As ESPN.com’s Bruce Feldman noted, mixed-martial arts is making plenty of mainstream news in the last couple of weeks. So, he does a Q&A with Pitt punter and MMA practitioner Dave Brytus (subs. only).

Q: Who on your team do you think could be a good MMA fighter if he worked at it and why?

A: Scott McKillop could be a great fighter! He was one of the best wrestlers in the state of Pennsylvania in high school. He also has good size and speed. If he worked on Jui-Jitsu and learned how to strike, he could be a force in MMA.

Dorin Dickerson could also be good in this sport I think. He is the most athletic guy on our team and is also one of the strongest. He could cut down to the 205-pound division and wreck people if he learned how to strike and use submissions. Anyone who is that athletic and has the kind of power he does at his weight class is dangerous.

Feldman, generally, is bullish on Pitt this season.

From Dan in NYC: Give me a sleeper team and sleeper Heisman pick for 2008.

Feldman: I’ll double up. I think LeSean McCoy would be my sleeper. I don’t think he’ll win it, but I could see him getting to New York, and Pittsburgh will be better than most people think. The Panthers lost a lot of key guys to injury for most or all of 2007 (QB Bill Stull, WR Derek Kinder, OT Jason Pinkston and DT Gus Mustakas) and now they’re back and McCoy will be the engine of a much-improved offense. Plus I think the Big East is really up for grabs.

Feldman has been one of the few mainstream writers from the start that liked Pitt hiring Wannstedt, and never jumped off that bandwagon. He had his doubts after year 2, but I think everyone did.

There’s a couple reasons I stay away from the area of recruiting news beyond linking to info from others and basic opinion. As much as we all crave the info. The scoop. The inside info. There are days when the whole thing just makes you want to take a chemical rinse to wash it all away.

Let’s face it, the whole nature of recruiting has a natural “eww” factor. We are talking borderline stalking of young, athletic boys — by multiple parties. And fans are on websites and forums obsessively tracking and going on emotional rollercoasters over their plans. I try not to think too much about that.

From highly accomplished and acclaimed coaches doing whatever it takes to convince some kid in high school to come sign, to the recruiting sites breathlessly reporting on the latest impulses of a 16-year old boy. And so much crosses each wire. The coaches and assistants feed some info to the recruiting sites to maneuver and relay info to the recruits. The recruiting sites use that info to have scoops. Everyone knows the game and plays it. I don’t want to say all sides use each other, so much as carefully share information to maximize their own interests. Even the kids at this point. They understand. Probably better than most of us.

It also means those that do write on recruiting are generally stuck with info that comes off as vague unless it comes from the kids, the family or the high school/AAU coaches. College coaches and the assistants aren’t allowed to talk on the record about recruits. That’s an NCAA no-no. So anything gleaned from sources within an athletic department have to be protected. It can’t come back, which requires a certain nebulous quality in conveying that side of the info.

On the academic issues, there’s a lot of problems in tracking that. There are privacy/verification issues of the student. Plus, these things are fluid. Heck, I posted on FanHouse about how Arizona commit Brandon Jennings has not yet academically qualified. It doesn’t mean he won’t get qualified. But right now, he hasn’t. It has an impact on how early a commit can get on campus and people want to know. So even if ultimately it comes to nothing, it gets reported at that moment.

The Backyard Brawl this year will be a national telecast on ABC at noon on Friday.

OK, so what’s the big deal about that? Well, since Big East Conference football was regenerated following the loss of three programs to the Atlantic Coast Conference, the league has had only one national TV date for a conference game on ABC.

One more excuse to skip out on any “Black Friday” crap.

The meme on how loaded the Big East will be in basketball for 2008 continues to worm its way around. Per Jay Bilas at ESPN (insider subs.)

It’s still too early to put together a coherent Top 25 for next year, but it is not too early to determine that the Big East will be the best league in the country.

By October, expect the backlash. At the first stumble of an expected top team in the Big East there will be the “ah-ha, see the BE isn’t that good!”

One of the stories I have always been fascinated, because of the consequences and that shows how effed up college sports can be has been the Baylor-Dennehy scandal. This was where a Baylor basketball player was shot by one of his teammates in the off-season. As the investigation was getting underway, the then coach, Dave Bliss, wanted to cover-up how he was secretly paying the way for walk-ons who had transferred — including Dennehy. That included trying to mislead investigators that Dennehy was shot because of a drug deal — despite Dennehy having no involvement in that. He even wanted the assistants to help with the cover-up. One young assistant and former Baylor player was so disturbed by this, he taped one of the conversations.

He went to see a lawyer who eventually leaked the tape, and helped blow the whole thing up. In the fallout, Abar Rouse became blackballed in D-1 because he “betrayed” his head coach. This long piece on what has happened to him is a hell of a read.

Many coaches, including Hall of Famers Jim Boeheim and Mike Krzyzewski, have said that Rouse had crossed the line. “If one of my assistants would tape every one of my conversations with me not knowing it, there’s no way he would be on my staff,” Krzyzewski told “Outside the Lines” in 2003. The rank and file has fallen in step.

Despite beating down seemingly every door and mailing out countless résumés, Rouse has had only one basketball job in the past five years, a graduate assistant position at Division II Midwestern State University in Wichita Falls. In October he made the agonizing decision to quit, unable to survive on the $8,000 annual salary.

…

Assistant coaches are basketball’s Secret Service, there to step in and take a bullet when one is fired at the man in charge. Indiana’s Senderoff was sent packing long before the NCAA’s tentacles reached Sampson; Dwane Casey took the initial heat for Eddie Sutton at Kentucky in 1989. Taking the fall is an act of honor, despite the fact it usually means some sort of violation occurred.

Turning a coach in, deservedly or not, is viewed through an altogether different prism. Among coaches who pontificate about integrity and ethics — the NABC, then headed ironically enough by Sampson, called an emergency summit the fall after the Baylor scandal to discuss the very thing — there is a hypocritical silent code: Thou shalt not drop a dime on one another. Or at least get caught doing so.

And in a career in which networking is critical for job placement, those who go against the silent code are exiled, left to scrap their way back or wait in hope that someone offers a lifeboat.

Bliss, by the way, got to coach in the NBDL for a year and actually felt like he has re-habbed enough to start showing up at the Final Four once more. Read it all.

East Carolina desperately has wanted in to the Big East since the re-formatting a few years ago. They still want to find their way in. Even if just in football.

