So it turns out the time I mentioned here was 8:30 central time, not eastern. Looks like another night staying up until midnight. It’s all in the name of the Panthers though — I’m sure we’ll all make it. Right? Right.

After poking around Yahoo Sports last night and this morning there were all kinds of stories about teams who will get upset or fall flat on their face.

Pitt was one of the teams that was mentioned as having the chance of disappointing an unknowing office poll selector.

Why they tank: Underneath their brute Big East exterior, these Panthers are all pink. As dominant as frontcourt Frankenstein Aaron Gray is, Pittsburgh is a team that is too much ying and yang. Guards Antonio Graves and Levance Fields are not much of a perimeter force, ranking 199th in the nation in three-pointers made per game with 6.2, but Graves can occasionally go off as his four bombs versus Louisville in the Big East semis proved. They are defensively sound in the half court, holding opponents to 40.7 percent shooting, but generate few turnovers (277th in TO%) and transition buckets. Finally, they are a strong paint team that draws a large number of hacks, but convert only 66.8 percent of their free throws. Considering the Panthers practically counteract their strengths and given their history of underperformance in the Big Dance – they failed to advance past the Round of 16 as a 2 or 3 seed in ’02-’04 – they will be caged by the Elite 8. Prediction: Sweet 16 loss to UCLA

The possibility of Pitt losing to UCLA is a surprise? Honestly, I think that’s one of the dumbest things I’ve ever heard. I can see where he would form his opinion from; chances are he only happened to watch the Big East Final and forgot about us beating two very good teams in the night before.

And then this:

Wright State (vs. Pitt) – The Raiders finished the season 23-9, but they started 3-5 as they adjusted to new coach Brad Brownell. Since Christmas, this has been one of the hottest teams in the country. Wright State finished by winning 12 of its final 13 games, including two over Butler, and both the Horizon League regular season and tournament championships. This team is much better than a No. 14 seed.

It’s mainly saying Wright St. is possibly a better team than they were seeded. Still, when Dan Wetzel was writing this I’m sure he had visions in his head of Georgetown stomping Pitt on Saturday. Looks like Gray could put up 20+ points on them though.

By the way, a few people were wondering if they would get the Pitt game in their market. If you’re too lazy to go to a sports bar, there’s always this option.

Ugly game last night. Chalk it up to Georgetown simply being better than us or it “just wasn’t our night” or whatever you want. I’m not here to tell you what to believe in that respect and I don’t want this to turn into a game that makes us hang our heads and completely forget about beating Marquette and Louisville.

The offense wasn’t there on many different levels.

The 42 points were the fewest points scored in a Big East championship game and were the fewest for a Pitt team since the Panthers scored 30 against Temple on Jan. 15, 1969. The 23-point margin of defeat was the most since Pitt lost to St. John’s by 24 in 2000.

The most notable was Gray, however.

Here’s all you need to know about the Big East championship game Saturday night:

Roy Hibbert had more dunks than Aaron Gray had points.

Kind of hard to place the entirety of blame on him though. It’s also too bad this was one of the games where Roy Hibbert came to play. He’s been a nonfactor more times than Hoya fans would have liked this year but last night he came to play.

Life goes on though towards the NCAA Tournament. When it comes to seeding, to me it’s always been match ups and location over actual seed number. We obviously will want to play our first round games in either Buffalo or Columbus (I’ve heard the athletic department wants to go to Buffalo rather than Columbus). We also want to play against teams who our strengths match up well against — once again, if it means we drop a seed line to play teams we can beat easier in the first and second rounds then I’m all for it.

If you like to listen to Joe Lunardi, he has Pitt at a #3 seed (in Buffalo). There’s no way we’ll move any higher and I can’t see us moving lower unless the Committee takes the Pitt hate to an extreme level.

Sorry, didn’t mean to take this long to come back. So I’ll hit this quickly.
Kind of a strange comparison. There was this brief article that criticized Dixon for pulling Gray when he had two fouls early in the first half.

