Game time is set for 7:05 on Saturday night.
A rematch of earlier in the year.
Mizzou-UConn is the early game at 4:40
Big East is just slightly dominating.
March 26, 2009
Talk about rewriting a legacy in half-a-minute.
As great as Levance Fields has been for Pitt, the senior was hardly anything special for 39 minutes. He had 9 points, 6 assists and 3 turnovers. He probably should have had more turnovers. He shot 3-9 at that point. Only 2-5 on free throws. He just had not come up with much in the most important game of his career. It looked like he would go down small and his team would join yet another Pitt squad that couldn’t break that barrier of winning a third game in the NCAA Tournament.
Then. Then. Then it all changed. Drilling a 3 with under a minute. Deep. Hand in the face. A “NO.NONONONONONONO! YES!!!!!” moment. After that coming up with a steal when Blair poked it lose and racing like he never raced before to the other end with a lay-in. Wow.
Nothing about this game was pretty. I do not understand what is wrong with Pitt in the first half. Whether it is playing too tentative because they don’t know how the game will be officiated. Whether it is overconfidence. Whether it is tightness. Obviously, Coach Dixon has been reaching them at halftime.
Still, it was ugly. Credit also has to go to Xavier for playing that hard and tough against Pitt. They also do well in this type of game and clearly it was their game as well.
Ultimately Pitt did enough. Pitt was tough enough. Physically and mentally. Never gave up. Never stopped.
Now this Pitt team gets to keep playing.
I’m a tense, mess. I hate being this way. The brain can rationalize and intellectualize it all it wants. This game is big. Huge. It is a bit silly, but I almost feel that if Pitt can win it, so much else with the rest of the Tourney could fall into place. That’s a big lie in and of itself, but since Pitt has yet to win more than two games in the NCAA Tournament in any year, it has taken on that outsized importance.
Liveblogging will begin a bit before 7:30. You know the drill. Comments are under moderation. We’re all going to be tense, but try to keep some sembalence of control. Remember these are still Pitt guys, they were yesterday and they will be tomorrow.
I will be doing a liveblog tonight.
I am just hoping that the Pitt players and coaches are no where near as tense and uptight as we Pitt fans seem to be.
One more scouting report on the East.
Big East Basketball report, breaking down the game.
Great, enjoyable read on CBS and ESPN analyst Bill Raftery.
Probably his best-known call came 21 years ago when Pitt’s Jerome Lane obliterated the backboard on a spectacular jam.
“Send it in, Jerome!” he said, shouting.
Late this season, Lane approached Raftery before a Pitt-Connecticut game. “With a big smile,” Lundquist said, “he said, ‘Thanks for making me famous.’ ” Raftery said, “It was the cutest thing, and the psychic reward for getting to know a kid a little bit.”
Somewhat connected sidenote, they mention that one of his daughters does PR work for Sports Illustrated. She’s the one who has been e-mailing me the cover images in the past few weeks. Did not make the connection until I read it.
Post-Gazette beat writer Paul Fittipaldo takes a question from a Xavier guy on the issue of point guards.
He even found time to do his weekly chat.
Where_is_Arvydas_Sabonis_: Pitt’s favorite ESPN analyst Doug Gottlieb said that this is the biggest game in Pitt basketball history? Do you agree?
Ray Fittipaldo: Yes, until the next one if the Panthers win. Then it becomes Saturday’s game. I agree with Gottlieb. Pitt has been on the threshold of the Elite Eight on four previous occasions and never got over the hump. This is the most talented of those teams, has the best offensive firepower and great experience. If the Panthers don’t get to a Final Four this year when are they are going to do it? The table is set. All they have to do is deliver.
Otherwise, no pressure. Speaking of pressure.
When Sam Young walks down the streets of Pittsburgh, he knows exactly what’s coming.
“All everybody asks you is whether we’re going to get past the Sweet 16,” the Panthers senior forward says.
“We’re sick of hearing it,” added Pittsburgh’s Gilbert Brown.
…
Pittsburgh is 0-5 in the Sweet 16 in the Howland-Dixon Era, and that’s all everyone wants to talk about.
“I tell them we’ll find out together,” Young said of his response to those on the street who ask him whether they can take the next step.
Dixon and his players are hoping this year is different, that this team is different.
That they can finally rid themselves of that dreaded Sweet 16 curse with a victory against one of their own — Xavier coach and former Pittsburgh standout Sean Miller.
