Just not enough time for the reacaps from the Pitt-UConn game from the ‘Burgh. Not much to add from the recaps. Lots of focus on DeJuan Blair and Levance Fields’ clutch 3s.

Ray Fittipaldo had an interesting theory as to why the game was called a bit looser.

I think a few things played into the way the game was called. First off, Pitt played West Virginia in a Big Monday game last week that was marred by four of the five best players on the court being in foul trouble. I don’t think the Big East wanted this marquee nationally televised game to go down the same road. I think the officials did the right thing in letting the players decide the game. Other than the Thabeet fourth foul call they called what was necessary. The other thing about this game was that it ws so physical that it was hard to call every foul. Both teams were going at each other every time down the court.

That ignores, though, that Mike Kitts tends to let more happen. Ed Hightower, the lead official, tends to do a lot of Big 10 and 12 games, so he also calls things a little looser.

Ron Cook continues his man-crush on DeJuan Blair.

I’m here to tell you it was the greatest individual performance in Pitt history.

Until someone can dig deep into the past and tell me otherwise, that’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

Blair’s work came in No. 4 Pitt’s 76-68 win against Connecticut, its first win against a No. 1-ranked opponent in school history. It came on the road in the incredibly noisy XL Center in front of 16,294 passionate Connecticut fans who fully realized first place in the Big East and perhaps a No. 1 seed in the NCAA tournament were at stake. And it came against 7-foot-3 center Hasheem Thabeet, a giant who many consider to be the top player in the college game.

I haven’t seen him this enraptured by a Pitt basketball player since Chevon Troutman’s senior year.

Even curmudgeon emeritus, Bob Smizik deemed Pitt’s performance indicative of a team capable of getting to the Final Four.

Although the game did not move the Panthers into first place in the Big East — UConn has one more win — it elevated them in the more important standings. If the Panthers win at home Saturday against last-place DePaul, they’ll almost certainly move ahead of Connecticut in the rankings, and, of more import, they have the inside track in the Big East for a No. 1 seed in the NCAA tournament.

This victory left no doubt that Pitt can play with the best and on any given night is as good as any team in the country.

The Final Four is a long way off, but this team can get there.

The Panthers won with a sub-par but ultimately heroic performance from point guard Levance Fields, who was not his normally almost-flawless self. Fields had five assists and four turnovers, well below the 3 to 1 ratio he normally has in that statistic. Worse, he missed his first eight shots.

But when he was needed most, Fields was at his best. He scored all 10 of his points in the final 3:03. His 3-pointer gave Pitt the lead for good at 64-61 with 3:09 remaining. Another 3 with 2:21 left upped Pitt’s lead to six. He added four three throws in the final minute to seal the win.

The Panthers (11-2 in league play) might be able to relax Saturday against DePaul (0-13) but not after that. The following week they are on the road at Providence (8-5) and Seton Hall (5-7) and finish at home against Marquette (10-2) and Uconn (12-2).

But on the basis of what they showed last night, it hard to see this extremely focused team faltering in the regular season.

No shock that this was a highly rated game.

The Pitt-UConn game earned an overnight rating of 2.01, which Big East associate commissioner Tom Odjakjian said was the conference’s best rating in three years

In Pittsburgh, the number was more than five times that.

The Pitt-Connecticut game averaged a 10.28 rating in Pittsburgh, which is the highest-rated game since records were kept beginning with the 2002-03 season, according to ESPN. The previous highest-rated game was a Pitt-West Virginia game Feb. 27, 2006, which averaged a 9.45.

Before the game, the numbers guys at Basketball Prospectus pointed out just how vital DeJuan Blair is to Pitt.

On paper this might be the most balanced offense we’ve seen since Chris Paul was at Wake Forest. Pitt does everything well: twos, threes, taking care of the ball, offensive rebounds–everything.

It is also, however, an inconsistent balanced offense. Moreover the inconsistency can be traced to one primary factor: Blair sitting on the bench with foul trouble, as he did in road losses at Louisville and Villanova. In those two games Pitt scored just 0.87 points per trip. In their ten wins, conversely, the Panthers have been literally unstoppable, recording 1.25 points per possession.

Blair played 38 minutes against UConn.

The performance by Pitt and Blair made them come back to the general subject.

Speaking of unalloyed triumphs, Pitt beat Connecticut 76-68 in Hartford last night. The Panthers won with serial excellence. First it was feathery jumpers from Sam Young. Then, over a period spanning both halves, it was fearless–and effective–attacks on the basket from DeJuan Blair. Then, finally, it was two well-timed threes from Levance Fields. (Though truth be told the second of the two was achingly ill-advised. When you’re 1-of-9 from the field, DeJuan Blair is your teammate, and Hasheem Thabeet has four fouls, you do not shoot a three early in the clock. But it went in. Hoops rewards accuracy over judgment. Dig it.)

There have been other great games this season, and there have been other games between teams that can win the national championship. But this was the first great game between teams that can win the national championship. Wake Forest and North Carolina played a tremendous game in Winston-Salem on January 11, and the Heels and Duke certainly put on a good show for the first half of their game last week. But neither of those games can compare with what we saw last night. It’s too bad Jerome Dyson’s out for the year and Connecticut was down a starter for this one (Carolina, of course, would say join the club), but this game was 40 minutes of sustained and ferocious combat between two of the best four teams in the country. When it was over Pitt, and more particularly Blair, had conquered the UConn, and more particularly Thabeet, challenge.

Then it comes back to Blair. Blair, it seems is the most dominant offensive rebounder in major conference college basketball over the past 5 years. Check out the numbers — he blows the closest guy right out of the water. Amazing.

