First, barring any shocks tomorrow, Pitt will be #2 and it won’t be in dispute. Pitt is off until the 11th.

The acceleration of news cycle. Bloggers and such, means that sports news orgs are now getting instant opinion stuff out on big games. There was little competition when Pitt-Georgetown was on other than Ohio St.-Minnesota or the International Bowl.

That meant quick love for Pitt.

So it’s time to cement Pitt as the Big East favorite and biggest threat to North Carolina this side of Tyler Hansbrough jumping off a house, breaking his leg and ending his career prematurely, because the Panthers were fantastic at Georgetown, grabbing nearly as many offensive rebounds (18) as the Hoyas did total rebounds (20) thanks to a 20-point, 17-board effort from sophomore DaJuan Blair.

That’s strong.

That’s convincing.

That’s why the Panthers should be the unanimous No. 2 team in the country.

And just so we’re clear, it’s not that I ever doubted Pitt, because it’s always been clear that the Panthers have a great coach (Jamie Dixon), some great experienced talent (Sam Young and Levance Fields) and a developed habit of winning. It’s just that I have trouble pushing teams to the top of the rankings when they haven’t beaten anybody of note (that, by the way, is the reason I have UCLA ranked lower than the Bruins are in both the AP and Coaches poll), and entering this weekend the Panthers were 13-0 with their best win coming by single digits over a Florida State team that had previously lost by double digits to Northwestern.

Meantime: No. 1 North Carolina had wins over Michigan State, Notre Dame and Kentucky; No. 2 Connecticut had wins over Wisconsin, Miami and Gonzaga; No. 4 Oklahoma had wins over Davidson, Purdue and Southern California; and No. 5 Duke had wins over Michigan, Purdue and Xavier.

In other words, Pitt’s resume was less impressive than the other four teams in the top five of the latest AP poll.

Before anyone starts complaining, even before the game Gary Parrish said Pitt was the #2 team in the country.

The game returned a lot of attention to Blair in the context of Pitt making a statement.

The Pittsburgh players termed their game against Georgetown a statement game, a chance to disprove those who believed the Panthers’ No. 3 ranking was built on nothing more concrete than a cloud of underachieving opponents.

The Hoyas were the perfect foil. Just five days earlier, they went into Connecticut and stomped the second-ranked Huskies. Now they were gunning for No. 3 in a building where they hadn’t lost since January 2007, a stretch of 29 consecutive games.

The Panthers got their statement, a 70-54 victory that now stands as John Thompson III’s worst home loss since the first game of his Georgetown career.

Blair provided the exclamation point. The sophomore almost single-handedly outrebounded the Hoyas, pulling down 17 boards to Georgetown’s 21, and chipped in 20 points to cement the double-double.

“Of course that inspires me,” Blair said of the lovefest that encompasses Thabeet and Monroe but never him. “I always have to show people more. It’s been that way my whole life, so I don’t really care about what people say about them. I’d rather just prove what I’m all about.”

…

“We know people were saying, ‘Yeah but who did Pitt play?'” Blair said.

When the Panthers gathered in the huddle, they actually said “statement game.”

“Yeah I heard that,” Pittsburgh coach Jamie Dixon said. “We didn’t bring a banner or anything along to practice but I heard them say that. We’re getting better. To me, that’s our statement.”

Of course, that also means welcoming having the target on the backs. Pitt is at the top of the Big East food chain at the moment.

After months of playing second-fiddle to Big East powers UConn and Louisville, the Panthers weren’t ready to let the Hoyas become the new talk of the town after their surprising defeat of the Huskies on Monday. Instead, Blair and his frontcourt partner and roommate Tyrell Biggs dominated the game inside, leaving the Hoyas struggling for any chance at the boards. The two combined for 34 points in the paint while Blair pulled down a Hoya-heartbreaking 18 boards.

“That’s my roommate. We’re best friends,” Blair said after deferring some of the credit to Biggs. “We’re trying to be the best frontcourt in the nation.”

And as big of a statement game for Pitt as this win was, it was also a coming out party for Blair. The sophomore said he had been concentrating on proving that along with his team being the best, he, in fact, was the premiere center in the Big East — not Uconn’s Hasheem Thabeet or Monroe, whom he had played with at the Amare Stoudemaire Skills Camp in June.

At the end of the game, it was very clearly heard the contingent of Pitt fans in the Verizon Center. In the comments, the size was put as significant. The Hoya fans were aware of it as well.

(11:54 am) There are a whole lot of Pittsburgh fans here. A bunch scattered in the lower bowl, and then practically all of the upper deck. So far, they’re louder than the Hoya fans.

