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March 15, 2007

Ahh, it’s almost here. The start of the NCAA Tournament is close. Bad scare this morning as the DSL went out for more than an hour. Not a good scene. Rending of garments, teaching my daughter some new words, then trying to bribe her not to repeat them in front of her mother. The usual.

Of course, the 12 hours of good feelings and basketball will only be that way as long as Pitt wins. Does build a lot of anticipation with Pitt being the last game. Glad I have the DirecTV March Madness package. Just saw that Xavier is on at the same time and in the Ohio area, I already know which game they will be showing locally.

So let’s hit this quickly.

Keith Benjamin is right when he says the best thing to do with Wright State is put them down early.

The Panthers, he said, can’t come out slow again tonight in their NCAA Tournament opener against Wright State.

“You’ve got to go out and dominate the lower conferences and get them out of there,” he said. “You can’t let them gain confidence as the game goes on. That’s how you get upset.”

“Those guys are no different from us,” Benjamin said. “They are Division I basketball players. But, sometimes, they see ‘Pittsburgh’ or something like that, and it scares them a little bit. If after the first 10 minutes of the game, they are not afraid of you anymore, then you are in for a long game.

“But if you come out and do everything that you normally do and get Aaron Gray 10 points in the first 10 minutes of the game — and he’s dominating and we’re hitting our 3s — that fear becomes bigger because they think they can’t do anything to win now. They will just quit.”

Of course, you can also bet that this is going on the bulletin board for the Raider players. Not to mention the fear that Pitt will come out tight thinking about how they have to do this and, well, that’s just not a path I want to travel.

The whole team is stressing getting off to a good start.

Joe Starkey is demanding at least the Sweet 16.

Luke Winn at SI.com talked music with Levon Kendall. I’m still trying to figure out Canadian alt-pop.

Of course Wright St. is confident of a win.  The Horizon League teams haven’t fared poorly in opening round games recently.

In three of the last four years, Horizon League teams have won at least one game in the NCAA, and in six of the last nine years.

The Wright State coach says his team has to be very, very good to beat Pitt.

“We have to have an exceptional night,” said WSU coach Brad Brownell of his 23-9 team. “There’s not just one thing you have to do. We have to play well in all areas.”

Gene Collier at the P-G says that really, DaShaun Woods has to have an amazing night for Wright State to win. Antonio Graves will be the primary in stopping that from happening.

Coach Jamie Dixon has nice things to say about Wright State.

Among the Wright State keys to victory — avoid foul trouble for the inside players (their forwards) and get Pitt to take more 3s.

Hal McCoy is a legendary baseball writer in the Cinci area. As he is down in Florida for spring training he caught up with Dick Vitale to talk a little bit about Wright State.





It would be really nice to see Pitt come out and just hammer Wright St. I’m thinking Dixon should instruct Austin Wallace to punch Gray in the face right before tip off in order to get him a little fired up.

Comment by Matt O 03.15.07 @ 12:02 pm

9 HOURS!!!!!!!!!!!! LETS GO BOYS!!!!!!!!!

Comment by Schoe 03.15.07 @ 12:16 pm

sorry a little fired up early…..work getting accomplished today = nothing

Comment by Schoe 03.15.07 @ 12:16 pm

Here we go!!!

Comment by Crackbaldo 03.15.07 @ 12:21 pm

Louisville is running Stanford out of the gym right now. Go Big East! This is for all the people who said we were “down” this year.

Comment by Aaron 03.15.07 @ 12:43 pm

Stanford is showing why they really deserved to be picked over Syracuse.

Comment by baudolino 03.15.07 @ 1:44 pm

And I’m the dickhead who picked Stanford in an upset!! Gosh. I thought ‘Ville would come out flat and a little nervous, even though they were playing very close to home (are #6 seeds supposed to get such cushy assignments?). Razzafrazzin….

Comment by Carmen 03.15.07 @ 2:27 pm

I have the CBS online, on-demand thing.

It kicked ass for the first 2 hours, but now it’s just repeatedly freezing during the Washington State v. Oral Roberts game.

Comment by Jimbo Covert's my dad 03.15.07 @ 2:57 pm

Hahaha, but the audio is working fine. I just caught one of the announcers who thought his microphone was off saying “Hey! Put a little light on a brother!” after the commercial.

Comment by Jimbo Covert's my dad 03.15.07 @ 3:00 pm

Yeah, I can’t access the ODU-Butler game, or the G’town game on video or audio on the MMOD (but I think the latter is due to local blackout law – I couldn’t get the Maryland game earlier on video, but could at least get audio.)