But more importantly, Gray’s elongated absence allowed Louisville to take control of the game. Soon after Gray went out, Dixon put now-center Levon Kendall on the bench for an early rest. At the time, Pitt had a 13-7 lead. When Kendall returned, Louisville center David Padgett had scored six points and Louisville had a cut the Pitt lead to one and was in the midst of a 12-1 run.

Pitt was also outrebounded 25-12 in the first half, and Louisville had 10 offensive rebounds.

Gray needed to play more in that first half, particular after Padgett and Derek Caracter picked up their second fouls. The Panthers wouldn’t have needed that 20-2 run to start the second half just to get back into the game.

Then there was this NY Post article lauding Dixon’s gamble on leaving Gray in the game in the second half when he picked up his 3d foul.

Diamond Jaime Dixon played the role of the gambling man. He rolled the dice. He put all of his chips in the middle of the table and doubled down.

He wasn’t removing his star center, Aaron Gray, who had just picked up a third foul early in the second half.

“I think most people generally go with the two-foul rule, but I’ve gotten away from [that],” said Dixon. “Everywhere I’ve been it was kind of that thinking, even with Ben. You know it’s the experience of the player. It’s the situation. Its just a feel.”

Diamond Jaime has the feel.

Just two minutes into the second half, Gray, who played just four minutes in the first, was whistled for a third foul. The Pittsburgh players turned to the bench, but Dixon just signaled the next play like a poker player saying, “Check.”

There’s a reason why coaches and players don’t like to listen to what pundits and writers are saying.

The NY Times credits all the “supporting” players on Pitt for the win.

This just in, Gray didn’t play well. But Kendall expects him to do quite well tonight.

‘He’s always been strong,” said Kendall, who had nine points and five rebounds. ”He often has his best games after a tough one. He’s mentally strong. He understand that if the bounces didn’t go his way, he didn’t get some calls, that that’s just how the game went. He’ll be ready to go, and it will be a good matchup between him and Hibbert.”

I’m sure his dad will have plenty of notes for him after last night’s game.

Although it should be noted that Mike has always felt that his son could be more aggressive. And that the Pitt coaches don’t disagree.

”They kind of yelled at me, because I’ve been a little too passive the last few games, especially in our losses,” Aaron said after the Marquette game.

Call it a hunch, but after the 0 rebound result from last night, I don’t see Gray getting 15 rebounds against G-town and Hibbert to break the Big East Tournament record for rebounds.

Kendall gets lauded for his intangibles.

Meanwhile Graves gets lauded for his second-half performance.

And of course the P-G and Trib recaps.

This is just an abbreviated early start. I have some morning offline duties before basketball all day. Back later.

Mike Ruth at the Card Chronicle has an excellent rundown — he doesn’t like Higgins and Burr either, so it isn’t just grumpy Pitt fans.

The sense from Louisville is that this was the Cards in the second half reverted to the way they had been playing before they showed up in Pittsburgh a month ago.

From the first dribble in the second half, this looked like the U of L basketball team we saw before it got the religion about sharing and protecting the basketball.

This looked like a perfect video for U of L coach Rick Pitino to show to his players for the rest of the weekend to prove to them that even though they won seven games in a row, they don’t have it all figured out.

Not when they kicked away an 11-point halftime lead against Pittsburgh in the Big East Tournament semifinals in Madison Square Garden last night. Not when they started the second half by missing six of their first seven shots with five turnovers.

One thing all Louisville partisans agree is that this was a jarring reminder to the Cardinal players not to believe their press-clippings.

Well, Pitt is now in the Big East Championship game for the 6th time in seven years.

Some are blase about it: “It is the day before Selection Sunday and that can mean only one thing: Pittsburgh must be playing for the Big East championship at the Garden. It’s practically a rite of spring.”

Others snarky, ” The perennial bridesmaids and preseason No. 1 pick to win the conference, Pittsburgh will be playing for the conference title for the sixth time in seven years after it outlasted Louisville last night in the second semifinal at Madison Square Garden, 65-59.”

Jamie Dixon will be on ESPN2’s Cold Pizza this morning. The show runs from 10 am until noon so I’m not sure what time he’ll actually come on and how long it’ll last but from the commercials I’ve seen during Mike & Mike (hooray for having the day off!) it looks like Dixon is the main guest on today’s show.