If it helps, Pitt fans are sick of asking it and having to answer it to others. Boy are we sick of the latter.
I’m seriously debating locking myself in a small, dark room with a TV and laptop. If you are more social than that, plenty of other metro areas have places to be with other Pitt alum/fans to watch.
If you are in Boston, it starts early.
Pitt Pep Rally/Pre-game Event
Thursday, March 26 – 4 p.m.
Johnnie’s on the Side
138 Portland Street
Boston, MALocated just two blocks and an easy walk to TD Banknorth Garden.
With performances by the Pitt Pep Band and Cheerleaders and a special appearance by the Pitt Panther Mascot. Special Panther drink specials and complimentary appetizers (while they last!).
All of the following came from the Pitt alumni calendar:
Tampa/St. Pete’s
Courtside Grille I
110 Fountain Parkway North
St. Petersburg, FL 33716 http://courtsidegrille.com/home.html
Ft. Lauderdale
Miller’s Ale House in Fort Lauderdale
2861 N Federal Hwy
Fort Lauderdale, FL 33306
(954) 565-5747
Lancaster, PA
Trio’s Bar and Grill
3707 Marietta Ave
Columbia, PA 17512
http://www.triobarandgrill.com/
NYC
Village Pourhouse
64 3rd Ave at 11th St. East Village
New York, NY 10003 www.pourhousenyc.com
New Jersey
Fox and Hound English Pub & Grille – Edison
250 Menlo Park Drive Edison, NJ 08837
Phone: (732)452-9100
Hilton Head
One Hot Mama’s American Grille: Hilton Head-Bluffton
7 Greenwood Dr # A
Hilton Head Isle, SC 29928
(843) 682-6262
Washington, DC
Penn Quarter Sports Tavern
639 Indiana Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20004
Atlanta
Hudson Grille – Perimeter Mall
4400 Ashford-Dunwoody Rd.
Atlanta, GA 30346
Chicago
Gamekeepers Travern & Grill
345 W. Armitage
Chicago, IL www.gamekeeperschicago.com
Austin, TX
Fast Eddie’s Round Rock
100 Parker Dr
Austin, TX 78728
512-248-0646
Denver
Choppers Sports Grill
80 S Madison St.
Denver, CO 80209-3002
303-399-4448
Palo Alto, CA
The Old Pro Sports Bar
541 Ramona Street
Palo Alto, CA
650-326-1446
Santa Monica, CA
Yankee Doodles
1410 3rd Street Promenade
Santa Monica, CA
www.yankeedoodles.com
San Francisco
Giordano Brothers
303 Columbus Ave
San Francisco, CA
415-397-2767
If there are any other gatherings. Missed or impromptu, be sure to leave them in the comments below
Cleveland (thanks Pauly P, one of these times I’ll get down to join the crowd)
Bob Golic’s Sports Bar
1213 West 6th (corner with W. Lakeside, Warehouse District)
Some more onsite reports from the open practice. Rush the Court, has some photos and observations.
Let’s get one thing out of the way. The East Region open practice might have been the most boring 5 hours of my life (not counting lectures). There’s a reason the NCAA makes this event free (outside of the fact that they more than make up for it through the $8 programs, $5 Cokes, and $23 baseball caps). The crowd was 95% white males in their mid-30s or above along with a handful of kids chasing autographs from players who they were looking up during the practices checking to see which ones had the best stats. My favorites were the old guys sitting behind me who kept on commenting on how good Gary McGhee and Brian Zoubek were (the tallest guys on the court) and what outstanding pros they were going to be.
Bill Raftery and Verne Lundquist were on hand to talk to each of the head coaches ahead of the games. No surprise that it was noted that they barely spoke with Coach Jamie Dixon. They just saw and spoke with him the prior weekend in Dayton (to say nothing of the fact that Raftery has called probably a half-dozen or so of Pitt’s games this year). Little has changed. The other 3 coaches played in other locations.
The Panthers seemed to be the loosest of the 4 teams. Despite being in drills, they were constantly playing around with DeJuan Blair, Sam Young, and Levance Fields being the ring leaders.
Only Duke seemed to be going hard in the 50 minute practice sessions. So, it doesn’t seem like much can be read into these.
Nice article with Mike Rice (Robert Morris HC, ex-Pitt assistant) and Ron Everhart (Duquesne HC, A-10 member) talking about tonight’s game with Xavier and Pitt.
