This is the looking ahead portion.

And then there were two games left in the season.

In the race for the all-important byes at the Big East Tournament, Pitt controls its fate.

After Saturday’s win, the Panthers are in third place in the conference at 10-4. West Virginia is also 10-4 in the conference after its win Saturday over Louisville. The Panthers, by virtue of their 57-53 victory earlier this month, hold the tiebreaker over West Virginia.

If Pitt wins out, it clinches 3rd in the BE. Just one loss, and Pitt could tumble all the way to 6th in seeding for the Big East Tournament. A loss to WVU and a win over Seton Hall would give Pitt an 11-5 record. If WVU wins it’s remaining game, it would have 3rd place all to itself at 12-4. If Marquette and Georgetown win out they will finish with Pitt at 11-5.

The way the tie-breaking procedure works is that a mini-conference of the 3 teams determines the outcome, i.e., their records against each other. Marquette would claim 4th in the BE because it went 2-1 against the other 2. Georgetown would be 5th with a 1-1 record and Pitt 6th at 1-2.

The best thing for Pitt is to just win.

Providence, on the other hand, has different issues when it comes to the Big East Tournament. Like simply making it.

One down and two more to go for the Providence Friars in their quest for a spot in the Big East Tournament.

Last night’s The Friars, Louisville, St. John’s and Rutgers are tied for 10th place at 5-9. Notre Dame and DePaul are a game back at 4-10. Three of those teams will join South Florida on the sidelines when the conference tournament begins next month.

Yesterday’s five Big East games did little to shine much light on what will be a hectic final week of action. The key news for the Friars was Notre Dame’s 80-72 loss to Marquette at the Joyce Center. PC would like to stay ahead of the Irish for multiple reasons. That’s why Wednesday’s regular-season home finale against Notre Dame looms as the critical game for PC. While the Friars won’t lock up a spot in the tournament with a win in that game, they would take a giant step in that direction.

I think I want ND to make the BE Tournament. As much fun as it would be to see the Irish tumble like that, it might actually lead to a coaching change and that would spoil a lot of fun. Mike Brey’s ND teams are 5-7 against Pitt (and most of the wins came with players he didn’t recruit — 4-1 the first 2 years, 1-6 the last 4).

Pitt, it seemed, couldn’t help but cast an eye ahead to Monday night’s game at the concrete toadstool in Morgantown. Or at least they couldn’t wait to talk about it after the game.

“We can definitely think about West Virginia now. It’s going to be a good game,” said Pitt senior Carl Krauser, who was honored last night as a member of the Pitt Basketball All-Centennial third team.

Surprisingly, the game didn’t set a new attendance record. There were 12,719 officially. The record is 12,817 on Feb. 15, 2004 versus UConn.

Even Coach Dixon seems ready to travel.

But they could help but itch about Monday’s game.

A rematch with No. 14 West Virginia could help determine a bye in the Big East Tournament for these teams, one Pitt would certainly like. Even though the Panthers can’t wait to play in New York, they’d also like to hang around a while; no team has ever won the Big East title without a first-round bye.

“We’ll be anxious to go,” to West Virginia, said Dixon.

WVU can still lose to Pitt and get that 4th bye, because they beat both Marquette and Georgetown in the tie-breaker.