush him off because he doesn’t pass the eye test,” Pitt assistant coach Tom Herrion said from his team’s locker room at TD Banknorth Garden yesterday. “His appearance isn’t the fittest, but yet he’s the toughest. He’s a big shot taker, a big shot maker. He’s a winner. Hopefully he can keep that going in the next couple weeks.”

So where does Fields belong? At this point, he deserves to be mentioned among the Big Apple’s success stories. The 21-year-old, a three-time finalist for the Bob Cousy Award, given each year to the nation’s best point guard, has spent his four seasons at Pitt maximizing his talent.

“You can make the argument that he does as good a job playing that position as anyone out there,” said Xavier coach Sean Miller, himself a former all-star point guard at Pitt.

If you’re an unaffiliated basketball junkie searching for someone to root for during tonight’s NCAA East regional matchup (7:27 p.m., CBS) between No. 1 Pitt (30-4) and No. 4 Xavier (27-7), look no further than Fields. Sure, 6-7, 265-pound DeJuan Blair is the star (he looks like he could be the long lost son of former Michigan star Robert “Tractor” Traylor), but Fields runs the show.

“He’s the leader out there,” said Holloway, a 6-foot guard averaging 5.7 points per game for the Musketeers. “If you watch Pittsburgh, and you take him off the team, you can see that they’d be a lot different.”

Sam Young gets snubbed on the stories. Hopefully he’s got some more motivation then.

More in a bit.

On the topic of regional SI covers. In addition to Pitt there were: Gonzaga, UNC, ‘Cuse, MSU, and Oklahoma,

We’ve been warned that tomorrow will provide plenty of old-Pitt player stuff.

Jason Matthews and Darelle Porter are flying in from Pittsburgh. Bobby Martin, a personal trainer to college and professional athletes, lives in Boston.

Of course, Sean Miller wanted to go to UNC (thank you Roy Williams).

Miller, though, is only talking about the game.

“For us, I think where it really starts and stops is to be physical ourselves, to not allow them to dominate the glass. I don’t think they nearly get enough credit for being a great offensive team. Their transition – they get dunks and easy baskets that break your backs,” Miller said in Wednesday’s press conference. “We have to be rock solid in our transition defense and rebounding, two things that we’ve been very good at this season. And for us to have a hope, I believe, of advancing or beating them at the end of the game, you’d have to see us do a great job in those two areas.”

There was an additional note of Pitt looking rather loose at the open practice today.

Xavier players had no shortage of confidence during their 50-minute walk-through practice or press conferences. But Pitt had more. Panthers players laughed and joked around during their practice session. Some, like Fields, abandoned the team shoot-around in the final minutes to sign autographs.

Something our own correspondent, Brian mentioned.

A columnist doubting Pitt’s mental toughness.

To me, it’s more than tactics. The Panthers have yet to fully demonstrate the kind of mental toughness in the tournament that allowed them to do so well in the Big East. If they had there wouldn’t have been two close calls against inferior competition.

He’ll only be satisfied judging by his final statement if Pitt wins in a blowout. Whatever.

Since that brings us back to that whole matter of breaking through the Sweet Sixteen, there is this story from Bob Ryan.

There is great local pressure on this team because the recent success has made it the equivalent of a pro franchise in a city lacking NBA basketball. The Panthers have sold out every game in the 12,508-seat Petersen Events Center since it opened in 2002 (and where they are 99-10) and they have developed a rabid following that far transcends Pitt alumni.

This is the best team in Pitt history and this is the Last Chance Saloon for Messrs. Young and Fields, two high-quality seniors.

Pitt has done all this to itself by raising the bar so very high. Duke, Villanova, and Xavier can afford to fall short. They are all playing with house money here. But the Pitt Panthers must understand that if they do not at least make it to the Final Four, there is a question they will be hearing all spring, summer, and perhaps for the rest of their lives.

“Hey! What happened?”

I really don’t want to have to answer that question.

There still seems to be plenty that think Pitt can make the Final Four, or at least people aren’t moving from their picks before the Tournament started.

Here’s a sort of vague, three reasons why each team will win bit.

2. The Three Musketeers. Xavier is hard to shut down — and even harder to catch on a significant off night — because it doesn’t rely on any one player to carry the offense. B.J. Raymond, Derrick Brown and C.J. Anderson all average double-digit points and are all equally capable of leading the offense if one teammate is struggling. Nine different players scored in the Musketeers’ first-round victory over Portland State, with Anderson leading the way at 14. Brown, Raymond and Dante Jackson all scored 13.

3. Crashing the boards. Pittsburgh’s best offense is sometimes simply throwing a shot up and letting rebounding machine DeJuan Blair collect his millions. That strategy might not work against Xavier because the Musketeers are even better at splitting rebounding duties than they are with balancing the scoring. Xavier enjoys a plus-7.9 advantage on the glass and boasts seven players averaging between 3.5 and 6.0 rebounds per game.

A group of three that can lead the offense, a team with experience and they rebound. No wonder the Pitt players see similarities.