OK, but what if a deal too sweet to beat existed? Just for kicks, let’s put one on the table in the form of, say, a job application. The school should be willing to:

• Play a conference football schedule with zero compensation from the Big East so current members don’t have to give up any of their share of revenue.

• Be responsible for negotiating a television contract for home games until the league wants the school to be a part of its package.

• Not expect any of the league’s BCS revenue until earning a BCS bid of its own representing the conference.

• Come in as a football member only. Other sports would play in another league in order to not interfere with the league’s current 16-member setup for all other sports.

• Show a solid track record of putting fans in the seats at home, on the road and at bowl games — all on a trial basis for a few years.

The Big East still won’t bite. They don’t have to. As much as it makes things difficult to schedule in football,  even a provisional, part-time new member would likely upset the delicate balance with the basketball schools. Until the conference realizes it has to split, ECU has no chance.

Finally, congrats to Dick Groat and Pitt great Don Hennon on being included for induction into the WPIAL Hall of Fame. That they weren’t been inducted years ago is more of a shock than anything else.

The Stanford job is open, but seriously, that’s not a job Dixon would take at this point. Aside from, at best being a lateral move, Stanford AD Bowlsby was an idiot. He put off Trent Johnson’s contract talk all season — then wasted two weeks after the season without making an offer (Johnson was in the last year of his contract). What? He thought no one would be interested in a classy, clean coach who won at Nevada and Stanford?

Besides, how eager would Stanford be to hire a Pitt coach after what happened with Walt Harris?

That said, expect rumors and reports that Jamie Dixon is in California. Because he is.

Pittsburgh basketball Coach Jamie Dixon is returning to the Southland Saturday to be honored by his alma mater, Sherman Oaks Notre Dame, at the school’s annual Knights of Honor dinner-auction gala at the Universal Sheraton.

…

UCLA Coach Ben Howland, a close family friend, will introduce Dixon. Jimmy Kimmel is the master of ceremonies at the event.

Yes, Jimmy Kimmel is the MC of a HS alumni event.

Bob Smizik puts himself into an interesting little corner in his chat.

SDWC: Hi Bob, I noticed in your column this morning a line stating “It’s nice to see a coach with his eye on the real target “. Was that meant to be a quiet dig at Jamie Dixon and the Pitt BB philosophy?

Bob Smizik: Yes, it was a reflection on how Pitt proceeds in the post-season. It was refreshing to see Therrien have his eye on the big prize and not the conference title.

There’s a few other Pitt basketball questions after that, and then this.

Baxter: Who has had the more successful basketball program over the past several years? WVU with two sweet 16 appearances and one elite 8 appearance with an NIT title in between or Pitt and its early exits from the NCAA tourney.

Bob Smizik: Pitt, with its Big East TOURNAMENT championship, probably feels it has been more successful. I also think it has the better record, although I don’t have those numbers in front of me. But based on NCAA play, the big prize, I’d say West Virginia has the more successful program.

By recent years, that is then limited to just the past 4 because WVU hadn’t been in the NCAA Tournament since 1998, prior to 2005. Then by that logic, John Brady and LSU is a more successful program in recent years. A lot of good that did the new coach at Arkansas -Little Rock State.

Sorry, I can’t buy into that. There’s no question that the NCAA Tournament matters. That it is the big prize. But to be outright dismissive of the regular season and the Big East regular season and the Big East Tournament is beyond moronic. No, I take that back. It speaks of someone who just doesn’t care about college basketball beyond the NCAA Tournament at best. Arguably, it is one of the worst things about being a college team in a pro town. The mindset.

It’s that reasoning which allows the BCS to survive, as proponents point to the claim that at least with the BCS, the regular season matters. That every game counts and it isn’t just to get to the playoffs.

I didn’t see this in the Spring Practice Guide (PDF), nor anywhere else. I was tipped off by a contact — okay, it’s an old frat brother who works for NFL Films.  And it wasn’t exactly a tip so much as a “why haven’t you posted this” e-mail, you idiot. Details, and that’s not important.

The info I am trying to share is that the Blue-Gold Spring Football game will be aired live on the NFL Network. That’s 6pm on Saturday, April 19. There will be a re-airing again at Midnight.

That’s right, as long as you can watch the NFL Network you can actually see the game on TV. No settling for the grainy and glitchy internet video feed like last year.

The Pitt women’s basketball team beat 11th seeded Wyoming on Saturday 63-58 to advance to the second round against 3rd see ded Baylor. They advanced this far last year but Candace Parker from Tennessee rolled right over them on their way to an NCAA title.

Baylor (25-6) limped into the tournament with three straight losses — its first three-game skid since the 2000-01 season. The Bears’ struggles were largely due to inexperience and a lack of healthy bodies. They have just one senior on the roster and haven’t played more than seven players in any game since beating Oklahoma on Feb. 17.

That one senior, however, made a big difference on Saturday, when Tisdale had 26 points and six assists in Baylor’s 88-67 first-round victory over Fresno State. “She’s the key to our offense,” junior forward Rachel Allison said of Tisdale, averaging 24.4 points in her last five games. [ESPN preview]

If they are able to beat Baylor tonight, it would be the first Sweet 16 appearance in program history. Game time is set for 7pm on ESPN2.

Women’s basketball was once a strong point of Penn State athletics, but now we have that. At least they can always fall back on their 12 NCAA men’s gymnastics championships.

And holy hell does ESPN have a lot invested in this tournament or what. After CBS picked up the exclusive rights to every game of the men’s tourney, ESPN swooped in for the women’s. I’m willing to bet if they didn’t have the women’s tournament on their networks they wouldn’t have as much of their website dedicated to the women as they do the men. Just sayin’.

Congrats to coach Agnus Berenato for putting the Pitt women’s team on the map when they weren’t relevant even two years ago. Back-to-back tourney appearances is a big deal.

Big hat tip to Dan for the scan.

Any doubt ESPN may have had for signing Bob Knight to whatever amount they paid, has to be gone. While we keep watching, hoping, that he at least goes on a blue streak that gets a sustained bleep as if he were off camera — this and this are positively brilliant — people remain riveted to what he is saying.

He goes off and picks Pitt to win the NCAA Tournament on the ESPN Selection show and everyone notices. Even the players and coach. I think Knight got a bit caught up with Pitt. He made his debut on ESPN and had to primarily focus on the Big East Tournament. Just a bit of myopia.