So, the one thing you can be assured is that if Pitt goes against another big man, Blair gets happier.

In DeJuan Blair’s third game at Pitt, he faced a bruising 7-foot, 260-pounder from Saint Louis University.

Blair overwhelmed Bryce Husak, prompting coach Rick Majerus to say the then-Pitt freshman had “emasculated” his senior center.

It was a taste of things to come.

Since then, Blair has emasculated — or made weak — just about every big man he’s played.

From Roy Hibbert and Luke Harangody to Greg Monroe and Hasheem Thabeet, Blair does his best work against taller, big-time centers who are supposed to have their way with the “undersized” 6-foot-7 Schenley graduate.

In seven career games against those All-Americans or Big East 7-footers, Blair is averaging 16.7 points and 14 rebounds.

Mike DeCourcy — before the Pitt-UConn game — made the case that Pitt hasn’t been an underachiever but an overachiever.

Before Kansas coach Bill Self stood underneath the Alamodome and raised the championship trophy last April, he was widely considered a disappointment as an NCAA Tournament coach.

Self owned a career NCAA Tournament winning percentage of .640 entering the 2008 championship. That’s better than Hall of Famers Jim Boeheim, John Chaney and Lou Carnesecca.

So here’s what elevated Self from failure: a missed free throw by Memphis’ Derrick Rose and a missed 3-pointer by Davidson’s Jason Richards.

That’s how silly this stuff can be sometimes.

Somebody asked the other day if Pitt “needs” to reach the Final Four this season. On one hand, the answer would be yes because the Panthers might need a few years before they again have a chance like this.

But what seemed to be implied was that many fans will consider the Panthers to again have disappointed in the NCAAs if they don’t reach this year’s Final Four. In fact, Pitt rarely has fallen short of its potential in the Howland/Dixon era.

Since the Panthers appeared in the 2002 event, they own a respectable .588 NCAA winning percentage that reflects four tips to the Sweet 16 and a single first-round elimination, in 2005.

In most of their eliminations, the Panthers were defeated by teams with superior, NBA-type talent: Marquette and Dwyane Wade in 2003, Oklahoma State and Joey Graham in 2004, Patrick O’Bryant and Bradley in 2006. Those kinds of players typically win NCAA Tournament games. Until this season, Pitt hasn’t had more of them on its side.

Pitt has been the decade’s ultimate overachiever, consistently contending for Big East championships with players undervalued by other programs and of little use to the NBA. The Panthers should be celebrated for their March accomplishments. Maybe if their opponents miss a few big shots on the way to Detroit, the Panthers will get their due this year.

The year Pitt lost to Bradley in the second round, Bradley had knocked off Self’s Kansas team in the opening round. Still, I have to say that the way the season has ended in the NCAA Tournament the last couple of years, have indeed felt like a disappointment.

Finally, DeCourcy also makes this point on the Pitt-UConn game and Calhoun’s whining.

Check the 3-Pointers February 18, 2009

It deals a bit with Blair being able to use his strength inside. How he got so close right away, that when he did bump the defender, there was limited space and made it difficult for an official to call a charge or any offensive foul.

How the universe sees Calhoun

Thanks to Rick for this image.

Lots of papers in Connecticut cover the Huskies. So, lots to run through.

First of all, the UConn players didn’t make excuses for what happened on the court. They showed class and admitted things.

The Huskies, who pride themselves on being physically and mentally tougher than anyone, met their match, losing 76-68. Gone is a 13-game winning streak and by next week so will their No. 1 ranking.

”It’s surprising,” senior Jeff Adrien said of Pitt’s physical superiority. “We haven’t seen anybody else do that this year. Pittsburgh is definitely one of the toughest teams in the country. I give them a lot of credit. They work hard. We do, too, but today they got the better of us.

”We have to move on. It’s going to be in my head, I know that.”
…
”I’m not in shock,” Price said. “I’m just disappointed. … We knew what type of game it was going to be. Whoever was tougher was going to win. We thought we were the tougher team, and I still think we’re the tougher team. They just out-toughed us tonight and beat us.”

Well, one player whined a bit.

“The coaches told me to play all out,” Thabeet said. “But it’s hard to play all out when every time you go out you get a foul call. I would go to the bench and get cold and then go back in the game. It was an adjustment for me.”

I guess he took the cue from his coach.

UConn coach Jim Calhoun made numerous intimations that the officiating was much of the reason why Thabeet was so ineffective. But the game didn’t appear to be any more physical than every other game against the Panthers.

There was one call that appeared to be bad, and it was an important one. Thabeet and Blair got tangled up as the Huskies moved down on offense, but official Mike Kitts emphatically called a fourth foul on Thabeet. The Huskies were in the midst of a run that gave them a brief lead and, realistically, they played better with Gavin Edwards on the floor and Thabeet on the bench.

Calhoun, in between making veiled references about the officials, seemed to understand that the Huskies needed more from Thabeet in such a physical game.

“One guy could have played better to help us win a basketball game,” Calhoun said.

Ah, yes the Calhoun post-game whinefest. I was more bemused than anything else when I watched it live.

“They played a particular style of basketball that we hadn’t seen this year,” said UConn coach Jim Calhoun, obviously referring to the physical nature of the play. “And it was very effective against us.” A.J. Price had a team-high 18 points and eight assists for UConn (24-2, 12-2 Big East) while Jeff Adrien and Kemba Walker had 13 points each. Sam Young scored 25 points for the Panthers (24-2, 11-2), who beat a No. 1 team for the first time in school history.

The way I took it was that it was typical Jim Calhoun. Knowing just how far he could go in complaining about the refs without actually taking a direct shot. So clearly trying to influence the way the next game gets called in a few weeks.