Pitt’s 6-foot-7, 265-pound DeJuan Blair will encounter 6-9, 255 Jason Love in the middle; the Panthers’ Tyrell Biggs (6-8, 250) and Xavier’s Derrick Brown (6-8, 277)possess similar outside shooting skills; and Pitt’s wing scorer, Sam Young, who goes 6-6, 220, will face C.J. Anderson, who measures precisely the same.

But in the backcourt, it’s a much different story: Xavier possesses B.J. Raymond and Dante Jackson, who stand 6-6 and 6-5, while Pitt’s Levance Fields is only 5-10 and Jermaine Dixon is 6-3. But, Jackson is not the ballhander that Fields is, and Raymond isn’t the threat from long range that Dixon is.

Of course, the hope is that Fields is feeling even better and that the Oklahoma State game was only the start of his return to form from in the regular season.

If anyone doubts Sam Young’s importance, just take note of how his minutes are way up as the season got to the end.

Young’s workload is increasing in March. After playing 35 minutes or more only three times in Pitt’s first 27 games, the second-team All-America has averaged 37 minutes in the past seven games. Young is relishing the extra work, posting 29-, 31- and 32-point games in that stretch. “As we’re going on, I think a little less rest is probably a possibility,” Dixon said.

He played all 40 minutes on Sunday.

Ashton Gibbs gets a full puff piece.

A solid upbringing produced a self-assured young man who carries a 3.3 grade-point average as a communications major. Gibbs’ work ethic was instilled by his father, Temple, who played college football — this is not a misprint — at Temple, where he roomed with future NFL Pro Bowl cornerback Kevin Ross.

“I learned at an early age that working hard is vital if you want to be good at anything,” said Temple Gibbs, an electrical contractor whose football career was cut short by a knee injury.

Bob Farrell, basketball coach at Seton Hall Prep in West Orange, N.J., said Gibbs might be the best shooter he’s had in 32 years on the job.

And Jermaine Dixon had his own backstory fleshed out.

Not long ago, Pitt guard Jermaine Dixon was Jermaine Cooper. That’s when he finally decided to disown the Cooper name the way his father disowned him all those years ago. It’s what his half brothers, Phil and Juan Dixon, wanted. It’s what their mother, Juanita Dixon, would have wanted.

Jermaine Dixon still talks fondly of his mom, who died of AIDS in 1994 when he was 7. “Even though she had [heroin] problems, she was a great mother. She always made sure we were good.”

There isn’t much nice for Dixon to say about his father, Robert Cooper. He bailed when Dixon was a baby.

“I wonder about him sometimes,” Dixon said. “I wonder what he’s thinking now. I wonder what he thinks when he turns on the TV and sees me.”

Don’t think too much about him. He is not worth it.

It’s hard to have a jinx when they do a slew of these by market.

Courtesy of Sports Illustrated

Least of all, Sean Miller.

“In terms of this NCAA Tournament, the focus is really on our players and our team, for us to be back in the Sweet 16,” Miller said. “That’s the story of this game. That’s really where the focus should be.”

But Miller, who starred at Blackhawk under his father John Miller and was recruited to Pitt by John Calipari, admitted he will never forget his days in Oakland.

“I had a great experience,” he said. “I was treated like you would want to be treated. The friendships that I have today, so many of my close friends really stem from that four-and five-year experience there.”

Then he turned the attention back to his Atlantic 10 regular-season champion.

“And it really stops there as well,” he said.

Ah, would that it were that simple. If it were, everytime a job on the west coast opened up, Coach Jamie Dixon’s name wouldn’t be bandied about. This is a storyline. A dramatic point to pound at until fingers are bloodied because no one can really hit the nail when no one wants to talk about it.

While the Panthers are the top seeds in the East, facing No. 1 seeds is nothing new to Xavier. This is the third straight year that the Musketeers have faced the top seed in the tournament.

“We’re just looking at it as a great opportunity to make another big stamp on our season and the program,” senior C.J. Anderson said.

“Everyone has seen a lot of Pitt and is familiar with the players and their program.” Anderson added.

For the record they lost both of those prior meetings with a #1 seed.

Coach Dixon figured he’d speak to a Big East coach in Cinci coach Mick Cronin about Xavier. He’s expecting a good game.

“It’s going to be a great game,” Cronin said. “I really think Xavier matches up well. They’re physical, they rebound and they defend. A lower-scoring game is going to favor Xavier.”

…

From Cronin’s vantage point, the Musketeers’ strength is their defense, which he calls the best he’s seen from an XU team under Sean Miller.

“They’re very consistent with their defense,” Cronin said. “They’re athletic. They have size and strength, and their depth allows them to keep fresh bodies on the floor and helps them maintain their defensive intensity.”

…

Of the three, Blair, the Big East co-player of the year, presents the most difficult matchup.

“He’s relentless,” Cronin said. “There’s no other way to describe it. It’s hard to keep him down for 40 minutes. When the game is on the line he’ll find a way against four guys to grab the ball and put it in.”