He’s sticking with Pitt, though.

“They really, really impressed me because they won that game with Georgetown in a way where they didn’t have to make a miracle shot, they didn’t have to come from behind to do it,” he said.

“Pittsburgh just manhandled ’em. Played them off the court, really. I’m still high on Georgetown. One game changes the tournament committee’s opinion, never mine, but I’ll get to the tournament committee in a minute.

“Pitt with [Levance] Fields, and [DeJuan] Blair and [Sam] Young inside are just tougher than hell, and [Jamie] Dixon is a tough coach that really works them hard and stays on them.”

He is impressed, too, with UCLA’s Ben Howland, Dixon’s former boss at Pittsburgh. And don’t tell Knight that some people are going to say Howland can’t win the big one if UCLA doesn’t win the title after consecutive trips to the Final Four.

“That’s bull . . .,” he said. “Just getting there is such a difficult proposition. You’ve got to win big ones to get there. Jesus, I wish people would spare me that.”

As for why Knight was doing an interview in the first place.

“Obviously, I’m getting paid to do this,” he said nicely.

Knight was in L.A. for a one-day whirlwind tour as a spokesman to promote DirecTV’s Mega March Madness package.

I love that package.

But Mike DeCourcy at the Sporting News, disagrees.

Hall of Fame coach Bob Knight anointed Pitt as his choice to win the NCAA title. That statement proves coaching basketball can be easier for some than analyzing it.

If Pitt were to win the title, it would be one of the shortest modern teams to do so. The Panthers start a 6-7 center (DeJuan Blair) and 6-6 power forward (Sam Young). They typically use one reserve big man who stands 6-8 (Tyrell Biggs).

Knight’s prediction writes a check Pitt’s team can’t cash. Pitt fans who’ve wondered why their team can’t get past the Sweet 16 — generally, it has been because the other teams were better — will point to Knight’s prediction and claim the Panthers underachieved.

Nope — it’s Knight who underachieved. His analysis has dropped to the level of his wardrobe.

Gee, and I just assumed the sweaters with the ESPN logo was because ESPN wouldn’t let Knight sell the ad-space to O’Reilly Auto parts.

This is a post I never expected to write. Definitely not something I want to write. Not now on the day of the NCAA Tourney. Not ever. This is the first time I have ever come across plagiarism.

One of the things I do regularly on this blog is aggregate Pitt content. Read and gather as much as I can then try and put it out there in a post with a common thread. Whether it is a game recap or a storyline that various media folk follow.

So, very late Sunday night/early Monday morning, I finally got to posting the various links I had gathered over the previous 24+ hours after Pitt won the Big East Tournament.

One of the links in that group was the short piece from Eric Hall at the Beaver County Times about how Dixon has earned and should stand alone from Ben Howland (EH-BCT). The time-stamp online was for 12:56 am on March 16.

On Monday afternoon, while gathering more stories I found this story from Dale Grndic on Scout.com (DG-S) which I just lumped in my tabs as “Dixon love” after a quick skim. That evening, when I had time to put together a new links round-up I took a closer look at the story and felt like I had already read it somewhere else.

I had.

EH-BCT:

If any doubt of Jamie Dixon’s coaching ability existed, it disappeared this week. If any part of his success was still being attributed to Ben Howland, it vanished Saturday.

Dixon’s fifth season as the Pitt Panthers’ coach has been his best. Better than the 31 wins of his first season. Better than the Sweet 16 of last season.

The Pitt Panthers are the Big East champions after Saturday’s 74-65 victory over No. 9 Georgetown. That’s a statement few could have imagined a few weeks ago.

For the better part of two months while dealing with injuries, Dixon kept the team together though its common thread was hanging by one. And now that the Panthers are primarily healthy, Dixon has the group believing and rolling heading into the NCAA Tournament.

DG-S:

It’s been questioned several times this season, but the phrase “Howland-Dixon Era” for the Pitt men’s basketball program should finally be vanquished.

Jamie Dixon, deep into his fifth season at Pittsburgh (26-9), certainly should stand alone now. Sure, Ben Howland, his mentor, brought back the Panthers program. Dixon certainly maintained that high level from the outset, but this arguably has been his best season.

That’s better than reaching 31 wins in his first season, 2003-04, and better than the Sweet Sixteen performance last spring. Pitt’s 74-65 win against ninth-ranked Georgetown earned Dixon his first Big East title. Howland won one in 2002, but the Panthers didn’t have to go through what this season’s group has.

For the better part of two months while dealing with injuries, Dixon kept the team together though its common thread was hanging by one. And now that the Panthers are primarily healthy, Dixon has the group believing in itself and playing its best basketball heading into the NCAA Tournament.

EH-BCT:

Dixon managed to unite this team just before it was prepared to dissolve and just before the most imperative portion of the season was set to begin. His in-game moves, often criticized, were for the most part tremendous. He out-coached the likes of Rick Pitino and Tom Crean and John Thompson III.

It’s an impressive list. Those coaches have all been to the Final Four.

Dixon showed he’s worthy of being mentioned in the same sentence as those coaches.

He also proved mentioning Howland’s name in the same sentence isn’t necessary any more.

DG-S:

Pitt could have fallen apart completely, but Dixon wouldn’t let it. His in-game moves, often criticized, were for the most part tremendous. He out-coached Rick Pitino, Tom Crean and John Thompson III in a three-day span. That’s quite an accomplishment. Pitino has a national title on his resume, while Thompson III was in the Final Four last spring. Crean got there before as well.

However, Dixon’s name should be mentioned during any conversation about top basketball coaches in the NCAA. Howland is in that category as well, for getting Pitt its initial Big East title and two NCAA Sweet Sixteen appearances, as well as what he has accomplished at UCLA.

In case you hadn’t figured it out, the bold print are where the sentences are virtually identical.

This had me stunned. Frankly, I was hoping that there was some sort of mistake with the by-lines. Grndic has done freelance work for the BCT in the past, so maybe there was a mistake with that.

After all, Dale Grdnic has been a sports reporter on Pittsburgh sports for years. He has covered all the sports teams in Pittsburgh. He has written a book on the Steelers. He’s quality and his peers think well of him.

I fired off an e-mail to Eric Hall late Monday night and set about trying to find and e-mail for Dale Grndic’s. I didn’t get it until the next day around noon. By that time, I had already heard from Hall who confirmed it was his story and knew nothing about the Grdnic piece until I had sent him the link. He was very surprised.