Bah, I picked Oral Roberts to beat Washington State, so that is good enough for me at the moment.

Comment by Aaron 03.15.07 @ 3:26 pm

OH FUCK CBS!!!

I was watching the ORU v. Wash St. game, and I hadn’t switched to anything else in awhile.

So they kick me out for inactivity, ok fine, I’m VIP, I’ll just log back in.

But I go to log back in and they’re making me wait in the general admission line instead of the VIP line for some unknown reason!!!! And there’s no way I can contact anyone to complain.

Comment by Jimbo Covert's my dad 03.15.07 @ 3:29 pm

Jimbo, I’ve taken a leak ONCE today at work, in fear of being booted off. I cut it real close once, when i had to make a couple of copies across the hall…but luckily, I got back. All I can say is I’m looking forward to hitting the bar, mostly for the fact that I can, you know, hit the head and not have the TV taken away.

Comment by Aaron 03.15.07 @ 3:51 pm

I see Higgins I think at the ORU Wash St game, so at least that’s good. Other than that, this tournament has been pretty boring so far. I mean, the only close game is Butler/ODU, but they’re both mid-majors anyways, so you’d expect that. (5 seed? Good luck with that…)

Comment by Stuart 03.15.07 @ 4:12 pm

i got old dominion and so far they are looking good…tied with 10 left.i have only lost the TTU game

Comment by Jared 03.15.07 @ 4:24 pm

that MMOD sucks!!!!

Comment by Jared 03.15.07 @ 4:37 pm

Umm…Penn, bracket buster? Sheesh, these kids are plying hard.

Comment by Aaron 03.15.07 @ 4:40 pm

i hope jamie and the boys are watching this penn-a&m game..this is what happens when you dont put a team away and dont make your ft’s……

Comment by schoe 03.15.07 @ 4:40 pm

A&M can’t shoot this poorly for the entire half.

At least, my bracket hopes so.

Comment by Will 03.15.07 @ 4:43 pm

link to onsecondglance.blogspot.com

Anybody see this (linked from deadspin)? “MY 34 LEAST FAVORITE COLLEGE BASKETBALL PLAYERS EVER” Someone took a lot of assbeatings from Pitt…we get at least 5 mentions!

Comment by Stuart 03.15.07 @ 5:06 pm

Penn fizzled…are we going to have an upset before we play? Please god…I don’t want to go into our game without an upset the entire day…

Comment by Stuart 03.15.07 @ 5:09 pm

stuart – wow..he hates white ballers…..obviously pitt destroyed nova/bc enough to make him cry…..thats a sad list…

Comment by schoe 03.15.07 @ 5:16 pm

im really drinking the Big12 koolaid – i cant wait to see how louisville matches up with a&m…if they cant hang, im thinking kansas, a&m and even texas are gonna go really far (screw texas tech, they arent that good)…….

i mean, the way those last 2 days of the big 12 tourney went, it just was great basketball….and look at OSU….15-1, cruises through their non conf…beats us and cuse, and looks great…gets into conference play and just sucks…….

but i guess we’ll see

Comment by schoe 03.15.07 @ 5:24 pm

We have to play well tonight. We need our confidence back.

Comment by Omar 03.15.07 @ 7:01 pm

Watching this duke game reminds me why everyone in the world hates them…struggle with an 11 seed, have one white backup dunk, and you all think you’re a team of lebrons.

Go fuck yourselves.

Comment by Stuart 03.15.07 @ 8:00 pm

Watching this duke game reminds me why everyone in the world hates them…struggle with an 11 seed, have one white backup dunk, and you all think you’re a team of lebrons.

Go fuck yourselves.

Comment by Stuart 03.15.07 @ 8:00 pm

Crappy mouse clicker thingy.

Comment by Stuart 03.15.07 @ 8:00 pm

CMON VCU!

Comment by Stuart 03.15.07 @ 8:06 pm

I see Duke bought…uh, i mean brought the officials again… Two gift calls in this half…one at the buzzer at the end. FCS, can we watch ONE DUKE GAME THE OFFICIALS DON’T FUCK UP? PLEASE?

Comment by Stuart 03.15.07 @ 8:07 pm

I’m not sure who we want to play tommorrow (if we’re there) – the fast VCU team, or the 8 on 5 scrimmage against Douche. Either one seems tough.

Comment by Stuart 03.15.07 @ 8:10 pm

Dennis (if you’re reading this) – I realize that Pitt probably has a better match-up against Duke rather than VCU (has guards that can penetrate), but I really can’t watch Duke and root for them.

Comment by Sean 03.15.07 @ 8:18 pm

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