It was also typical Calhoun because he was calling out his players as well. He was saying, they didn’t respond to the challenge. They couldn’t match the play. And they didn’t.

(more…)

Briefly interrupting the Pitt basketball lovefest for the obligatory update on the Pitt football quest to replace the offenseive coordinator. After it all appeared that Noel Mazzone was poised to be the new offensive coordinator, things have changed.

Not only does this hire have to be the right fit and have the right credentials and a track record of success, it needs to be someone who can generate at least some excitement and help sell tickets. And don’t underestimate that last part — there is no question the pressure is on Dave Wannstedt to hire a coach with at least some pedigree of success and a track record of quarterback development.

That’s why the latest guy Wannstedt’s radar — California offensive coordinator Frank Cignetti — is such an intriguing name.

Unlike Noel Mazzone, who has fallen way down (if not completely off according to several soures) on the list for a variety of reasons…

[Emphasis added.]

A stunning admission, even via sources, to Paul Zeise. What that says to me, is that Noel Mazzone was killed not  by his track record or anything involving money or the interview. He was killed by the reaction to the leaked news of his impending hire.

It was a universally panned decision. When the closest thing to backing it was, “let’s wait and see” or “I trust Wannstedt,” well that isn’t support.

The credit, has to go to the fans and the often derided message board denizens for making this happen. They are the ones who wouldn’t simply accept being fed the sanitized resume of Mazzone without looking closer.

It is the fans that may force Wannstedt to have to hire outside of his comfort zone. To actually have to consider someone with an imagination and sees the offense as more than something to fear will put the defense in bad field position.

No, it won’t be Walt Harris taking over the offense. (A shame, but not surprising.) It also won’t be a mere NFL retread/crony.

Are you good with photoshop or any good photo editing software (like Gimp or photoplus, etc)? Do you take joy in superimposing heads or bodies onto others to form mildly humorous creations? Do you want to occasionally do some of that for this site? Will you do it for free and with little notice?

Then shoot me an e-mail at pittblather-at-gmail-dot-com and we can discuss.

I would love to know how many press credentials were issued for the game last night. It must have been huge, because there is no shortage of different stories from the game. Usually, it’s a matter of weeding through all the AP wire stories. Not today. So, I may have to break this up into three different parts. Pittsburgh media, Connecticut media and then national outlets.

Obviously the focus of every story is — and with good reason — DeJuan Blair. It’s still a team. It starts with the trio.

As the national anthem slowly came to a close, the two teammates on either side of DeJuan Blair held him tightly by the collar of his jersey as he had both hands in the air and rocked quickly back and forth.

Then they let him go.

“They unleashed the dog,” Pittsburgh’s Levance Fields said.

Did they ever.

Sam Young claims he’s the toughest. Fields begs to differ and points to himself. Blair doesn’t hesitate before also saying he is the answer to the question.

In a program that has exemplified toughness, this trio has no peer. Not at Pittsburgh nor maybe anywhere.

But Blair stood alone Monday night. Believe it or not, above Connecticut’s 7-foot-3 big man Hasheem Thabeet.

“They’re like the Bad Boys,” UConn senior guard A.J. Price said after the No. 4 Panthers went into Hartford and dethroned the nation’s top team, 76-68.

“They’re the toughest team in the country,” he added. “It starts with Blair and trickles down to the whole team.”

Blair. Hasheem Thabeet will see him in his nightmares.

Part of the hype revolved around the battle of post men, UConn’s 7-foot-3-inch shot blocker, Hasheem Thabeet, against Pitt’s 6-7 DeJuan Blair, who has bulk and range to match Thabeet’s size.

That battle turned into a mismatch – in favor of Blair, who dominated from the start, posting a monster double-double of 22 points and 23 rebounds to Thabeet’s 5 points and four rebounds, the catalyst for Pitt’s 76-68 victory.

Considering the circumstances – facing the No. 1 team on the road, going up against a bigger center who has turned into one of the more dominant defensive forces in the game – Blair’s performance deserved the rave reviews it received from both sides.

“He’s a nightmare for every single opposing coach,” said Calhoun. “He’s just a man, a warrior.”

It also drew a sigh of relief from Blair.

“This was the most physical game I ever played in my life,” he said. “But for us, it’s just a game. This is the Big East. I can’t wait for the next time we play.”

Some of the credit goes to the coaches as well as the players. The coaches made sure the players knew that the best way to win was to get into UConn. Not to fade. Attack. Not let the mystique or fear of a block deter. Sam Young talked about it after the game as well.

Hasheem Thabeet scared away shots for most of this season. Not just blocked or altered the arc of the ball, but prevented attempts from ever being taken.

Forget about the missed opportunities to score by Providence, Seton Hall, Michigan and Syracuse of late. Thabeet’s 7-foot-3 inch towering presence — and that’s before he raises his arms up high — was frightful for some.
…
“I wasn’t going to allow him to re-arrange my shot unless I got a foul out of it,” Young said of Thabeet. “I think the intimidation was gone after he got flipped over DeJuan’s back.”

Yes. The flip. It was as physical a statement you could hope to see that any fear or intimidation would be held by Thabeet, not Blair.

Blair completely neutralized UConn’s 7-3 junior Hasheem Thabeet, who struggled with five points, four rebounds and two blocks before fouling out with 29 seconds left.

“That’s how I am,” Blair said. “I don’t care if you’re 4-8 or 7-8, I’m going to play hard regardless. I came out here with the mind-set of me being the underdog. I just went at it. He blocked a couple of my shots, but I got it right back and took it right to him. I tried to get into his chest and I did a good job of that.”