Both give the clear match-up advantage at point guard to Pitt, and at least imply that will be the difference. Rice also notes that there isn’t a significant talent differential. Pitt may have the stars, but the Xavier players are pretty damn good.
The Pitt players swear they are focusing on the game at hand.
Said Blair: “We’re not looking ahead. I’m not letting anybody look ahead.”
They know the dangers. Some of the Pitt players admitted they got caught peeking at top-seed Memphis last season.
“Not this year,” Panthers sophomore Gilbert Brown said.
The Pitt players are saying the right thing about facing their opponent.
Pitt seniors Tyrell Biggs and Levance Fields have been impressed with the Musketeers’ ability to rebound when they have watched their games in recent days.
“They’re really tall at every position,” Fields said. “So we’ve got to do a great job of boxing them out and not giving them second-chance opportunities.”
“They’re very athletic,” Biggs said. “That’s the one thing that jumps out at me. They have a bunch of guys who can really jump.”
Xavier is confident and one of the thing they stress, is their depth.
“That’s part of our success this year,” said junior forward Derrick Brown. “It’s not just sticking with five or six players. We’re a very deep team. That’s why on any given night different players step up. It’s not always one player averaging 25 points or anything like that because this is a team. We’ve got young players and different players in different roles and I think that’s why our program continues to be successful, because the experienced people get used in all different situations.”
Xavier comes into the game with a 27-7 record and solid wins over Portland State and Wisconsin in first- and second-round games last weekend in Boise, Idaho.
Brown has been a key factor, averaging 13.7 points and 6.0 rebounds a game. The core group includes senior forward C.J. Anderson (10.0 ppg, 5.4 rpg), junior center Jason Love (6.9 ppg), and guard B.J. Raymond, who leads the team with a 14.1-point average.
Miller, who is coaching against his alma mater, says the overall depth wears people down. “It is a big factor for us,” he said. “We have nine players. We try to have different players step up on different nights. We really are a team in every sense of the word and have a lot of different players who can beat you.”
Here’s the one thing about their depth. It is there, but it isn’t used right now. It’s the Tournament. Rotations shrink. While they didn’t have a hard time with Portland State, to allow them to play four bench players 11 minutes or more. The Wisconsin game was a bit different. While they had 3 bench players with 18 minutes, he major reason was that starting center-forward Jason Love could only play 16 minutes with major foul problems.
You play your best players. Period. So will they throw some more players inside to absorb fouls against Blair? Certainly. But if they are getting burned at both ends, that won’t last. The multiple bodies weren’t enough to keep Love out of trouble.
As expected, the Sean Miller faces the team where he played is a popular theme. He acknowledges, but keeps trying to bring it back to Xavier.
“Yeah, I’ve watched them with a lot of pride over the last 8 years, as much as from a coach’s perspective, from the fact I once went there, and even the amazing job they’ve done, from Ben Howland and transforming their program from Fitzgerald Field House to the new arena,” Miller said.
“And watching Jamie Dixon take over and just the consistent success that they’ve had in the Big East Conference speaks for itself. And a lot of the things their program has become known for we, too, try to take great pride in what we do at Xavier.”
Pitt’s longtime trainer, Tony Salesi, is still close to Miller. As, apparently, are many of his old teammates who seem to feel they can root for their school and their friend/teammate.
“It is emotional,” Martin said. “It’s our alma mater. We had a lot of wins there. I love Pitt, but my heart is with Sean. That’s my man. I’m going to have my Xavier shirt on.”
Porter, who also has close ties to Pitt center DeJuan Blair, said he will be happy one way or the other tonight.
“I’ve spent a lot of years with Sean,” Porter said. “We were roommates and close friends. You always want your friends to do well. I’m in a no-lose situation. It’s either going to be Sean or DeJuan playing in the Elite Eight for the right to go to the Final Four.”
Andy Katz at ESPN.com says the pressure in this game is all on Pitt.
“We’ve just got to get back to the basics and it starts with defense,” Fields said. “The offense will come but we’ve got to outrebound teams and cut down on turnovers and we did that in the second round.”
The Panthers know they’re close. The three seniors — Fields, Sam Young and Tyrell Biggs — know this team is built for a six-game run to the title. This is easily Jamie Dixon’s best shot to win a national title in his six-year tenure at Pitt.