I got a response from Mr. Grdnic shortly after I sent the e-mail. He asked me to call him to discuss it. I wasn’t able to make a phone call until Wednesday, shortly after 9 am. There was no denial.

So, yes. Dale Grdnic did commit plagiarism. The reason. The excuses. The justifications are ultimately irrelevant. It was done, and Mr. Grndic will have to own what he has done.

I take no pleasure in this. Frankly, there’s a significant part of me that wishes I hadn’t found this. It would have been easier. It also would have been easier to let it slide. It wouldn’t, however, have been right.

(more…)

AOL FanHouse did something similar to a “Choose Your Own Adventure”, but it was “Choose Your Own Cinderella Team”. Starting here and picking “Pay attention to the front of the jerseys” then “Pick a team with experience” followed by “You like a team that keeps coming back to the tournament”, you’re Cinderella option is Thursday’s opponent, Oral Roberts. Their experience-based preview is here.

Oral Roberts won’t be intimidated by the bright lights. They’ve done this. Sure, they get a very hot Pittsburgh team right now, but how many times have we watched the Big East tournament champion end up losing fairly early in the dance?

ORU has been to the tourney the previous three seasons as a 16 seed, then a 14 seed, and now a 13 seed this year. The “adventure” was fun and I thought was brilliantly done.

According to the Oral Roberts official site, their mascot is the Golden Eagles (changed from Titans in 1993). The name of the costumed mascot is Eli, both for it’s biblical meaning and it’s acronym: Education, Lifeskills, and Integrity. Um, maybe they need to add an ‘f’ for “fighter.” Eli found himself in a bit of a scuffle against the IUPUI Jaguar during the Summit League title game. Of course, like most things these days, it made it’s way onto YouTube.

The best Penguins blog on the web is The Pensblog. They say Pitt won’t win because of a tough first round draw.

What would Gary Roberts do? Probably play a solid 2-3 zone (“with man-to-man principles”)…

…by himself.

[Quick aside: Bill Raftery doesn’t just yell “onions” – he draws them.]

Chances are you probably saw or heard that Bob Knight picked Pitt to win it all. He also has reiterated it more than a few times on various SportsCenter segments that he’s sticking with them. If you missed it, the video is here.

TV coverage map for the afternoon time slot? Yes.

Just a final reminder about our Bracket Challenge. See if you can beat me (you will). Commenters, what’s the name of your bracket? Just so we all know.

Terrelle Pryor mania is over – and he’s attending “The University of Ohio State.”

I’ll be watching the game at the Pete tomorrow – you should too. If you’re a part of the “general public” then feel free to come.

I think I would prefer more doubters like Grant Wahl at SI.com.

Bracket buster: Oral Roberts. Scott Sutton‘s 13th-seeded Golden Eagles are playing in their third-consecutive NCAA tournament, and they’re blessed with more size than any other low- to mid-major, going 6-8, 6-9 and 6-10 on their starting front line. They will be taller up front than first-round foe Pittsburgh, which is riding high after its Big East tourney title, but for this game in Denver I’m predicting a repeat of what happened the last time Pitt went out west for the NCAAs and got knocked off in the first round (by Pacific in Boise in 2005).

Instead, it’s mostly positive stuff about Pitt.

SI.com: Who has the hardest road?

SD: Memphis, no doubt about it. Pittsburgh won four games in four days at the Big East tournament … clearly, with Levance Fields back, that’s a different team. Memphis will have to get past Pitt, then past Texas in Houston, where Texas has a home-court advantage — it will be burnt orange wall-to-wall.

Seth Davis also thought Pitt should have been a 3 seed.

What Pitt did in the Big East Tournament seems to have inflated lots of expectations. Bobby Knight isn’t the only one willing to predict Pitt in the Final Four.

Instead, I’m going with No. 4 seed Pittsburgh, which just battled through the Big East tournament to win the title at Madison Square Garden. The Panthers will bump free throw phobic Memphis and then Texas, if things play out according to my bracket plan, to join the three remaining top seeds in San Antonio. North Carolina, the top overall seed, takes UCLA in a classic title game.

While not predicting Pitt to win the South, Pitt is the “darkhorse” to come out of the bracket.

So how about Pittsburgh? A fourth seed isn’t that big of a dark horse, granted, but nobody from seeds 5-16 has a chance in this region.

Pitt is the hot “darkhorse” or “sleeper” team right now.

The Panthers are seeded No. 4, which is startling considering that they entered the Big East tournament last week as a No. 7 seed. But it would be hard to find a hotter team in the country than the Panthers, who became the second team in Big East tournament history to win four games in four nights. (A note of caution: the last team to do it, Syracuse in 2006, lost in the first round of the N.C.A.A. tournament.)

But the reason to be high on these Panthers is that they are finally healthy after the starting point guard Levance Fields came back from a broken foot. Sam Young has emerged as one of the country’s best players, and the freshman big man DaJuan Blair is no longer playing like a freshman.

I hate being the sexy pick. I’m not saying I want Pitt to be the team everyone is predicting to flame out in the first round, but it is a little too much. I worry about the players reading too many press clippings.
This breakdown of the 1st round game, is pretty good. And not just because they go with Pitt.

Pittsburgh game plan: The Panthers will look to wear down the Golden Eagles with their efficient offense. Though not an especially high-scoring team, Pitt can push the ball to negate ORU’s defensive style, create mismatches in transition and ultimately tire out the Golden Eagles. Also, forwards Sam Young and DeJuan Blair must establish themselves on the glass.

Oral Roberts game plan: ORU wins with defense – it held opponents to 39.7 percent field-goal shooting this season. It has a pair of shot blockers in Shawn King and Yemi Ogunoye and quick-footed guards who make teams work for every point. By slowing things down, ORU might keep the game close enough at the end for guard Robert Jarvis to take over.

Jarvis generally comes off the bench, but is their leading scorer.

This story from the Tulsa paper has the Golden Eagles poor mouthing their chances.

“They’re athletic, they play hard and they play great as a team. There’s no one man. You can’t just stop one man and expect to win,” said ORU senior guard Yemi Ogunoye. “They’re playing great toward the end of the season. They’ve got all the confidence in the world right now. It’s gonna be tough for us to come out and win. Everything has to be be on that night for us,” Ogunoye said.