Blair took an elbow to the face in the second half, but it didn’t compare to the damage he did to Thabeet’s psyche earlier in the game, when he flipped the Huskies’ giant over his back after grabbing a rebound. Thabeet had to leave after landing hard on his shoulder.

So at the end of the game, it was fitting that Blair didn’t just block Thabeet, he took the ball from him.

As fourth-ranked Pittsburgh pulled away from No. 1 Connecticut in the final minute of their game Monday night, Panthers center DeJuan Blair snared a shot attempt out of the hands of 7-foot-3 UConn center Hasheem Thabeet.

Blair is eight inches shorter, but he had already proved that heft could overpower height. He heaved a full-court pass to a teammate for an easy layup.

It was a fitting end, as UConn surely lost its grip on the top ranking and Pitt showed that it could run past its biggest rival. With a 76-68 victory, Pitt loudly announced its arrival as a leading national-title contender by silencing UConn and its vociferous faithful at the XL Center.

It wasn’t just the way Blair shut down Thabeet. It was that Blair showed more than people outside of Pitt realized he had.

“Blair is a good player,” said Thabeet, who fouled out with 29 seconds remaining. “I didn’t have a good game, and he took advantage of it.”

Actually, Blair caused it.

Partly, at least.

I can’t begin to properly describe how good he was early, showing off an array of post moves that suggested he’s way more than the offensive rebound/stickback artist some have labeled him. He got position at will, called for the ball, out-maneuvered Thabeet and scored with ease. He had 15 points, 13 rebounds and zero fouls at the break, which represented the most dominant half of basketball anybody on press row could remember seeing this season and propelled him to his second 20-20 game in 16 days.

Blair slowed down in the second half some.

But really, how could he not?

And yet when Thabeet grabbed a rebound late that could’ve cut the lead to four points had he put it back in, there was Blair, ripping the ball away and throwing it upcourt for a breakaway layup by Jermaine Dixon that secured the win in the final minute and set the stage for the March 7 rematch at the Peterson Events Center.

No question in my mind, that Blair cost Thabeet some coin come June. The physical nature of the game and Calhoun’s less than veiled complaints afterwards were mostly ignored by the major media (I will get to them later with the CT media).

His eye nearly swelled shut, but no foul was called on this play, a fracas for a rebound under the Pitt basket. The whistles from the officiating crew of Mike Kitts, Ed Hightower and Tony Greene were, to say it nicely, erratic: Thabeet’s third foul, which came just 57 seconds into the second half, while challenging a Sam Young dunk, was legitimate, but his fourth, a whistle for a meaningless away-from-the-ball bump into Blair, was questionable.

How the teams responded to the physical style ultimately decided their fates: Pitt thrived in it, winning the rebounding war (48-31), and with that, the game, while UConn was knocked off-kilter, and lost. In the post-game interview session, Huskies coach Jim Calhoun replied to questions about the officiating by saying, “The game was played different than any other game we’ve played. … [The media has] got to come up the conclusions. I can’t. I’d like to, but I can’t.”

UConn guard A.J. Price, who kept his team alive until the final minute by scoring 18 points and dishing out eight assists against just one turnover, said “that was a Final Four-type game, how physical it was,” and admitted that the Huskies need to learn to handle such situations better in the stretch run. It was their first meaningful outing without junior wing guard Jerome Dyson, who tore a lateral meniscus in his right knee last week and is likely gone for the season, and they dearly missed his defensive toughness and ability to drive into the lane at will.

Later, when Pitt coach Jamie Dixon was asked about the bruising nature of the victory, it was telling that he didn’t find it all that remarkable.

“[The physicality] didn’t seem like too much of a surprise to us, or to them, I would think,” he said. (Obviously, he hadn’t heard Calhoun’s press conference.)

That ten minute stretch (roughly) to start the second half was maddening in that the refs seemed to be trying to make more calls — which was what Calhoun badgered to get — but it went against the officials’ nature. So it threw things off worse than letting them play. It went inconsistent and you know Calhoun was plenty ticked that he got what he wanted, just not the way intended.

This will never get old.

Ever.

Here’s the setup. Comments are generally moderated, unless you are a trusted commenter. Keep the language somewhat in check.

Find the liveblog here.

Let’s get a big win.

One of those odd things of being a FanHouse editor/writer is that to most people I am now some sort of journalist/member of the mainstream media. The main complaint I have been getting is that FanHouse has an East Coast bias to the Big East and ACC. That’s not true, we have a bias to the teams at the top of the standings that people want more. The top-10 has 4 Big East and 3 ACC teams there is only one team from the Big 12 and one from the Big 10 in the standings. What that means, is that the “big” games are all in the Big East and ACC since they are the most likely conferences to have top teams facing each other. Last week it was UNC-Duke, this week it is Pitt-UConn. All the media folk are going from all the major sites (CBS, FoxSports, Sporting News, SI and of course ESPN) for the latest big game, so expect a lot of recaps tomorrow.

Let’s do the quick and dirty media previews.

Fran Fraschilla has a nice breakdown on the game. He also admits that he doesn’t know who will win the game. Big East Basketball predicts a Pitt win. College Hoops Net goes with UConn.

One thing Pitt has never done is beat a team when they are ranked #1. O-13 in that span, including the game that sealed Ralph Willard’s fate at Pitt (IMO — and not just because I was at that game),

Pitt also lost to the top-ranked Huskies in December 1998 and January ’99. The ’98 game at Fitzgerald Field House is one of the most memorable in the Pitt-Connecticut series.

Connecticut point guard Khalid El-Amin jumped on the scorer’s table after making the winning shot to beat the Panthers, 70-69. The Huskies went on to win their first national championship that season.