“It’s right there,” Fields said of getting to the Final Four. “But we’ve got to take care of phase three first.”
That’s Xavier. The Musketeers are in their second straight Sweet 16. They don’t have the pressure to win. Reaching the Elite Eight for the third time since 2004 would be quite remarkable. Xavier lost to UCLA in the West regional a year ago in the regional final. But like last season, and now this one, the X can play freely. Pitt cannot.
Oh, hey, now we have a Sam Young story. All three get at least some attention.
Stories of Young’s devotion to his craft are legendary around Pitt. People talk about the nights he slept on an air mattress in the gym after hours of shooting alone, or how he would blow off social gatherings on weekends to find a pickup game on campus. That tunnel vision didn’t just begin in college, either.
“This is a guy who’d be at school at 6:30 in the morning working out or at the gym,” said close friend Chris Howard, Young’s teammate at Friendly High School and now a guard at South Florida. “When he was at Hargrave [Military Academy], there’d be times we’d call each other and be on speakerphone while we were doing push-ups.
“He’s not one of those guys you’re going to see in the club. Sometimes he’ll call me and say he’s going to movies, and I’ll joke around and say, ‘Who are you going with? Who’s the girl?’ And he’ll say, ‘I’m going by myself.’ That’s the kind of focus you’ve got to have until you get to the place you want to be.”
The aim of his focus wasn’t always clear to others. Pitt keeps rebounding statistics in practice, and Lombardi said Young easily could have led the team in that stat every single day with his leaping ability and strength. But whole practices would go by when he wouldn’t even try to grab a rebound, so intent was he on proving he was not just a post player.
Then there’s the head fake. Few college players are associated with a signature move as Young is. He’ll rise up almost halfway into his shooting motion, often even lifting one foot off the ground. Defenders will fly out to contest the outside shot, only to watch Young glide by for a short jumper or a dunk.
Big East opponents have bitten on this deception for years. Oklahoma State’s players, who had to have “stay home Young’s head fake” highlighted and underlined at the top line of their scouting report, still fell for it repeatedly Sunday.
And according to the story, Coach Dixon tried to break his head fake in favor of a more conservative manner. Interesting. Otherwise, it’s mostly a review of a lot of his background/history we’ve read before.
Okay, there is no shortage of articles relating to Pitt. I’m skipping all the capsules that every newspaper does. I think we get it with the base stats on each team.
It’s a big game, with a few days building behind it. So, there are plenty of stories on DeJuan Blair. The New York Times focused on his rump — an amusing and decent piece.
But Blair’s game has more nuance to it than simply rocking his hips and pushing people out of the way. The Pittsburgh associate head coach Tom Herrion marvels at how Blair uses his rear end to create angles, something he said took more than physical strength.
“What’s amazing about him is how subtle and legal he plays with that,” Herrion said. “He’s not a brute player. It’s all subtle. His feel and his instincts allow him to take advantage of his body.”
The maestro of properly using one’s backside is Barkley, who earned the nickname the Round Mound of Rebound and angled his way into a Hall of Fame career. In a 1984 Sports Illustrated article, the 6-4 Barkley articulated why he had success against taller centers like 6-11 Melvin Turpin.
“It’s easier for me to get low,” he said. “I can put my butt on Melvin’s legs, but Melvin can only put his legs on my butt.”
Blair puts it this way: “It’s hard to get around my wide body. Why not push people out of the way with it?”
Ron Cook apparently wasn’t expecting much since Blair wasn’t too talkative on the subject
As a companion, this Wall Street Journal article on the return of the big man in college is well worth reading. The focus is mainly on Blake Griffin, but it is interesting and provides a quick little history lesson on their lessoning impact.
There’s also a couple stories from the Boston papers. One trying to look forward.
Asked if a trip to the White House to meet with the president gave him any added motivation to want to win it all, Blair perked up. “Yeah, yeah, yeah, that would be cool,” he said. Then, turning serious, he added, “I’m not worried about that right now. We’re in Boston right now, we’re not in Detroit. When we get to Detroit, we can talk up a storm about that.”
The only thing on Blair’s mind yesterday was getting past Xavier tonight.
“Xavier is a tall and athletic team,” he said. “They like to play and they like to run and they have an excellent rebounding team, so it’s going to be a little challenge for me. But I’m just going to try to do what I can do.”
The other just recapping his story.