But it was hard to dampen the Eagles’ enthusiasm after receiving their highest seed in their three consecutive years of qualifying in the tournament.

“We’re making progress,” said senior guard Moses Ehambe. “Two years ago, a 16 seed. Last year, 14, and now a 13. So we’re taking steps up. Pittsburgh is a physical team, but I believe if we go out there and play hard and play our signature (defense), we’ll be all right.”

Worth noting that ORU is a bad free throw shooting team. Only 67%. Granted I would kill for that after what Pitt did in the last couple games of the BET, but I’m hoping the team is over those yips.

Here’s another capsule collection of the teams.

Finally a couple of the Colorado papers look at the teams coming to Denver here and here. Nothing too important.

I have been writing all day. Sadly, this bit of joy has been last on the list.

Ron Cook says this BET Championship is better than in 2003.

The 2003 championship was something special because of the way coach Ben Howland and guard Brandin Knight willed the Panthers to the title. But that Pitt team was much better during the season than this one. It was a No. 2 seed in the conference tournament and had to win three games — against Providence, Boston College and Connecticut — to cut down the nets.

Respectfully, this championship trumps that one.

The Pitt players showed so much toughness here that one New York columnist suggested they change the team name to Gritt. I like that. It fits.

“For whatever reason, I don’t think we were playing as aggressive as we needed to, say, 10 games ago,” Pitt coach Jamie Dixon said. “We were able to get back into it and do the things we do. We have just been more physical, more aggressive. We’re more like we normally are. More like Pitt.”

I’m not going that far, because they were such different animals.

I wish they had shown more of the celebration on ESPN. They damn well better on the Pitt weekly propaganda show.

Pitt raised the Big East trophy at center court for the second time and ended years of frustration in this game. The Panthers had lost the past two Big East championship games and had won only once (2003) in six previous appearances.

The players brought the trophy over to Pitt fans that had made their way near the court, and the Panthers passed the trophy around like the Stanley Cup, each one of them getting to enjoy a moment with the hardware in their hands.

The rapid turnaround of Pitt is also a big theme.

ust 13 days ago, Pitt players were ripping themselves after an embarrassing loss at West Virginia, talking about how they couldn’t guard anyone.

Last night, they were ripping down the nets at Madison Square Garden, under the prideful watch of coach Jamie Dixon.

“I could have sat there all day and just watched them,” Dixon said.

Thirteen days ago, the Panthers looked like a team that had lost its identity, a team that couldn’t rebound or stop opponents from scoring easy baskets.

Last night, they completed a stunning four-game run that saw them topple Cincinnati, Louisville, Marquette and Georgetown on successive nights.

The revival/reversal/turnaround was oft-repeated in the stories. NY papers loved to play the local angle.

“Levance Fields is a huge Giants fan and he came out and told the team, follow the Giants’ model,” said Pittsburgh guard Ronald Ramon of the Bronx, referring to the Panther point guard, who is a Brooklyn native. “They came out and played hard and came to win.”

The Panthers outworked and outhustled Georgetown, outrebounding the Hoyas by 41-29 and beating them in dives on the floor, loose balls corralled and the typical blue-collar nuances that have come to define Pittsburgh basketball.

The Giants’ comparison runs deep. The Panthers (26-9) had a solid but unspectacular regular season, just as the Giants did. Because Pittsburgh was only a No. 7 seed, it did not receive a bye and needed to win four games in four days. The Giants were a wild-card team and needed to win four games to win the Super Bowl. Georgetown (27-5) was not undefeated, as the Patriots were, but the Hoyas did enter the game a perfect 14-0 as a No. 1 seed in the Big East tournament.

Fields and New Jersey’s Brandin Knight, a former Pittsburgh star and now an assistant, hatched the analogy at the team hotel Friday night. Knight and Fields are the team’s resident Giants fans and got a laugh at recalling the similarities.

And the local players.

Fields is one of four local kids — along with forward Tyrell Biggs and guards Ronald Ramon and Keith Benjamin — who play major roles on this team, which may have earned a top-4 seed with this emotional victory.

Dick Weiss may have captured things in his local NY column.

“Without question, we’re New York’s team,” Fields said as he climbed down the ladder after helping cut down the net. “Nothing against St.John’s, but we have a lot of New York City kids and we win a lot, especially in New York.”

There are five players from the metropolitan area – Fields, Ramon, senior forward Tyrell Biggs, junior guard Keith Benjamin and freshman center Austin Wallace – on Pitt, and they acted as if they couldn’t care less that Georgetown was considered by many a favorite to win the national championship. This was for bragging rights in the neighborhood and the Panthers were not about to give the Hoyas the keys to the city.

Maybe that is what makes the Big East so special. It is tough, old-fashioned basketball, the way it is played on the playgrounds here, where winners stay on and losers go home. Seventh-seeded Pitt refused to leave, becoming only the second team to win four straight games in this tournament.

Bob Ryan of the Boston Globe was at the game, no doubt to see the Hoyas take the BET and be a potential #1 seed. Instead, he gave glowing press to Pitt.

The Panthers simply shrugged their shoulders and went to work, dispatching Cincinnati, Louisville, and Marquette to get their shot at top-seeded Georgetown, which had looked so good in its own march to the championship game that many of us were thinking they had an outside chance for a No. 1 seed, assuming the Hoyas could get by Pitt.

Well, they couldn’t. Georgetown is good and Georgetown is tough, but last night Pitt was better, and there is no doubt Pitt was tougher.

In beating Georgetown, another theme was that Pitt broke through after coming close.

In recent years, Pittsburgh had often reached this point of the conference tournament before faltering. They had won but one championship in six previous Big East title games this decade. Now that the Panthers have raised that record to 2-5, they can look to larger horizons.

First under the coaching of Ben Howland and now with Jamie Dixon for the last five seasons, they have often entered the N.C.A.A. tournament as a highly rated team, only to disappoint. They have made the Round of 16 four times in the past six seasons, but have not advanced beyond that.

And Pitt does seek to break that barrier as well.

“National championship teams haven’t done what we’ve done over seven years,” Dixon said. “But at the same time, that is our ultimate goal — and we don’t have problems discussing that — but it doesn’t take away from what we’ve done.”

Much attention goes to Coach Dixon for what this team has accomplished this season.

Since everybody’s talking about voting do-overs these days, would a re-vote for Big East coach of the year yield the same results?

Probably not.