If Dixon says anything special, I’ll be sure to update this post with what it is. If/when they ask him about the Panthers, I’m going to go out on a limb and say he’ll keep his words positive. Just a thought…

Updates:

10:12 am — I guess I never realized how nice it is to have the WWLS cover the Big East. The amount of BET coverage we’re going to see in the next few days is going to be great and it’s already started on Cold Pizza. Jay Bilas says that Georgetown is the favorite to win the BET but if he had to pick another team, it would be Pitt. Dixon hasn’t been on yet but I’m home, I’m bored, and I feel like updating this at my leisure.

11:10 am — They went an hour without mentioning Dixon but rest assured, they just did a little promo for his appearence going into the commercial break.

11:17 am — Dixon finally appears and starts by saying it’s a new season and he believes the Big East can get 8 teams into the NCAA tournament. According to him, Gray definitely lost some rhythm by missing so many practices during his ankle injury but he’s back into the groove with the team.

The Cold Pizza host (already forgot his name…there’s a reason he hosts a show in the middle of the day on ESPN2) brings up free throwing shooting…and then asks Dixon to shot some foul shots on in his suit and tie on the 7 foot basketball hoop in the studio.

The first one he tries with one hand and hits the front of the rim. The second one is with two hands and he sinks it.

By most metrics, this is expected to be a close game. The most accurate metric tends to be the betting line which has Marquette as a 1, maybe 1.5 point favorite. Might as well be a pick-em — which if you look at the “wagerline consensus” you see it as nearly split. Yeah, this is a game I wouldn’t want to wager on.

On the emotional side Marquette will be honoring not just their seniors, you have ESPN College GameDay pumping things up, and if that’s not enough the Golden Eagles will be honoring the 1977 Marquette Warriors team.

For Pitt, on the emotional side, it’s a chance to at least be co-Big East Regular Season Champ.

“Everyone is excited,” sophomore forward Tyrell Biggs said. “We just have to go out and take it.”

Pitt and Georgetown are tied atop the Big East standings with 12-3 records. Georgetown plays Connecticut at noon today, so the Panthers will know well in advance of their game whether they are playing for a share of the title or an undisputed championship.

I have to admit worrying a little if they let themselves slip a little emotionally assuming Georgetown wins and they know they can only be co-winner versus winning outright.

Emotion, though, can only matter so much. There’s a hell of a lot more to do with the actual way the teams play. Pitt wants to take better care of the ball.

Every Pitt player who played six weeks ago in the 77-74 overtime loss to Marquette had at least one thing in common.

And it’s something they don’t want to share again.

All nine who saw action turned the ball over at least one time. In no other game this season — or last season, for that matter — were the Panthers so unanimous in their generosity.

Some more consistent shooting would also be nice.

Of course, as myopic as any fan is concerning their own team, the Golden Eagles have been struggling.

A little more than three weeks ago, it seemed a virtual certainty that tonight’s game would determine the Big East champion. That’s probably a big reason why Dick Vitale, Jay Bilas, Digger Phelps, Hubert Davis and the rest of the ESPN Gameday crew will be at tonight’s game.

Pitt has held up its end of the bargain. A win against Marquette tonight would secure a tie with Georgetown for the Big East title. If Georgetown loses to Connecticut, the Panthers can win the conference outright.

Marquette, however, has lost four of its last five, and needs both Syracuse and Notre Dame to lose to even have a chance to have a bye in the first round of the Big East Tournament. While Marquette’s NCAA Tournament hopes are almost certainly safe, a win over Pittsburgh tonight would do a lot to bolster the Golden Eagles seed as they ready themselves for the postseason.

“We really need to shore some things up,” Marquette coach Tom Crean said earlier this week. “We have a lot of things to work on to get where we need to be.”

The inconsistency of the Golden Eagles seems to be why Seth Davis at SI.com is going with Pitt.

I’m sure Marquette will be pumped up in front of its home crowd, but I still think Pitt is the better team.