…

(1:52 pm) Summers gets his season high today with those free throws. Hoyas are still down by 18, though, and the Pitt fans are getting a bit obnoxious.

Only “a bit?”

Not a surprise to be the lead at ESPN.com’s college bball page

My less homerific recap of the game is at FanHouse.

Maybe I’m just negative, but I am holding my breath to find out what the status of Gilbert Brown and his left shoulder is. Hopefully it’s just a stinger and they didn’t feel like risking anything. This and the Rutgers game, was showing how much better and confident he was feeling as he was coming back from various injuries.

It is no exaggeration to say that the only thing keeping Georgetown in the game for the first half was DaJuan Summers. 16 points on 6-9 shooting and 3-3 on threes. And he was doing that even with the defense on him. He was — as Dan Shulman put it — shooting over the defense. Not much you can do when a guy was that hot. The rest of G-town was shooting 3-18, 1-7. Well, the FT shooting helped them too. They went 8-10.

In the second half, even as Georgetown initially got closer and even, I was a little less worried. The refs were letting the teams bang a bit more inside. I was annoyed at first since Pitt was being hacked, but then it became apparent that the refs were calling it both ways, so that only helped Pitt with controlling the paint. Georgetown looked unwilling or unable to battle in the paint.

Georgetown went with the typical strategy of doing everything to keep Pitt on the perimeter. To try and deny the ball inside. The problem was that while Pitt shot poorly on 3s again, Georgetown was in no position to get rebounds. They had no answer for Blair. But Biggs, Young and plenty of Pitt players were getting right in there to grab the ball. Plus, while Pitt may not have made from outside the perimeter, the Panthers were 29-49 inside the arc.

I’m still waiting for Levance Field to come around on offense. His shot has no touch or confidence. Like those of us watching, it seems that he isn’t sure what will happen when he shoots.

It is a joy to see the light go on for players. It’s been that way for Biggs all season. For Brad Wanamaker it seems to have happened in the past couple games. He looks so comfortable coming into the line-up right now. He knows what he’s supposed to do and is embracing it. He doesn’t look intimidated out there.

Almost lost in all of this was Sam Young. He struggled a little in the first half — clearly trying to show friends and family — but was the team player he thrives as in the second half. He finished with 14 points and 8 rebounds.

Oh, and this.

If you look at the slate of games today, the Pitt-Georgetown game is the game of the day.

Game worth flying to see in person: I wrote a column earlier this week about Cincinnati and how its schedule is impossible, at which time an astute reader pointed out that though it’s just as tough as I described it’s actually one of the easier Big East schedules. That’s a fair point, and for proof consider that No. 11 Georgetown opened league play with a win at No. 2 Connecticut, and now the Hoyas will spend Saturday hosting No. 3 Pittsburgh. Then on Monday, they’re at No. 7 Notre Dame, which means Georgetown could lose its next two games and still be a legitimate top 10 team. And that, my friends, is life in the Big East this season.

Maybe Tennessee-Kansas would have been if both teams were playing better. The Big 11 offers some surprisingly interesting games with OSU-Minnesota and even PSU-Wisconsin. The most underrated and few will see is tonight with Wake Forest at BYU — but airing on the mythical Mtn. Network. I do a chart of all games that air on Saturday. There is no game that features higher teams facing.

In ESPN.com’s power poll this week, Pitt moves to #2 and G-town at #4. At least for now.

Even though, this is only the second game in the Big East for each team, this game is even bigger when you look at the last couple of years.

“Playing Pittsburgh is a beautiful thing,” Georgetown senior guard Jessie Sapp said. “You always know when you play them, it’s going to be a war. I think there’s still a bitter taste in our mouths left over from last season’s Big East Tournament final, [which the Hoyas lost 74-65]. They played so hard in that game, and I don’t think we matched their intensity in that game. Everybody’s ready to make sure that doesn’t happen again.”

One of the game’s more intriguing matchups pits Sapp against senior point guard Levance Fields, who leads the Big East and ranks third nationally in assist-to-turnover ratio (4.4). The two first met on the court seven years ago when both tried out for New York’s famed AAU program, the New York Gauchos.

“The way we met was going against each other in that tryout,” Sapp said. “I’ve never beat him at Pittsburgh, and he’s never beat me here. I told him that’s not changing.”

Dating to March 2007, the Hoyas have a Big East-best record of 46-8. Pittsburgh is the only team responsible for more than one of those losses.

The guard I am most fearful of for this game, though is Chris Wright. He is healthy this year, and has looked so quick to the basket. Like what was expected last year.