The Huskies are without Dyson. Yes, he was their second leading scorer, but I think it will be more of a factor in the second game as Kemba Walker hits the freshman wall. The Seton Hall game showed that UConn Coach Calhoun does not have trust in his other guards — Donnell Beverly and Scottie Haralson. That means the Huskies will go maybe 7 deep (possibly 8 if center Mandelove gets some action).

Pitt continues the theme of  being ready.

“We will be ready to go,” Pitt coach Jamie Dixon said after the Panthers shot a school record-tying 67.4 percent from the field in an 85-69 victory over Cincinnati on Saturday.

This is only Pitt’s second game against a top-ranked team in the past 10 years — the other being an 80-76 loss at UConn three years ago — and only the second time in school history the Panthers will play in a game pitting two top-5 teams — against UConn in 2004.

“We feel good,” Pitt senior guard Levance Fields said. “We’re mentally ready.”

Calhoun lavishes praise on DeJuan Blair.

“I love Blair — don’t like him, love him,” Calhoun said. “I think he’s one of the best basketball players in America. Love watching him play — I won’t Monday night necessarily.”

And he added praise to Pitt.

”They’re the best team in the league,” coach Jim Calhoun said, “and then there’s us. We don’t have to play us. They’re the most complete team. Everybody has a certain flaw… but there aren’t many things that they don’t do well.

”They defend. They run offense. They’ve got a tough mindset. … They can win a national championship.”

And more.

“I consider (Pitt) the best team in the league,” the Huskies’ head coach said. “Then there’s us, but we don’t have to play us. I think they’re the most complete team. Everybody has a certain flaw. I’m trying to think of what Pittsburgh doesn’t do well. They defend, they run offense, they have a tough mind-set, a great point guard.”

…

“They’re probably the best team we’re going to play this year,” guard A.J. Price said. “We know what type of style and game they play. It’s going to be knock-down, drag out. It’s a huge game for us. Luckily, we have them at home first. We’ll try to take care of business and go from there.”

Taking care of that business requires a slightly different approach. As much as Price denied it Saturday, there is an adjustment period to playing without Dyson. UConn’s first attempt at that in Saturday’s victory at Seton Hall, while successful, wasn’t exactly inspiring.

The issue without Dyson, players getting in the lane and driving to the basket.

But Price, Craig Austrie and Kemba Walker, the guard trio of whom much will be asked post-Dyson, were a combined 6-for-25 Saturday — and that wasn’t even Calhoun’s greatest concern.

“Why did Hasheem block so many shots?” Calhoun said. “[Opponents] are getting to the rim. A.J., Kemba and Craig should do a much better job of stopping penetration. Because what’s going to happen is some of those guys on Pittsburgh are going to bang you, someone’s going to have two fouls and Blair’s going to be allowed to run free. … We need to really improve, and I’m disappointed in the penetration of [Seton Hall’s] guards.”

For both teams, it will be a concern as to how the game is officiated.

“What’s going to happen is, a couple of those guys on Pittsburgh are going to bang you, someone’s going to get two fouls, and now Blair’s going to be allowed to roam free,” Calhoun warned. “We have no one, besides Hasheem, who can play Blair, just like no one else has anybody who can play Hasheem. So, we really need to improve. I was really disappointed in the penetration of (Seton Hall’s) guards.”

I’ll be back just before the start of the game with the liveblog.

Sorry about the comment problems. One of the comment spam catcher is giving me a little problem for the past 24 hours or so. Telling me it is hitting a bad URL or some other anti-bot file. I really don’t have a clue what the issue is, since I hadn’t done any tweaks to the site in that timeframe.

For now, it is dumping everything in the spam file so I have to go in and manually aprrove them.

I don’t know, maybe I’m just not feeling the gravity quite enough. I just have this mental picture of DeJuan Blair making this statement in a Spongebob voice.

“I’m going to say I’m ready, that’s all. I’m READY,” Blair said, emphasizing that last word.

Okay, he probably didn’t, but go ahead, get that out of your mind now. Obviously everyone is excited at the idea of the Blair-Thabeet match-up.

Thabeet has improved so much from last season that Connecticut didn’t even miss Dyson in its 62-54 win at Seton Hall yesterday. He had a mind-boggling day — career highs of 25 points and 20 rebounds to go along with 9 blocks — which prompted Seton Hall coach Bobby Gonzalez to say afterward, “I don’t know who has a better player than him, who is a more dominant guy than him, in the country. He, to me, is the No. 1 player in America … If I was an NBA franchise, I would take him No. 1 in the draft.”

You should have seen Blair’s look harden when told of Gonzalez’s observation. “He hasn’t seen me play yet [this season],” he said, steely.

Blair also has improved from a year ago. He had a relatively quiet game against Cincinnati, yet still finished with 7 rebounds and 17 points on 7-of-9 shooting. He’s a monster as a rebounder, playing much taller than his 6-foot-7 height. The guess here is Thabeet won’t get 20 rebounds tomorrow night despite his 8-inch edge.

“His heart, his mind, his intensity, his length, his physical skills … Those are what make him the player that he is,” Dixon said of Blair.

Plus, he’s a fun quote.

DeJuan Blair had a funny answer when asked how Pitt was going to prepare for Connecticut’s 7-foot-3 Haseem Thabeet at practice.

“I’m going to try to have Levance stand on Gilbert’s shoulders.”

Getting things out of the way with Cinci was what everyone wanted.

“The stage,” Pitt point guard Levance Fields said, “is set.”

Now, the time to answer the questions that have been asked all week.

As Pitt finished off West Virginia Monday night, talk immediately turned to the impending game against No. 1 Connecticut. The Panthers were inundated with questions about the Huskies and the one-on-one battle between DeJuan Blair and Connecticut’s Hasheem Thabeet.