It wouldn’t be Notre Dame’s Mike Brey. Not after what Jamie Dixon pulled off Saturday night at Madison Square Garden. Really, what he’s pulled off after a bleak, injury-filled start.

…

Dixon’s a star now. He should be the Big East coach of the year.< Pittsburgh fans, you really should believe this team is going places.

Whether it really does dismiss the doubters is a different issue.

If any doubt of Jamie Dixon’s coaching ability existed, it disappeared this week. If any part of his success was still being attributed to Ben Howland, it vanished Saturday.

Dixon’s fifth season as the Pitt Panthers’ coach has been his best. Better than the 31 wins of his first season. Better than the Sweet 16 of last season.

The Pitt Panthers are the Big East champions after Saturday’s 74-65 victory over No. 9 Georgetown. That’s a statement few could have imagined a few weeks ago.

For the better part of two months while dealing with injuries, Dixon kept the team together though its common thread was hanging by one. And now that the Panthers are primarily healthy, Dixon has the group believing and rolling heading into the NCAA Tournament.

Yet, Dixon does try to downplay and deflect getting through this season.

Drake coach Keno Davis is a natural for coach of the year consideration, what with his out-of-nowhere rise to prominence, but Dixon may have done something even more unprecedented. He used band-aids, gumption and stubborn conviction to win what is easily the most difficult league in the country.

“I think people try to make it more dramatic than it is,” Dixon said. “There’s all this talk. I was who I was and I wasn’t going to change. Any change the players would have been able to figure out and realized I wasn’t real. I tried to not make it as big a transition to me and to others and I’ll continue to downplay it.”

But if this team possesses anything, it is Dixon’s personality. Even the unassuming Young is a closet Dixon. He doesn’t say much about being irked by naysayers, but privately he collects press clippings in his locker and warehouses negative comments, building a private Rolodex of motivation.

A little longer to savor this, before stressing on the NCAA Tournament.

This is more for posterity. The win is over. Time to focus on the next game.
I guess Tim Higgins can take solace in the fact that fans of every Big East team hate him. He probably feels that means he is doing his job well and fairly. That’s the interesting thing from the Marquette perspective. Jerel McNeal was nearly run by Higgins.

This time, it appeared as though he ejected McNeal from the game as McNeal was seated on the bench. Higgins stopped play, walked over to the scorer’s table, then walked down the sideline and stopped in front of McNeal and twice gestured with his arm as though he was kicking him out.

McNeal and Crean appeared stunned. Then Higgins, perhaps realizing the storm of controversy that doubtless would have surrounded such a move, appeared to change his mind and allowed McNeal to stay, instead warning the bench area to keep quiet.

(Rosiak questioned some of the fouls called on McNeal, including a little bump on Young as he drove. Conveniently ignoring that they called similar fouls on Pitt. Not wild about the officiating, but it was bad both ways.) That was where McNeal seemed to lose his mind on the bench. It does seem that McNeal was going a little beyond emotional at that point.

Tim Higgins went over to the Golden Eagles’ bench and gave a stern verbal warning to McNeal, who had been jumping up and down and screaming profanity in protest of a call. It appeared as if Higgins ejected McNeal, as he pointed to the locker room, but McNeal returned to the game a few minutes later.

As has happened so many times recently in the Big East tournament semifinals, Pittsburgh left an opponent frustrated and on the wrong side of the scoreboard.

As another paper put it, McNeal spent much of the game chewing his fingernails from the bench.

Sure enough, the moral victory stuff I mentioned at the end of last night was a theme for Marquette after the game. I understand and they should go with that. Heck if it had been Pitt in that situation, we know Dixon would have spun it that way, but it is a touch predictable.

In a game that had a lot in it, it’s a bit of a shame that Tyrell Biggs got shorted in the local papers for his contributions. Biggs gave Pitt 31 minutes for a foul-plagued DeJuan Blair. He provided 6 points on 50% shooting and 8 rebounds. He had a block and only 1 turnover. He stepped up for Pitt in the game. I suppose it makes some sense. Both recaps were essentially game recaps. As newspapers, they had deadlines and the lateness of the game meant the newspaper beat writers were up against it — which also explains the minimal amount of quotes in the stories. Even the post-game pressers had to be limited in what they could use.

Eric Hall at the Beaver County Times, though, did work Biggs into his recap.

Consider where these Panthers (25-9) stood after a punishing loss at West Virginia two weeks ago. The Panthers just wrapped up their fourth loss in six games. Hope was disappearing. The players appeared disconnected. They weren’t playing together.

Consider that the hero of Thursday’s win was Gilbert Brown, the redshirt freshman with the unusual shooting stroke and some questionable decisions. He played 36 minutes against Louisville, many more than his career high.

Consider that the hero of Friday’s game was Tyrell Biggs, an inconsistent player who has never delivered on potential that had him on Duke’s wish list. But Biggs played in foul-ridden DeJuan Blair’s stead, 31 minutes worth of rebounding (he had eight) and good defense.

Consider that only once in the history of this event had a team won the night after winning a game in overtime. But the Panthers broke out to a 16-4 lead and never trailed.

Consider that Sam Young, the volatile member of this team, evolved into a leader and has scored at least 21 points in all three games this week. On Friday, he had a game-best 22.

“There’s something about the Garden,” said point guard Levance Fields, who reclaimed his leadership role after a tenuous return from an ankle injury. “Special things happen.”

Revenge always feels good.

“Oh man, we really wanted to get back at them after that,” said Pitt swingman Gilbert Brown. “We came out flat that game. They took a big lead early in the second half and started celebrating. I mean, (Marquette guard David) Cubillan was actually dancing to the crowd.

“We kept that mind.”

Last year was a revenge tour for Pitt with Marquette and Louisville. So was this year. Now it’s time — hopefully — for revenge on G-town for last year.

Because the Panthers will remember:

A 26.2 percent shooting night (16-61) to set a tournament record for fewest points in a 65-42 loss.

The Hoyas celebrating their first Big East tournament championship in 18 years.

John Thompson III clearing his bench with 11/2 minutes left.

Patrick Ewing Jr. giving his old man a hug and handing him a Big East championship cap.

Roy Hibbert scoring 14 of his 18 points (with 11 rebounds) in the first half and dominating shell-shocked Pitt center Aaron Gray.

There’s fatigue factor with Pitt’s short bench, but you can’t argue with the results.