Hopefully Sam Young won’t come down with the affliction that seemed to hurt so many Pitt players when it was time for a road game at MSG vs. St. John’s. He is very excited for this game.

While Pitt’s players from New York City always seem to leave their hometown with a win or a trophy, Young is still searching for his elusive first victory in the District.

“I always play in front of my family when I’m down here,” he said, “and we always seem to lose.”

Brad Wanamaker’s performance against Rutgers made Coach Dixon happy.

“There has never been a doubt in my mind how good a player he is,” Dixon said. “I was so sure he was going to be such a good player, and nobody thought he was as good as he was. I have so much confidence in him. At times, I’ve been harder than I should on him.”

Looks like Coach Dixon has seen the tapes with his facial expressions when Wanamaker has screwed up in the past.

The bench performance against RU impressed Andy Katz, who for reasons that escape me, was at the regional telecast as a sideline reporter.

But the Panthers will get even better throughout the course of the season if Gilbert Brown and Brad Wanamaker can duplicate what they did against the Scarlet Knights.

Few teams in the Big East, let alone the country, have a player like Brown off the bench. Pitt coach Jamie Dixon envisioned that Brown was going to be a star. But injuries have constantly limited him. That wasn’t an issue Wednesday. Brown made shots (4-of-8), got to the free throw line (3-of-4), elevated for an intimidating dunk, blocked a shot, scored in double figures (11) and gobbled up important minutes (22).

“The injuries have been slowing me down all year,” said Brown, a 6-foot-6 sophomore wing. “I’ve had both ankles, forearm, knee, shoulder, everything.”

Dixon said the running joke among the staff is that Brown is always hurt. But what’s no laughing matter is how much Brown will change the Panthers if he stays healthy.

“He can make shots, defend; he’s athletic, and he’s very smart,” Dixon said of Brown. “He knows everything that is going on.”

Sounds more like gallows humor. Pitt fans as well have high expectations of Brown if he can stay healthy.

You just know that they will turn out to be a minor part of the actual game today. The attention Greg Monroe is getting before this game is a little outsized. Don’t get me wrong, Monroe is a great young player already and shaping up to be the best freshman in a down one-and-done year. It’s just that so rarely when you have this many pieces written before one game does the game narrative match. There’s the AP piece.

If basketball doesn’t pan out for Greg Monroe – and it seems that it most certainly will – he should consider taking his wonderfully mellow, bass voice on the road in a Four Tops revival tour.

“Once he starts talking,” teammate Jessie Sapp said, “it’s like, ‘Dag, you’re a little boy with this voice?’ ”

Monroe, however, insists the only performing he does is on the basketball court.

“I never really got into singing at all,” he said. “I don’t know how my voice got this deep.”

and then both DC papers have their Monroe stories. There is the standard stuff of Monroe being the latest in a line of great G-town big men.

Nearly three decades ago, Patrick Ewing arrived on the Hilltop with a freakish athleticism that belied his size, beginning Georgetown’s love affair with talented centers. From Ewing, Alonzo Mourning and Dikembe Mutombo to Othella Harrington, Mike Sweetney and Roy Hibbert, Georgetown has enjoyed one of the nation’s most impressive parades of post players ever since.

And the whole, playing with a maturity beyond his years. Don’t get me wrong, Monroe terrifies me. He was not intimidated in the least going against Thabeet and UConn on the road. He’s an excellent talent. It’s just that the stories I’m seeing might as well be Mad Libs for pieces like this, that get written about any freshman playing real well. Last year it was Derrick Rose, O.J. Mayo, Kevin Love, etc. The numbers are smaller this year and the impact on top teams smaller so the focus will mostly be on players like Monroe, Tyreke Evans before Memphis struggled, expect the same for Demar DeRozan at USC as they start to live up to the hype.

The fun thing, though, will be seeing how DeJuan Blair handles Monroe. Sam Young isn’t worried.

But top competition always seems to bring out the best in Blair. The 6-7, 265-pounder posted double-doubles last season against some of the top inside players in the nation, including Thabeet, Hibbert, Luke Harangody, David Padgett and Kyle Singler. In his three games against Big East 7-footers Thabeet and Hibbert, the Schenley High School product averaged 12.7 points and 10.7 rebounds.

“When you put another big man in front of DeJuan and challenge him, he takes on that challenge with the best of them,” Young said. “I think he plays better when the team’s focused around the big man, and it’s his job to … go out and outplay him all-around.”

That match-up will get overhyped during the game and don’t you know, it will likely be irrelevant.