They have also had a week to prepare.

It also comes as no surprise that, with an entire week to prepare, MU enters the game not only fully apprised of the ramifications but also eager to enter the Big East Tournament on an upswing.

“They’ve got a championship at stake so we know we’re going to have to take their best shot. But we’re playing for something, too,” said sophomore guard Dominic James, who has factored prominently in each of the Golden Eagles’ previous three games with the Panthers.

“We’re playing for momentum going into the tournament; it’s our last home game, ‘College GameDay.’ But right now we should want it just because we lost our last game. We desperately need a win for this team to get that momentum and that confidence that we need going into the tournament.”

Especially since Dominic James isn’t exactly committing to returning to Marquette for his junior year at the moment. Of course it’s not a distraction. Nope, never.

No doubt you’ve seen some sort of ad for this: March Madness On Demand from CBS where you can watch streaming video of games from outside of your viewing network online for free. I used it last year and enjoyed it since I don’t have any extra TV packages for the March Madness holiday. To sign up early for a “VIP pass” to avoid waiting time when the games actually roll around, go here. I don’t believe you’ll be able to watch Pitt games at work using this however due to certain restrictions. My solution: just stay home!

Also on that page is a countdown with days, hours, minutes, and seconds to Selection Sunday. Yes, I’m excited.

Last weekend when Vanderbuilt upset Florida in that wacko gym they have down there in Neashville, the fans rushed the court. I didn’t have a huge problem with it and still don’t, even though the media promptly took some shots at the Vandy students; it really hurt that the SEC has a rule against it and therefore they cost the athletic department some money. Vandy isn’t a horrible team (the win was enough to propel them into the Top 25) but it’s not everyday that you defeat the current #1 and defending champion team.

Then on Tuesday, the Michigan State fans stormed the court after #1/2 Wisconsin went down. More people voiced their displeasure.

Finally, yesterday’#1 vs. #1 (sort of) game went down in Columbus. Ohio State beat Wisconsin by one point in a good game that came down to the final shot — and the fans ran out onto the court. To be honest, it was a lazy “should we or should we not” court rushing but it still happened. And it wasn’t like a few dozen dumb kids ran out. There were plenty of people who decided to do it.

Bottom line: Pitt fans, never rush the court. Never. Ever. Over the last eight years, we’ve become one of the best basketball programs in the nation. At some point (speaking in a matter of years, not anytime soon) we won’t be in the Top 25 but if, during that time, we beat a team like UConn or Syracuse that is ranked #1, it is still not enough to rush the court. Thankfully it hasn’t happened during this eight year period because our fans aren’t stupid enough, so let’s keep it that way.

This may come as a shock to many readers, but it seems that Georgetown may have actually won the game. Not just Pitt losing it. You know, the hottest team in the Big East.

The Hoyas are now one game shy of setting a program record for most consecutive wins against Big East opponents. The 1984-85 team also won 11 straight games over conference foes, but that streak included both Big East and NCAA tournament games.

But that wasn’t on their minds. The Hoyas were just happy with the one win. Hibbert said that it felt like a tournament game, because of the atmosphere and the opponent; since the start of the 2001-02 season, no Big East team has won as many conference games as the Panthers (70). Green said that it felt good to beat Pittsburgh, because the Hoyas wanted revenge for the earlier loss. Even Thompson, who is loath to step back and consider the big picture, had to concede that the Hoyas put themselves in a good spot.

“Today was a very good win — don’t get me wrong — against a very good team,” Thompson said. “You can’t be unhappy about the position that we’re in. Even I can’t.”

Before the Aaron Gray injury, the assumption was that this was going to be a rematch of Hibbert and Gray. They do like banging against each other (not as dirty as it reads).

“As soon as he came out on the court, he was like, ‘I missed you, Big Roy,’ and I was like, ‘I missed you, too,’ ” Hibbert said. “It was a battle. I can’t wait to play against him again. But it turned out to be Georgetown versus Pittsburgh, and not Roy Hibbert versus Aaron Gray.”