One thing in the Musketeers’ favor, Cronin said, is that they have 10 fouls to give in 6-foot-9, 255-pound Jason Love and 7-foot, 265-pound Kenny Frease.

And Cronin believes that XU is strong enough up front to hold its own on the boards against the Panthers.

“I think this is the best rebounding team Xavier has had in a long time,” Cronin said. “That’s how they beat us. That’s an area where they can definitely compete with Pittsburgh. That’s important because Pitt has had games where they don’t shoot the ball well but they dominate you on the glass.”

He also thinks their guard-foward B.J. Raymond is going to have to have a big game for Xavier to win.

Of course, Sean Miller has an A-10 coach that is quite familiar with Pitt in Duquesne’s Ron Everhart. Unlike Cronin who feels a low scoring game favors Xavier, Everhart feels differently.

“If they can make it an up-and-down game and force Pitt to constantly play transition defense, it’s the only time (Pitt center DeJuan) Blair and any of their guys are vulnerable,” Everhart said Tuesday. “The more possessions they have, there will be more fouls called, more trips to the line, more action — more chance to get a team that relies heavily on four to five guys into foul trouble.”

Everhart, one of four coaches to oppose both teams this season and the only one of that group to beat either, is convinced Xavier’s size, shot-blocking ability and outside shooting could prove troublesome to Pitt.

…

“Xavier might have an edge in depth on Pitt, but it doesn’t have an experienced senior point guard who has played through four NCAA tournaments like Levance Fields,” Everhart said. “He distributes the ball and gets guys shots, and teams that traditionally win national championships are built like Pitt. They have multiple seniors, one of whom is a point guard, and they know how to win close games.”

Then he said this about getting to coach against your alma mater.

Everhart coached last week against his own alma mater, Virginia Tech, in the NIT, and he believes there is something about going against your own school that can’t be quantified or analyzed.

“Maybe you prepare with a little more intensity, you’re sharper and more organized — you want your guys to be prepared to play your alma mater,” Everhart said. “For whatever reason, it does mean something. But Jamie (Dixon, Pitt’s coach) always has his guys ready to play, and I’m sure he’ll coach this week with a little bit of an edge, too.”

For the record, Duquesne lost to VT in OT. I could live with that as Xavier and Miller’s fate.

So what do we have. A coach that favors slow, plodding games things such a thing favors Xavier. Another coach that likes up-tempo sees that as helping Xavier. Thanks guys. Glad the two of you could help clear that up.

It isn’t surprising, though, that Pitt is favored and most are picking Pitt for this game. Of course, the Pitt players swear they are focused on just the game in front of them and getting past that barrier.

Pitt, which has never beaten higher than a No. 6 seed in the NCAA tournament the past seven seasons, has been ranked at the top of the polls and is one of the favorites to win the national championship, but the Panthers know all too well how those dreams can die well before the Final Four. Pitt players are determined that the Sweet 16 won’t be another Groundhog’s Day for the program.

“All we’re focused on is the next opponent,” senior forward Sam Young said. “That’s the only thing on everyone’s mind. We’re not saying we’re going to get to a Final Four or win a national championship. We have learned from that.

“When I hear someone talking about the Final Four I stop them right there. We have to worry about the Sweet 16. We can’t worry about any other game. We have to worry about today’s game. If we don’t pay attention to who we’re playing now we might be watching the Final Four.”

The concern these days is not the offense, but the defense is not what it has been. But, it is not dead, yet.

But recent numbers — Sunday’s first half notwithstanding — point to a resurgence in Pitt’s perimeter defense. In the Panthers’ final regular-season game, Connecticut shot just 4 of 14 from 3-point range (28.6 percent). West Virginia duplicated that number in the Big East Tournament. Last Friday, East Tennessee State put a scare into the Panthers in the first round of the NCAA Tournament, but not from the arc; the Buccaneers were just 4 of 22 (18.2 percent) from the perimeter.

And in the second half Sunday, Oklahoma State was 2 of 12 (16.7 percent).

“In the second half, though, we were getting out with our hands up,” Brown said.

Take out the Cowboys’ first half, and opponents are shooting a mere 14 of 62 (22.5 percent) from 3-point range. Overall field goal percentage during that span, again subtracting the 17-of-27 performance of Oklahoma State in Sunday’s first half, is an impressive 36.3 percent (78 of 215), about 5 percent lower than opponents shot over the season.

Maybe the new anomaly was Sunday’s first half.

“I felt like we were playing (defense) pretty good in the first half,” Wanamaker said, “but in the second half we really contested their shots.”

Hot shooting hurt as well.

I’m going to make a prediction about the game. I expect something good from Brad Wanamaker. I know he’s had some bad games in recent weeks. I’m of the opinion that he has made great progress, but is at his worst when playing against teams that press on defense. His court vision and ball handling is just not there to handle defenders in too tight. He dribbles too far away from his body too often because he is looking to keep the option of driving to the basket available. It means having to corral the ball when trying to pull up for a shot or stopping the dribble.  I think against a team like Xavier that does play more of a half-court game, Wanamker will have some space and will be able to do some good things.