I have not been curled up and fetal over the loss. The conference tournaments (writing a lot over at Fanhouse) and everything that has happened this week (included a flooded basement) has deprived me of much sleep and available time.

I have to admit, though, before the conference tournament began I had pictured another BET Championship. And a post entitled “Three’s a magic number.” Why? Presumably Pitt would have beaten WVU and UConn three times in one year and then beaten Louisville in the championship game (third time in a row to knock out L-ville in the BET).  Naturally the script came no where close to working out.

I’m not really down with the whole “beneficial loss” argument. I would have liked to at least made it one more game. Not to mention it is never good to lose to WVU. Frankly, they scare the crap out of me for next year. Devin Ebanks used the BET to make it his coming out party. Huggins must be sending Kelvin Sampson a new cell phone every other week as a thank you for screwing up so badly at Indiana.

That said, it didn’t “expose a weakness” in Pitt. Yes, they struggled with the 1-3-1. Credit to WVU for switching defenses. At times they even threw a match-up zone in there just to keep shifting things around on Pitt. That’s part of why Huggins is such a good coach. He has a team that was well schooled in the 1-3-1 from the previous regime, that he can have them put that out there without much warning or prep. He uses the advantages he has well.

BTW, please use facts to back up your argument or you undermine your credibility. Example:

The Panthers don’t have super-talented players. They don’t have great outside shooters like Connecticut, who can make an opponent pay for switching to a 1-3-1.

Pitt is going to throw the ball inside to Blair, and that’s that. The Panthers made it easy for West Virginia. Too easy.

UConn? UConn is your example. UConn shot 34.8?% on threes. Pitt shot 35.4%. At least use a team that shoots better than Pitt.

Pitt shot poorly in the second half. Heck, despite shooting over 50% in the first half, there were at least 3 shots that just did not fall. Bad shooting definitely hurt.

Pitt played a bad game. WVU played a great one. That’s why the score was so lopsided. WVU still would have won the game, but Pitt made it worse with bad shooting.

“Wherever they put us, we’ve got to play better than we did today,” Pitt coach Jamie Dixon said. “We just didn’t execute. We got outplayed in every area. We got what we deserved.”

…

“We feel down right now and for the next couple of hours,” Blair said. “But this is motivation. We didn’t grind it out like we usually do and we’ve got to blame ourselves.”

Pitt has reached the Big East final seven times in the past eight seasons, but never advanced past the Sweet Sixteen with any of those teams.

“It really doesn’t matter where they put us,” Blair said. “We’re just going to have to grind it out. I know this is hard to say but I’d rather lose in the Big East Tournament and win the NCAA than win the Big East and lose in the NCAA. We’ll be all right.”

By the way, in case anyone was wondering, Coach Dixon also shared the blame with the coaching as well. Here’s the full quote from him.

In the second half, we just didn’t execute. I think we were — we weren’t coached well, we weren’t prepared well again for some things and we just got outplayed in every area. So, you know, it’s just one of those games. We’ve got to do a better job and again, this is a very good team. They’ve only lost to good people. We had beaten them twice this year but both were tough games and they really did outplay us in every aspect today so, you know, we understand that we got what we deserved and the responsibility falls on ourselves.

In the transcript from the post-game presser, Dixon also second-guessed himself over putting Biggs out there late in the 1st half and that 3d foul that kept him out to start the 2nd. A team failure.

Blair seemed a bit all over the place after the game. Ah, youth. At one point going conspiracy.

“The refs, they have it out for me, I guess,” he said. “They want to get DeJuan Blair out of the game.”

The next going mature.

“We’re going to use this as motivation,” Blair said. “I hate to feel like this. I felt like this after we lost to Providence and we bounced back. We’re an excellent bounce-back team.”

That was encouraging to hear.

So was this:

“I don’t know what to do about the refs,” Blair said, quietly. “I guess I have to handle them better.”

And the team can not take anything for granted.