The only problem was that Connecticut wasn’t next on the schedule. Cincinnati was, and the Panthers made sure they didn’t overlook the Bearcats.

Pitt shot 67.4 percent from the field and had five players in double digits as they dropped Cincinnati 85-69 on Saturday at the Peterson Events Center.

“I think our guys handled this well,” Panthers coach Jamie Dixon said. “Every question this week has been about Connecticut rather than Cincinnati. Our guys understand that the media’s job is different from our job. But we know what we have to focus on.”

And now everyone can be focused on the same thing. Beating UConn.

Every head coach has his roots on one side of the ball or the other. Tommy Tuberville, Chuck Amato, Ed Orgeron and Dave Wannstedt are all guys who came from the defensive side of the ball. They were/are defensive guys as head coach. They also shared a preference for conservative offenses.

[As an aside, it has been a source of consternation for me that coaches that have displayed innovation and creativity in defense, can be so glacially conservative about how an offense should be run. It seems that they think the only way to beat any defense is to do so only with brute force and with little risk.]

I am doing my best to keep an open mind about Noel Mazzone, as he appears poised to be the next offensive coordinator at Pitt.  To that end, I was looking at his offenses in previous stints as the OC. Of course, Pittengineer75, saved me the effort of having to put together any chart. If you don’t feel like clicking it, trust me, it isn’t inspiring.

Suffice to say, the numbers are underwhelming. Backing up to my first paragraph about defensive-minded coaches views towards offense. Obviously, I was listing coaches that have employed Noel Mazzone as their OC. Tuberville, especially, since he employed Mazzone the longest, is a classic example of a head coach that also closely resembles Coach Dave Wannstedt’s philosophy on offense: ball control, run first, minimal mistakes, limit risks.

Now, let’s just say that no fanbase that had Noel Mazzone as an OC has shed a tear at his departure. Not at Ole Miss, where he got good money to leave. Defnitely not at NC State, where a year after he was gone they celebrated his firing at Ole Miss — oh and we learn his nickname by Wolfpack fans was “NoRedZone,” and not inspiring confidence.

His play-calling was bewildering, to say the least. He frequently called high-risk, low-reward passes (most notably the out pattern that travels all the way across the field, but only 2-3 yards DOWNFIELD – you know, the direction you have to go in order to get first downs and ultimately score) that his QB simply could not throw well. Defensive lineman made game changing plays twice this year on such predictable high-risk throws (the tipped pass at UNC that was returned to the NC State 2, and the Clemson DL that took the INT in for the score). These DL’s clearly dropped back in anticipation of such a throw. That would not happen if we weren’t so predictable.

And that was part of a post actually saying the problems on the offense, weren’t all Mazzone’s fault.

And for the more literate, well stop by your local library or bookstore and page through Michael Lewis’ book “The Blind Side” (which you can also take a look at online at Amazon). Around page 251 is this gem.

First came hope: five plays into the game the Ole Miss quarterback, Ethan Flatt, hit his fastest receiver, Taye Biddle, for a 41-yard touchdown pass. But Biddle, one of the seniors who would quit school immediately after the game, might as well have kept on running out the back of the end zone and into his car. Ole Miss never called that play again. Instead, their offensive brain trust decided to use their unbelievably slow, fifth-string running back to test the strong interior of the Mississippi State defense. In the press box before the game, the Ole Miss offensive coordinator, Noel Mazzone, happened to walk past a TV on which was playing a North Carolina State football game. Six months earlier, Mazzone had left his job running the North Carolina State ofense to take the job of running the Ole Miss offense. Seeing his former team on TV he snorted and said, loudly enough for journalists to overhear, “Should have stayed there, at least they had some players.”

Bill Walsh had shown how much an imaginative coach might achieve even with mediocre talent; Noel Mazzone was demonstrating how little could be achieved by a coach who did not admit any role for the imagination. The next five times Ole Miss had the ball Mazzone used the opportunity to prove that his slow, fifth-string running back couldn’t run through a giant pile of bodies in the middle of the field.

…

The frantic search for the right combination of players reflected their more general football worldview: they believed in talent rather than strategy. They placed less emphasis on how players were used than who they were. Whoever had the best players won: it was as simple as that.

It was a bleak and determinist worldview, implying, as it did that there was little a strategist could do to raise the value of his players. More to the point, it was a false view, at least for running a football offense. The beauty of the football offense was that it allowed for a smart strategist to compensate for his players’ limitations. He might find better ways to use players, to maximize their strengths and minimize their weaknesses. He might even change the players sense of themselves. But Ole Miss not only lacked a smart strategist: it lacked a coach who understood the importance of strategy. The genius of Bill Walsh was missing; so for that matter was the genius of Leigh Anne Tuohy. There wasn’t a soul on the Ole Miss Sidelines thinking seriously how to make the most of what another person could do. They were all stuck dwelling on what other people couldn’t do.

I have to admit, I’m starting to really worry.

I find this sort of statement to be the best compliment for Pitt. The team, the program is what others now aspire to.

UC absorbed an 85-69 loss to No. 4 Pitt before 12,508 fans at the Petersen Events Center and left with the realization that they still have a long way to go to reach the levels of intensity, execution and talent that the Panthers display on a regular basis.

“We made a great run here in the last month or so,” said UC coach Mick Cronin. “This was kind of a final exam for us because we aspire to be more than what we are right now. We’re trying to become who they have become.”

It was a team that imposed its will on Cinci. Pitt had everyone scoring.

Pitt had five players score in double figures led by senior power forward Sam Young, who poured in a game-high 18 points. Sophomore center DeJuan Blair had 17 points, Jermaine Dixon 14, Gilbert Brown 12 and Fields 11.