Pitt had a chance, but it had a lot to do with another star player for Georgetown taking over the game.

After the Hoyas fell behind 44-36 on a 3-pointer by Ronald Ramon with 11:52 left, the message finally sank in. Or perhaps it was then that Green simply grew tired of watching his teammates’ remedial routine. Whatever the case, Green decided that the Hoyas were not going to get swept out of their own building in front of a CBS audience in the league’s regular-season showcase game. And Green decided he was not going to let hobbled Pittsburgh center Aaron Gray (10 points, six rebounds) overshadow what was supposed to be his coronation performance.

So, with the Big East’s top seed, the streak and the league MVP laurels hanging in the balance, Green took over. During the game’s final 11 minutes, the 6-foot-9 forward had eight points, two rebounds, two assists and two steals.

“I just tried to will my team to win,” said Green, who finished with 14 points, five rebounds, three assists.

Green, apparently talked the talk to his team and walked it.

Or, as Hibbert put it: “Jeff said, ‘I’m going to take over.’ He missed a shot, got his own rebound and scored. He’s aggressive, and we follow him.”

Green is a guy a lot of teams in the NBA are very interested in.

Every other Big East team is chasing the Hoyas with a week left in the regular season because Thompson III has a player who also would have excelled on any of his father’s teams. Forward Jeff Green, a 6-foot-9 junior from Hyattsville, Md., is a throw-back player, who seemingly doesn’t do anything exceptionally well and yet does everything for Georgetown.

Going into Saturday’s game, Green didn’t rank among the Big East’s top 15 scorers. He isn’t among the league leaders in rebounds, assists or steals. But when the conference hands out its hardware in a couple of weeks, Green should be the Big East player of the year. There isn’t a more valuable or versatile player in the college basketball’s biggest league.

“Jeff Green is a basketball player and when you start trying to label him, saying he’s a big guy or a small guy, all of a sudden he does something the opposite of what you are saying,” Thompson III said. “He is a basketball player and he is comfortable anywhere on the court.”

Green was all over the court when Georgetown needed him most against the Panthers. The Hoyas trailed by eight points with less than 12 minutes to go, but Green, who was hampered by foul trouble in the first half, started attacking the basket. His baseline jumper over Levon Kendall tied the score at 49, and then he showed his versatility with less than 3½ minutes to go.

Following a timeout, Green dribbled near the top of the key with forward Sam Young defending him. Green dribbled the basketball off his foot and nearly lost it, but then got it back. When it seemed he would challenge Young and drive to the basket, Green delivered a pin-point, back-door pass to Jessie Sapp, who scored an easy layup for a 51-49 lead.

So, the Hoyas have two likely first round picks if they both come out this year.

Told there were at least 15 credentialed pro scouts at the game, Thompson managed a half-smile.

“Hey, Aaron Gray is a heckuva player,” he quipped while referring to Pitt’s 7-foot center.

Translation: “Please don’t put foolish NBA thoughts in my kids’ heads before I’m done preparing them for their next challenge in life.”

Gray is also projected to be a first-round pick, and the scouts indeed also came to see him and Georgetown’s 7-foot-2 Roy Hibbert bang inside. But this was Green’s game. He seized it when it mattered, scoring on putbacks, stepping into the passing lanes, finding his teammates for two of the most important layups in the final minutes of a game Georgetown had to have to win the regular-season conference title and stay in the running for a No. 2 seed in the NCAA tournament.

Three things won this game for the Hoyas: (1) defensive tenacity, anchored by the most excitable and active guy in the gym, Patrick Ewing Jr.; (2) offensive execution in the final minutes, the way the Hoyas either milked the clock or refused to settle for a bad shot; and above all, (3) Jeff Green.

His calmness in the clutch, especially on the offensive end, was why a throaty sellout gathering stood in awe at the end. This was a no-flow, body-up, contest-every-shot eyesore for much of 40 minutes. Pitt was threatening to pull away with less than 12 minutes left, leading by eight points.

This was as much about a talented G-town team with a great player not  letting the team quit and leading the team. It does take another team to win the game.

