Suddenly the reports are that Fields might be ready by the middle of the month.

Junior point guard Levance Fields is expected to return to practice today when the Panthers begin preparations for the Providence game Tuesday night at the Petersen Events Center. Fields was cleared by team doctors Thursday afternoon to resume basketball activities.

Well, practice turned out to be delayed a day, but Fields did take part in shooting drills. He’s definitely not going to be playing on Tuesday. That just strikes me as Dixon refusing to put any timetable — moved up or back.

The win moved Pitt up to 5th in the Big East and WVU slid to 9th. So, naturally that means it’s time to worry about the NCAA Tournaments and conferences getting enough of their teams into the show.

What really matters, is how does Pitt look as the selection time is a month away?

“Look around the country and try to find me a team that doesn’t have a bad loss,” Parrish said. “They are almost nonexistent. Tennessee, the No. 1 RPI, lost to Kentucky (11-9). North Carolina lost to Maryland at home. UCLA lost to USC (at home). And those are the No. 1 or 2 seeds. Those losses aren’t as bad as Rutgers. But those are the elite teams.”

“At this point, Pitt isn’t going to be a one- or a two-seed anyway, so only one bad loss on your resume (Rutgers) is going to be fine. … I would suspect on Selection Sunday that Pitt will get a better number than most people would think. The committee is not going to forget about Levance.”

All of this assumes, of course, that Pitt qualifies for the NCAA Tournament for the seventh consecutive season.

The Panthers seem to be a good bet, provided they go .500 or better over their final eight games. That would give them 10 conference wins.

Does 10-8 in the Big East make Pitt a lock? Yes.

Yippee.  Of course that means going at least 4-4 with games that have a rather rough stretch looming. After Providence it is at ND, at Marquette, Louisville, at Syracuse (unpredictable) and at WVU before finishing with DePaul. The