It was the fourth time in the past five games that the Panthers have scored 85 points or more.

“We executed our plays,” Fields said. “Guys did a great job of spotting up and knocking some shots down. DeJuan and Sam did a great job inside as well as Tyrell [Biggs].”

Young and Blair were each 7 for 9 from the field. All five starters shot better than 50 percent from the field. Every player who took a shot except Brad Wanamaker shot better than 50 percent, and it was a Wanamaker miss in the final minute that prevented the school record.

“This is the best Pitt team that I’ve seen,” Cincinnati coach Mick Cronin said. “They have three players who are the best in the league at their position with Fields, Blair and Young.”

Everyone was scoring, in no small part because Levance Fields has been distributing. Fields had another double-double with 11 points and 13 assists. To say nothing of 0 turnovers.

In the past five games, Fields has 56 assists and only six turnovers.

“The numbers are mind-boggling,” Dixon said. “It was an unbelievable performance. He’s doing it game after game down the stretch. I don’t know who is playing better than him as a point guard. You can’t play any better than his numbers.”

Fields seems determined to leave the bar really, really high at the PG position after this season is finished.

The team has confidence and don’t mind giving each other some grief.

The Panthers got a big lift from Brown in the first half. He scored seven points in the first 20 minutes and was more aggressive than he had been all season. Brown hadn’t scored in double figures since the Big East opener at Rutgers Dec. 31.

“Gil Brown stepped up, finally,” Blair joked. “He did an excellent job coming off the bench. He gave us a spark in the first half.”

Of course, that is Blair, who is at ease in most situations. Gilbert Brown stayed with the cliches.

“I was just thinking about staying positive,” Brown said. “I wanted to be more assertive.”

I’m just here to help the team.

While Pitt ended up letting Cinci shoot above 50%, the defense did the job against the main threat. Deonta Vaughn had little room to operate.

The Pitt defense shut down junior guard Deonta Vaughn on Saturday, holding him to nine points, seven below his average, in the No. 4 Panthers’ 85-69 victory…

With Vaughn struggling offensively, the Bearcats’ comeback attempt in the second half was severely hurt without him.

“It hurt, but we probably weren’t going to win,” said UC coach Mick Cronin. “I don’t like when people do that, so I’m not going to do it. Pitt’s a great team and they played well. We were unable to stop them.”

Now we can move on to the next game.

What? No trophy for the basketball version of the River City Rivalry? How disappointing.

Open it up, folks

Yes, I am aware of Paul Zeise’s post that Noel Mazzone is now the leading candidate for the offensive coordinator job.

It appears that former Jets wide receivers coach Noel Mazzone has moved to the front of the pack of candidates to replace Pitt offensive coordinator Matt Cavanaugh. In fact all signs — and several sources as well — are pointing to Mazzone and he is looking like he could be the guy.

Mazzone was in town over the past two days meeting with Dave Wannstedt and he has the right mix of NFL and college coaching in his background that Wannstedt is looking for. He was an offensive coordinator for 11 seasons at Ole Miss, Auburn, N.C State and Oregon State and he’s also tutored a number of top flight quarterbacks, most notably Chargers standout Philip Rivers.

I’m not sure how I feel about Noel Mazzone.

Just doing a little cursory digging shows a guy who has not completely distinguished himself as an OC. He was OC at NC State for one year, and the most noticeable thing about that tenure were the production of these t-shirts.

Clearly that one season in Raleigh endeared him to the fans.

One thing is certain, Mazzone is used to being OC for a defense-first coach that is extremely conservative on the offesne. He had two stints with Tommy Tuberville at Ole Miss and Auburn.

In fact, he seems most comfortable being an OC for very conservative coaches.

There are rumors that Shannon also interviewed former K-State coach Ron Prince on Tuesday. I’ve heard that former Jets assistant Noel Mazzone has tried to make a run at the job as well. Mazzone is close to UM tight-ends coach Joe Pannunzio and also has the support of Federal Express founder Fred Smith, a potentially big Miami booster who is also the father of backup Canes QB Cannon Smith.

Instead, Miami went with Mark Whipple a Philadelphia Eagles assistant and was the Steelers QB coach from 2004-06.

He was also in the running to be the Houston Cougars’ OC last year.

Perhaps, Mazzone’s biggest credential to being hired by Coach Wannstedt, he has a deep rich ‘stache of his own.

As I’ve said many times, playing Cinci is always interesting in the Rich household with the wife being a Bearcat alum.

Cinci comes in on a 3-game win streak. What’s the significance?

During three-plus seasons in the Big East Conference, the University of Cincinnati basketball team never has won four conference games in a row.

With a three-game winning streak to their credit, the Bearcats can reach that plateau today. All they have to do is knock off the No. 4-ranked team in the country at perhaps the most difficult road venue in the league when they take on Pittsburgh at the Petersen Events Center.

It’s a huge challenge for a still-young UC team that seems to be coming into its own. The Bearcats (17-8, 7-5 Big East) have gone 7-2 since their 0-3 start in league play, and their confidence is growing with each game.

“We’re going to go in there and do what we’ve got to do,” UC junior guard Deonta Vaughn said of playing the Panthers. “We’re going to be really digging in. It’s going to be tough playing against them, but if we beat them we can really see ourselves right there in the NCAA Tournament.”

Cinci is playing for a chance at the NCAA Tournament. In case you missed what ‘Nova did when they started to see their season start to slip or what WVU did last night with their back against the wall. Of course those teams did it at home, the road is a different beast.

The Bearcats have a shot, but they need at least one big win, win the games in conference they should and to play on the third day of the Big East Tournament. Right now their RPI hovers near 50. It needs to be higher.

