Everyone writes up the Big East Awards. The P-G story also notes that Coach Dixon’s contract might be reworked after this season — it’s a middle of the Big East pack contract. The Trib write-up discloses that the Panthers were late to the awards banquet.

The Pitt contingent arrived unfashionably tardy — Krauser even arrived after his name had been called — due to traffic, according to Dixon. The event began 45 minutes later than scheduled.

“We knew we were going to be cutting it close,” Dixon said, explaining that things got tight after an afternoon practice in the Bronx, a return trip to the team hotel and traffic delays en route to the hotel at Grand Central Station.

This taking place in NYC, the papers there have coverage. Lots of NYC media love for Pitt. The NY Post is perfunctory (” PITT GRABS FOUR AWARDS”)(I guess Lenn Robbins needed to get to bed early for his gig as “college basketball expert” at ESPN2’s “Cold Pizza” morning show). NY Newsday has a simple write-up (“Pitt piles on hardware”).

The New York media also discovers Coach Jamie Dixon. A big write-up in the NY Times, but nothing that new if you have been following the team all year. The NY Daily News’ columnist, Dick Weiss does his column about Dixon (It’s also been picked up in the Miami Herald and other papers ). There’s a lot of Ben Howland quotes about his protege.

The Daily News and Newsday have previews of the BET. Newsday only looks at todays games. Essentially mirrors my picks, except that he seems to waffle on the VT/Rutgers game. The Daily News predicts the entire BET and like me, picks Pitt. In fact, except for the VT/Rutgers game (is this some NY/NJ media bias?) his picks are the same as mine. The Tribune-Review‘s quickie preview is also similar to my evaluation. Geez, with everyone reaching the same conclusion, maybe I need to rethink this.

For readers of PSB in the Pittsburgh area, maybe you can comment on this AP story about the City of Pittsburgh “rallying around winning Panthers.” It even has “colorful locals” for quotes.

In a season when avid Pittsburgh sports fans wince at being ranked among the worst cities for major American sports, the community has found its saving grace in the oft-overshadowed Pitt Panthers men’s basketball team.
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The Penguins have become the NHL’s worst team this season with a 15-44-6-4 record as of Sunday, and attendance has plummeted. The Pirates finished fourth in the NL Central last year, a club-record 11th consecutive losing season. And the Steelers completed a 6-10 season – tying for their second-worst record in 34 years.

It’s a long fall from the Steel City’s glory days in the 1970s. In 1979, the Steelers won the Super Bowl, the Pirates won the World Series and the Penguins advanced two rounds into the playoffs.

Now, many Pittsburgh fans are just anxious to see any of the city’s teams succeed.

Sitting at the Hi-Tops sports bar facing the ballpark and football stadium, Chris Beaver, 24, of Pittsburgh, and Randy Wolfe, 25, of Oakdale, said they preferred the Steelers and freestyle motocross over college basketball.

But they’ll take the Panthers’ success over nothing.

Wheee.

Finally, a word about a particularly inane Smizik column. A week ago Smizik declared that Pitt “might” be better as a #2 NCAA Tourney Seed than #1 (after declaring that seeding doesn’t really matter this year). Then a few days later he wrote that the Big East regular season title was irrelevant. Now, it’s the BET that’s unimportant.

The Panthers are ready to conclusively prove — after already having won the regular-season championship — they’re the best team in the conference.

And maybe that’s not so good.

In athletic competition it’s always best to keep your eye on the ring. But the Panthers are looking at two rings — the Big East tournament and the NCAA tournament — although one is clearly more important than the other. The Big East tournament is a big deal in the eyes of most, but it’s not nearly the biggest deal. It precedes by less than a week the NCAA tournament, which is the most important event in college basketball.
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In the best of possible worlds, Pitt would win the Big East and the NCAA tournaments. But too much emphasis on the former could affect their chances in the latter.

If Pitt wants to have its best chance to win the NCAA tournament, it should understand winning the Big East is important, but its secondary in terms of measuring the success of the season.

I think it’s self-evident that the NCAA is bigger and more important than the BET. So what? To go completely cliche, you have to take the games one at a time. Right now, Pitt is playing in the BET. You don’t take it off, and rest for games that are 4-5 days away (from the end of the BET). Injuries can happen. Pitt had some early problems, but weren’t beset by them. You can’t avoid injuries. Pitt plays a hard tough game. They can’t just throttle back, to prevent injury. Smizik seems to be casting about for something “controversial” to say without being negative (yet). Let’s predict his storylines post NCAA if Pitt wins the BET or loses the BET.

Wins BET, Elite Eight or better — These columns never existed. Clearly a successful season after all the turmoil for Pitt basketball and the Big East in the last year.

Wins BET loses in Sweet Sixteen — Told you so. Maybe Pitt would have won if they had gotten a little more rest, for a game that took place in 2 weeks later.

Loses BET, Elite Eight or better — Told you so. The BET was irrelevant. All that mattered was the NCAA, and perhaps not having to play as much in the BET helped.

Loses BET, loses in Sweet Sixteen — Disappointing end to the season. Columns about seeding and how unimportant the BET was never happened.