“He’s a very unique player,” said Xavier coach Sean Miller, a former standout point guard at Pitt. “He reminds me of a guy I played with, Jerome Lane, and Jerome led the nation in rebounding. And DeJuan is right there.”
While his body type and game frequently draw comparisons to Lane, as well as players such as Karl Malone, Blair shrugs them off like so many opponents who battle him inside.
“I’m just trying to be me,” Blair said. “That’s all I am.”
The similarities are not lost on Pittsburgh coach Jamie Dixon, who sees certain qualities that allow such players to make up for their lack of height inside.
“Oftentimes you have to have soft hands and good feet,” Dixon said. “If you have a combination of those things, you can have success. He’s got all those attributes, I think, so that’s what he builds around and plays around.”
The players are trying to stay loose as the game looms.
In winning their first two tournament games, Blair and the Panthers settled down and allowed their talent to take over. They started playing more and thinking less, putting them in the right frame of mind for tonight’s game against a dangerous Xavier team coached by former Pitt standout Sean Miller.
“You want to have fun, especially with this being our last go-round,” point guard Levance Fields said of himself and fellow seniors Sam Young and Tyrell Biggs. “You try to have fun, but at the same time, we want to be as focused as possible.
“As the (second-round) game (against Oklahoma State) went on, we loosened up, got a little bit more excited and played better.”
…
“You want balance,” said Fields, who’s 82-16 as a starter at Pitt. “You want to be determined but also a little loosey-goosey. You don’t want everybody to be uptight and feel the pressure’s on.”
The only other Pitt player to get feature stories is Levance Fields. Seems to be the focus on NYC point guards thing. I always wonder if it is some sort of hive thing with media. It’s one thing when it is a pool of local beat writers but this is a bit different.
Pitt will survive or burn out with The General.
That’s the sometime nickname of Levance Fields, Pitt’s senior point guard and the most important player in the Panthers’ universe. The stocky 5-10 guy from Brooklyn, from legendary Xaverian High School and from the long list of big-time New York City point guards, is the one who runs the show for the top-seeded Panthers, the one who will be staring down Xavier tonight at the TD Banknorth Center.
Just ask him.
“DeJuan, Sam, those guys are our two horses, our stars,” Fields said. “When the game’s on the line, I’m going to have the ball. The biggest thing for us is confidence. I feel confident when I have the ball and I want to take that last shot. And my teammates and coaches feel the same way. They want me to have the ball.”
If you feel a bit put off by Fields’ bravado, well, two things: He’s from Brooklyn, so he doesn’t care; and he’s got a pretty solid resume to back those words up.
Just look back to Sunday in Dayton. Oklahoma State was throwing all it had at Pitt, hitting shots from all over the court. Down by a point with 3:30 to play, Fields turned it up a notch.
He drove and kicked out to Young for the go-ahead three-pointer. Next trip down, a putback by Fields. Next one, a Fields three. Game over.
Okay, that was a NYC area paper. So it is almost standard to bring in the local hook. But a New Hampshire paper with this?
“People brush him off because he doesn’t pass the eye test,” Pitt assistant coach Tom Herrion said from his team’s locker room at TD Banknorth Garden yesterday. “His appearance isn’t the fittest, but yet he’s the toughest. He’s a big shot taker, a big shot maker. He’s a winner. Hopefully he can keep that going in the next couple weeks.”
So where does Fields belong? At this point, he deserves to be mentioned among the Big Apple’s success stories. The 21-year-old, a three-time finalist for the Bob Cousy Award, given each year to the nation’s best point guard, has spent his four seasons at Pitt maximizing his talent.
“You can make the argument that he does as good a job playing that position as anyone out there,” said Xavier coach Sean Miller, himself a former all-star point guard at Pitt.
If you’re an unaffiliated basketball junkie searching for someone to root for during tonight’s NCAA East regional matchup (7:27 p.m., CBS) between No. 1 Pitt (30-4) and No. 4 Xavier (27-7), look no further than Fields. Sure, 6-7, 265-pound DeJuan Blair is the star (he looks like he could be the long lost son of former Michigan star Robert “Tractor” Traylor), but Fields runs the show.
“He’s the leader out there,” said Holloway, a 6-foot guard averaging 5.7 points per game for the Musketeers. “If you watch Pittsburgh, and you take him off the team, you can see that they’d be a lot different.”
Sam Young gets snubbed on the stories. Hopefully he’s got some more motivation then.
More in a bit.