Lots of games worth watching today. I mean, aside from the Washington-Pitt game. Lots of games that matter for seeding and bubbles. This is ESPN’s bracketbuster weekend to add to the mid-major fun.
12pm (ESPN): Georgtown-‘Nova — Villanova beat the Hoyas in DC a month ago.

(Fox Pgh/ESPN Fullcourt): Penn St.-Wisconsin: Heh, heh-heh, heh

1pm (CBS): UCLA-Arizona: That #1 seeding and what should be a damn good game.

(ESPN Fullcourt): FSU-Virginia — Two ACC bubble teams

2pm (ESPN): Washington-Pitt.

2:30 pm (ESPN Fullcourt): Iowa-Michigan St. — Big 11 teams on the Bubble

3 pm (ESPNU): Holy Cross-Hofstra — I like any chance to boo Ralph Willard.

3:30 (ABC): UConn-Syracuse — and if you are lucky this will end up on the Full Court where you are instead and you can watch Texas A&M-Oklahoma.

4pm (ESPN2): Southern Illinois-Butler  — the highlight game of bracketbusters.

(various East coast based Fox Sports channels): Seton Hall-WVU — should be a slaughter, but a chance to scout Pitt’s next opponent.
6pm (ESPN): Memphis-Gonzaga — man this one has been harshed by Heytvelt’s suspension for dope and ‘shrooms

(ESPN2): Northern Iowa-Nevada — and this game sounded so good at the start of the season.

9pm (ESPN): UNC-BC — Let’s see, they didn’t show up at home against an inferior Duke team. Now it’s another big game at home. Gak.

(ESPNU): Louisville-Marquette — Marquette’s floundering and Louisville — well, anyways… Find a bar with a satellite because this will be the better game at this time.

Pitt was somehow able to overcome this last week. The fat guy dancing during a timeout down in Morgantown as previously mentioned. If I may quote myself…

Thankfully there were no pictures to accompany this story.

Instead we get a full video. Just grand.

Click here to see a fat man do some dancin’.

And take notice how many people put up a backwards “C”.

As expected Pitt took a tumble in the power rankings that come along. Pitt fell to the 3 seed line on ESPN.com.

Sort of Kansas Lite in the sense that Pitt looks good for awhile and then does something inexplicable, like getting smoked at home by Louisville. I expected more consistent scoring punch from Mike Cook. They need someone to help Aaron Gray.

Range of the votes from 6 to 14.

Luke Winn at SI.com drops Pitt to #14 from 8. I wouldn’t mind so much if it weren’t for the fact that he still keeps Marquette ahead of Pitt — despite what would appear from his comments to be greater concern and questions about the Golden Eagles.

Mike DeCourcy at the Sporting News tries to make sense of a week of upsets and closer than expected calls for a slew of teams this week.

Is it possible it’s something like that for the guys who play the game? In the past week, we saw Pittsburgh, Texas A&M and North Carolina — three of this season’s elite teams — lose at home. And though they lost to capable opponents, they did not lose to elite opponents. Florida fell in a deep hole against an Alabama team that previously treated the road as if it were radioactive. Ohio State nearly blew a 21-point halftime lead at lowly Penn State.

It seems there is a tendency at this time of the year for the best teams to lose focus, because they know how long the year has been and because they know what’s up ahead. Texas Tech at home on a Tuesday night in February does not seem to be as big a deal as the Big 12 tournament and the NCAAs. But on that Tuesday in February, it’s bigger.

It’s comforting, but probably a little too easy.

It’s almost unfair to pick on the articles in both papers about how Pitt’s flaws were exposed by the Louisville loss. How teams will study the tape and use it as a blueprint from here on out against Pitt. I mean, my first thought was, “Duh.”

Of course teams are going to look at the tapes and see stuff on there. Once again, though, few teams can do it like that. Generally speaking, the press is very effective at creating turnovers against a lot of teams. It’s not used by a lot of teams because it is also very difficult to execute well and consistently. Not to mention personnel issues. Not every team can play as deep as Louisville did — and space out the fouling.