The guy Pitt has really struggled to stop when playing Cinci has been Deonta Vaughn. That’s Jermaine Dixon’s primary job today.

Freshman Yancy Gates, a highly touted recruit, is coming off the bench to average 11.0 points and 5.8 rebounds in conference games. Gates has been named Big East Rookie of the Week twice in the past eight weeks.

The 6-9, 255-pound Gates scored a season-high 21 points on 8 of 11 shooting in Cincinnati’s 71-61 victory over St. John’s on Wednesday.

“(We got) him the ball in position where he can be effective, which has been a challenge for us at times,” Cronin said. “If we can continue to get him the ball in those types of positions, he’s a guy who’s going to be effective.”

Vaughn always gives Pitt fits.

He’s averaging 20.3 points in four career starts against the Panthers. In his last visit to Pittsburgh, Vaughn made six 3-pointers, including some from NBA range, in a 24-point effort. He scored 23 of his game-high 30 points in the second half in Pitt’s win over Cincinnati in the Big East Tournament opener last season.

While junior guard Jermaine Dixon will draw the primary assignment, coach Dixon says it will require a team effort to defend the 6-1 junior from Indianapolis.

“Our strength is that we can put a number of different guys on him,” the sixth-year coach said. “Jermaine will be guarding him. Bradley (Wanamaker) will be guarding him. (Vaughn) is in there for 40 minutes, so he’s going to have different guys on him.”

Regarding Yancy Gates, he’s also serving as their energy guy by coming off the bench.

“I never had the mindset that I had to start to be productive,” Gates said. “Coming off the bench and starting is the same. You get in the game and you’ve got to do your job. Coming off the bench allows you to see the flow.”

Cronin said he decided to start Toyloy ahead of Gates for the Jan. 17 game at DePaul because he wanted his best defensive lineup on the floor at the game’s outset. That move has also served to prevent Gates, who has started 15 games, from picking up quick fouls early in the game.

“He’s in there pretty quickly,” Cronin said of Gates. “It’s nice to have Steve Toyloy on our team, a guy that can really defend, rebound and accepts his role. In late-game defense, he’s excellent and when given the opportunity, he finished around the basket.

“It’s important to be two-deep at that position because of the foul trouble that arises in this conference with the physicality that goes on out there. As soon as one of them gets one foul, I’m taking him out right away. That one foul is like a magnet for two and then the other guy would have to play the rest of the half.”

Since Gates went to the bench, Cinci has been 5-2. Granted that included playing St. John’s twice, but it also included sweeping G-town and beating ND.

I mentioned after the WVU game, that I was feeling a little greedy so I wasn’t totally thrilled with Pitt going to scrubs at the end, since it cost Pitt in holding the ‘Eers to below 40% shooting. Turns out the team was a bit disappointed as well.

“We put a lot of emphasis on defense in practice,” guard Brad Wanamaker said.

“We played more like the old Pitt team,” Fields said. “Still, I guess we’ve got to work, because they still shot 40 percent.”

The Mountaineers shot 40.4 percent.

“It was close,” Dixon said. “I don’t know if it counts. Levance likes to debate. We’ll see.”

Whether Dixon gave the Panthers the benefit of the doubt over a few percentage points was apparently up for discussion.

I think he’s going to make them work to be better.

Personally, I’ve found it amusing that since the UNC-Duke game ended, ESPN has completely skipped their Saturday night primetime game of OSU-Wisconsn, in favor of hyping the Pitt-UConn game for Monday. The team, of course, swears that they aren’t looking past the Bearcats.

“We’re definitely not looking past Cincinnati,” Pitt guard Jermaine Dixon said. “They’ve been hot. They’ve been on a winning streak. But even if they weren’t, we never look past a team. We’re not thinking about UConn right now.”

Dixon won’t have any problem getting his players’ attention on Cincinnati. In the past month, Cincinnati has beaten Georgetown (twice) and Notre Dame to put itself in position to make the NCAA Tournament only two years after finishing dead last in the Big East.

Since an 0-3 start in the conference, Cincinnati is 7-2 and ran its winning streak to three games with a 71-61 victory against St. John’s on Wednesday night in which it shot a season-best 62.6 percent.

“It’s pretty easy to sell that they are a really good team,” Jamie Dixon said. “Sometimes, you have to stretch it. This time, there is no question this is a team that’s playing well and is an NCAA Tournament team.”

Said Blair, “They are at their peak.”

I have hated the “good [player name]/bad [player name]” ever since I heard a telecast where Trevor Matich beat it into the ground regarding Tyler Palko a few years ago. I know Louisville fans often do that with Edgar Sosa. I want to nip that in the bud with Sam Young.

The good Sam Young stays patient, moves the ball and waits for his shot. He drives to the basket, goes hard to the offensive glass for rebounds and gets out in the transition game.

The bad Sam Young attempts to take his defender one-on-one too much, gets his pocket picked by defenders and throws lazy passes. He displays negative body language and doesn’t appear to be on the same page as his teammates.

That’s not the observation of an outsider. It’s the observation of senior point guard Levance Fields, who said Pitt needs the good Sam Young to show up on a more consistent basis.

Stop it now. The point of the story is fine — stay within the gameplan, don’t freelance, etc. Just, please, please, please. No “good Sam, bad Sam.” Sam needs just eleven more points to pass Brian Shorter for 10th on Pitt’s all-time scoring list. If he gets back to his average and Pitt goes deep this year, he should finish his career at Pitt in 6th on the list (passing Ricardo Greer) and possibly 4th to pass Jason Matthews and Don Hennon (1840 and 1841).