There’s a lot of focus on Levance Fields now returned and fully integrated within the team again.

It’s no coincidence that Pitt is making this surge at the same time he’s rounding into the form that made him the team’s best player before his injury.

“A lot of people thought it was going to be easy to come back and be ready to go right away,” Dixon said. “Even Levance probably thought it was going to be easier than it was …

“I thought it would take us two weeks for him to get into it, us getting used to him and him just getting his legs and getting knocked down a few times. So I think I just kept encouraging him. I think there was some frustration at times with Levance, but he got through it and our guys have confidence in him.

“We’re where we wanted to be right now.”

Fields still isn’t shooting well. He made 3 of 10 shots last night and is an abysmal 8 for 31 in the tournament.

Still, there’s no one on the Pitt team that you want to have the ball in his hands late in a game more than Fields. It’s his confidence that his next shot is going in.

Mandel at SI.com likes what he has seen as Pitt has gotten healthy with Fields back.

Suddenly, they’re one more win from doing it again — and they’re almost certainly headed for a higher seed in the NCAA tournament (No. 5?) than they had in their own conference tourney.

“I don’t think anybody really knew what to make of our team with all the injuries,” said Dixon. “This is a team that had to change in midstream three, four times.”

One of the biggest, if unnoticed impact of the injuries came not in games, but in practices, where for much of the season Pittsburgh has flat-out lacked the bodies to go full-throttle. Dixon said that Fields only began practicing again the week leading up to their regular-season finale against DePaul.

As they’ve begun to return to their more customary, “rugged” practice style, there’s been a noticeable improvement in their defensive performances. The last time the Panthers faced the Cardinals, a 75-73 home loss on Feb. 24, Louisville shot 57 percent; on Thursday night, they hit just 37 percent.

“Practice is where it starts,” said guard Ronald Ramon. “We weren’t able to go after each other, do the ‘aggressive drills,’ as we call them. But now that guys are healthy, we’re able to go five-on-five, get after it. Now when we go on the court and play games, the chemistry’s there.”

Even Luke Winn is giving Pitt a shot.

If Pitt can knock off Georgetown tonight — a scenario that seems entirely plausible — the Panthers have a legitimate case for a No. 5 seed. They were considered an 8 or a 9 heading into this week, but they’re making a push based on these facts:

• Momentum. Winning seven of its final eight regular-season games, with two of those victories coming over Louisville and Georgetown, would make Pitt look rather attractive in the eyes of the selection committee.

• The Negative Momentum of Current Fives. Vanderbilt (with its opening-round loss to Arkansas in the SEC tournament) and Indiana (which lost a stunner to Minnesota on Saturday) are slumping into the dance, and neither team has much of a non-conference resume. Whereas Pitt has a win over Duke.

• The Levance Fields Argument. The Panthers only have two bad losses on their resume — at Cincinnati on Jan. 19 and against Rutgers on Jan. 26. Both of those happened while Fields was hurt. There’s no doubt the selection committee will take this into consideration.

Everyone has been focused on the chaos of the bubble. Arguably, seeding will be a bigger mess. Seeds for lines 3 through 7 are incredibly unclear to me. That’s going to be the big talk coming out of selection Sunday. Not the bubble teams that got screwed, considering how badly so many of them did at the end to hardly make the case. The stories will be about what the selection committee was thinking when they seeded the teams.

To recap, Pitt loves playing at MSG. While it is unprecedented in Big East history for one team to play in the BET Championship game 7 times in 8 seasons, the fact that Pitt has only won it once is still an issue.

Given the way that Pittsburgh wins at the Garden every March, it’s understandable that people say the Panthers own the Big East Tournament. But really, it’s more like a lease. Pitt is always giving it back on the final night.

Georgetown has looked very good, but it turns out John Thompson III is a superstitious one.

Funny how after a big win everyone has the glass half-full.

They entered a team near disarray on defense and on the glass. They’ve emerged as a punishing and pressuring group who fights for every carom and dives for every loose ball.

There must be some magic in Madison Square Garden for Pitt.

Thursday’s 76-69 victory over No. 13 Louisville in overtime marks the seventh time in eight seasons thePanthers (24-9) advanced to the semifinals of the Big East tournament. They’ve been to the finals six times.

One theme from the stories is that Pitt plays well at MSG.

Nothing that happens at Madison Square Garden should surprise anybody anymore.

It is the site of some of Pitt’s greatest victories, the place where Levance Fields shocked Duke.

“We always play pretty decent here,” Sam Young said. “We always have good games.”

Or simply that Pitt ups its play in the Big East Tournament. This link has Coach Dixon talking with Pete Thamel of the NYTimes about playing well at MSG — treating games there as home games, right down to the routines.

And so it goes.

The Panthers go to school in Pennsylvania but they clearly go to work in New York City.

Pittsburgh put on another stunning performance at the Big East tournament, where they have advanced to the championship game six of the last seven seasons. The seventh-seeded Panthers got another step closer Thursday night when they upset second-seeded Louisville 76-69 in overtime.

“This is our home away from home,” Young said.

Another theme concerned Louisville losing 3 straight to Pitt in the Big East Tournament.

Louisville’s athletic director, Tom Jurich, likes to consider Louisville the sixth borough of New York because of Coach Rick Pitino’s many ties to the city. The Pittsburgh team feels so at home in Madison Square Garden that it goes through home-game rituals when it plays here.

By knocking the Cardinals out of the Big East tournament for the third consecutive year, Pittsburgh showed Louisville, a relatively new Big East team, that it has a long way to go before it will be annexed by New York City.

That theme of course meant that the “relatively new Big East team” has media that hasn’t overused and abused those Pitt puns yet.

The Big East Tournament always ends in the pits for the University of Louisville men’s basketball team.

Pittsburgh, that is.

That’s a rib-splitter.

God, love the NYC media. They have no problems taking shots at Pitino.

Afterward, Pitino bristled when asked if he’s concerned about his two-game losing streak.

“Obviously, you don’t know basketball very well,” he told a reporter. “Because if you think it’s bad to lose to Georgetown at Georgetown and a hard-fought game to Pittsburgh in overtime, you don’t follow basketball very much. … If that’s a concern for you, it’s not a concern for me. You worry about it – I won’t. Go home and lose a lot of sleep over it. Promise?”

A bit sensitive, don’t you think?

It was nice, though, to read about some other local media complaining about guard play.