It’s like asking Pitt to try and create more turnovers on defense faster. Pressing and going for the steals. It isn’t to the players’ and team’s strength. I was always a fan of the Richardson-Arkansas “40 minutes of hell” style of defense, but that was not nearly so effective when the wrong players were trying to play in it.

I’m not dismissing the articles out of hand. There is stuff in there that makes good points.

The Huskies will pay extra attention to the Louisville tape. They will notice how Louisville switched from a zone defense to a man-to-man whenever Pitt got the ball inside the foul line. The objective was to prevent Gray from passing to a perimeter shooter for a 3-point attempt.

It effectively neutralized Gray’s ability to find the open shooter, one of his strengths.

The strategy worked. Pitt, the Big East’s top 3-point shooting team, was a season-worst 3 of 21.

“When the ball goes inside, they are very smart finding their shooters,” Pitino said. “So, once it went inside, we weren’t going to let it go outside to a shooter.”

But the counter-point is that Pitt will be working on solving that issues. Starting with the next opponent, Washington, you are also talking about a team with players that size and style-wise aren’t anything like the Cardinals.

Still, there were some amusing things.

Pitt has proven in the past that it is more than capable of coming back from seven or nine points down. Once the deficit reaches double digits, however, the Panthers have a hard time getting back into games.

Louisville jumped on Pitt early and led, 13-2, before the game was five minutes old. The Cardinals led by as many as 19 in the first half and 20 in the second half, forcing Pitt into a catch-up mode, something with which the Panthers are neither familiar nor comfortable.

Does the term truism mean anything? It generally doesn’t happen that a team comes back from double-digits. They make a run, they can get close, but it  generally doesn’t happen. That’s why teams don’t like to go down by double-digits. They can comeback, but it ain’t easy.

First off, how about all of the Steelers fans out there take a moment and thank the scheduling gods that this game is not during an AFC Championship game that we happen to be playing in. Last year I missed the Pitt game to watch the Stillers. Luckily my choice is between Pitt-UL and the Texas-Oklahoma women’s game–a bit of an easier choice.

Next is an update on where former kicker David Abdul is at right now. The answer: kicking in an indoor football league. Commenter B.B. left the link to the Pittsburgh River Rats (who I didn’t know existed until about 15 minutes ago), and it’s good to see he’s in good shape after some health issues.

Now looking to a possible future Pitt Panther, Terrelle Pryor gets an article on SI.com which speaks of a comparison to NFL QB Vince Young. As Mondesi’s House mentions, though, Young was never a top football and basketball recruit.

Jeannette, Pa., quarterback Terrelle Pryor has been compared to Young because of his 6-foot-6, 220-pound frame, his ability to glide past players at top speed and his ability to simply dominate football games.

….

“I leave it up to people to make their own comparisons when they watch me play,” he said. “It’s a very nice comparison, but I haven’t done anything yet. I like to watch Vince Young and Troy Smith and the quarterbacks that can move around and do things, but I don’t compare myself to them.”

Pryor is so good he could be the next (and first) Terrelle Pryor. He still looks skinny on his 6-foot-6 frame, he’s getting faster and he’s learning how to play quarterback. The same raw athletic ability also comes out in basketball, where Pryor is ranked as a national top-25 player.

And finally, I leave you with how the Big East Tournament would look if the season ended right now, compliments of Card Chronicle.

I did a post today for AOL about the NCAA letting 20 writers take a crack at putting together a mock bracket based on all the information the NCAA Tournament Selection Committee has. It really was a good idea.

Now, let me just add that I am now pissed at the writers. They put Pitt as a #3 seed. Seems Kansas and A&M were both given #2 seeds.
If I understand how it worked, in their mock-up Pitt ended up losing the Big East Tournament to Marquette (and it would appear that Pitt was swept by Marquette in the regular season). So Marquette was a #2 seed. Naturally Marquette was the lowest #2 seed and Pitt was the highest #3 seed. And since they are the same conference, Pitt got bumped lower in the brackets. Geez, even in the mock Tournament selection, Pitt gets slammed.

That said, it seems like an interesting experiment. And actually damn smart move by the NCAA.