“I thought our frontcourt played well,” Pitino said. “Then they started taking away our frontcourt, and we threw it out and had difficulty scoring from that point on. Generally we don’t.”

Generally, Pitino has enough guys to throw out there that somebody will be on. One night Andre McGee, another Jerry Smith, maybe Edgar Sosa. Or maybe Terrence Williams will have a good perimeter night.

Last night nobody did. Sosa made ill-advised drives into traffic. Williams tried runners and leaners and bangers on his way to 2-for-10 shooting. After two particularly bad shots on back-to-back possessions in overtime allowed Pitt to get some distance, Pitino had seen enough and pulled Williams.

U of L doesn’t have a single perimeter threat who is a lock to deliver night after night. It relies a lot on hope — the hope that somebody in the crowd will be on.

Wait. You mean having superior athletes and height doesn’t guarantee consistency and reliability? Upside and potential is one thing, delivering on it is something else. Really, that’s been the hardest thing for Louisville fans. Outside of Padgett and maybe Palacios, the Cardinal players have been very inconsistent in effort and output for a couple years.

There’s stories with love for the young players.

This has to be at the top of that list: Freshmen DeJuan Blair and Gilbert Brown played under the Madison Square Garden lights — the brightest in college basketball — as if they’ve been doing it all their lives.

Freshmen? No way.

“What have we played? 33 games? We’re not freshmen anymore,” Blair said outside the happy Panthers’ locker room.

“We’re sophomores now … no, we’re froshmores.”

Whatever.

What they were for Pitt last night was terrific.

…

Which is what the kid does all the time when he’s ballin’, by the way. You would smile a lot, too, if you had his ability.

By the way, seeing Ron Cook use “ballin’ ” in a column was incredibly awkward to read. Visualizing the hefty, bearded, 50-something Cook saying anything like that inspired a slight giggle fit.

DeJuan Blair, especially had a solid bounce back performance after what happened the night before with Cinci.

“I had to keep my head up,” Blair said. “I had a tough game (Wednesday), but it was over. I had to worry about (Thursday).”

Pitt coach Jamie Dixon boldly predicted that Blair would have a big game Thursday, despite evidence that Blair’s production has been slipping other than a 22-point effort against DePaul and despite the opponent having Padgett and Derrick Caracter, two formidable post players.

Maybe it was motivation. Maybe it was complete faith. But Dixon saw his young star fulfill his responsibilities, set aside his previous faults and prove fatigue wasn’t the reason for his poor play Wednesday.

Dixon, though, had this warning for Blair after Thursday’s game: “He’s got in some foul trouble and he’s got double-teamed. There’s some things he’s going to get used to, and it’s happening more and more the better and better he gets.”

In other words, coach said there would be days like this. The key is how you overcome them and respond.

Dixon deserves a lot of credit for the way he managed the team in the Louisville game. From the way he carefully put Benjamin and Fields in the 1st half after both had 2 fouls very early. Then there was sticking with Gilbert Brown in the second half over Brown even in the OT. Starkey gives Dixon the love.

Dixon, who is 4-2 against Pitino, said he made several defensive adjustments from the first matchup. One was obvious: He ordered fast and aggressive double teams on Padgett, usually with Sam Young joining Blair.

Dixon also played on his players’ pride. He drilled into them how badly they’d been cut up in the first game against Louisville.

Last night, as he sat at the post-game podium with Blair, Ronald Ramon and Young – Dixon said, “We held them to 37 percent (shooting).” He then turned to his players and said, “What did they shoot last time, guys?”

Blair laughed and said, “57 percent.”

Levance Fields got lots of love from Digger Phelps on ESPN after the game, and got some in the rest of the media as well.

But it was neither. Panthers coach Jamie Dixon saw the change in his team a week ago, when junior point guard Levance Fields returned to practice. He’d missed 14 games with a broken foot, and it was only after Pitt’s regular-season finale that Fields could participate fully in workouts.

“I don’t think anybody really knew what to make of us, because of all the injuries,” said Dixon, who lost senior Mike Cook and freshman Austin Wallace to season-ending injuries before the new year began. “We’re finding ourselves.”

Fields especially. He picked up two fouls in the first 6:37 last night and missed most of the first half, leaving senior Ronald Ramon to try to break Louisville’s difficult full-court press. Fields contributions were varied: Six assists to just one turnover and 6-of-6 free throws in overtime, during which the Panthers (24-9) made all 10 of their foul shots.

Mike DeCourcy isn’t sold on Pitt getting too deep in the NCAA Tournament, but he likes the difference in the team with Fields healthy.

They will not get back small forward Mike Cook, who injured his knee at Madison Square Garden back in December. So they’ll never be quite the same. But Thursday night, in a 76-69 Big East quarterfinal victory over Louisville, they again began to play like Pitt.

That’s because the Panthers got back point guard Levance Fields. He had appeared in eight other games since returning from a 13-game absence because of a foot injury, and he’d produced some OK numbers, but his performance against the Cardinals served as a confirmation that he still could grab a basketball game by the collar and refuse to let go.

In a Big East notebook from the Hartford Courant, the focus was on Pitt and what they have done (and haven’t).

Howland put the program on the national scene, but he could never get past the Sweet 16 and neither has Dixon. He has taken Pitt there twice.

And that’s not enough for some Pittsburgh faithful who think it’s time for the Panthers to go further.

“You see people around the city and even before the season starts they’re saying, ‘Good luck,'” said junior Sam Young, who had game highs of 21 points and 12 boards. “Then they say, ‘But you guys better get further than the Sweet 16.’ It’s amazing. I’m like, ‘Can we start the season first and qualify for the tournament before we start talking about that?'”

Well, we can start talking about it now because the Panthers have qualified. And Pitt’s chances of going further appear to be pretty good. Why?

Because the Panthers are as healthy as they’ve been all season.

Everyone is familiar with the Panthers’ injury situation early on. At one point, they didn’t have enough players for a full scrimmage. No one expected them to get this far in the conference tournament, let alone do any damage in the NCAAs.

The column then leaps into message board speculation that Coach Dixon could be hired away by another program — USC or Indiana. Then he says he doubts it.

That’s it for the recap. Next up is Marquette. Our friends at Cracked Sidewalks are wondering (hoping?) if Pitt will be tired from an OT game. I would be worried normally, given Pitt’s up-and-down performance in games a couple days after another. What Pitt did last night, makes me a little less concerned.