Those Villanova bastards had nearly a week to think, plan and get ready for Sunday’s games. To say nothing of  putting last year’s Elite 8 game on loop and sitting down in a dark room with some lotion and a box of tissues. But, I’m not bitter.

Anyways, I was contacted early by two fine ‘Nova blogs: I Bleed Blue And White (which I imagine confuses and pisses off a lot of Penn State fans once they realize it isn’t for Lions) and Villanova Viewpoint. They had nothing better to do since the Wildcats had the rest of the week off.

You can find my answers to their questions here and here. Some of my answers are probably shorter than they should have been, because I had some 13 or 14 questions in total to respond to with very little time. For that I apologize. Here are their responses to my questions.

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A noon game tomorrow almost assures that any pregame stories won’t make it into the blog. So this and a very special cultural exchange coming later today are the pre-game posts.

Minor bitching note to the Big East for Pitt’s schedule. Villanova and ND each got a week off to prepare for Pitt, while the Panthers are getting no where near that kind of rest and prep time. Thanks.

Solid story from earlier in the week from Louisiana on Chase Adams’ journey to Pitt.

Defensive consistency, low assist-to-turnover ratio and near double-digit assists became the norm for the Baltimore native. He even came into his own as a scoring junior for coach Greg Gary. Adams was set for a solid senior campaign, which would have seen him teaming with fellow senior Jerrald Bonham to lead a young bunch of Gents.

But instead of playing 35 to 40 minutes against the IUPUIs and IPFWs of the world on a team that has no chance at the postseason, Adams is playing nominal minutes for the Pittsburgh Panthers (19-6, 8-4), who went deep into the NCAA Tournament last season and appear headed to there again. Adams is averaging 2.0 points per game at Pitt after averaging 14.6 points per game at Centenary.

“My situation is very unique. The reason why they wanted me was for experience,” Adams said.

…

“During the early part of the year, they were short-handed because Jermaine Dixon (Pitt’s only returning starter) was injured,” Adams said. “Now he’s back and that’s cut back my minutes. They’re also preparing the next point guard for the upcoming years, so that’s limited my minutes.”

The limited court time doesn’t seem to have changed the demeanor of Adams, who was noted for dancing on the sidelines of Ladies games in the Gold Dome.

“We’re winning and I’m not complaining because at the end of the day I like to win,” Adams said. “I didn’t win a lot at Centenary, but it was still a good experience.”

Like Mike Cook who transferred to Pitt t0 be a cog from being the man on a bad East Carolina team, Adams has willingly taken the role he’s been given because winning is still the better reward.

On the heels of my post after the Marquette game about how great a time this is for Pitt basketball is this from Mike DeCourcy at the Sporting News.

You don’t have to be old to remember when Pitt was a coaching graveyard. Tim Grgurich, Roy Chipman, Paul Evans and Ralph Willard — all talented coaches — departed under less than ideal circumstances.

Now, Pitt has perhaps the most admirable program in Division I — and one of the most powerful in the rugged Big East.

Pitt’s impressive road victory at Marquette gave the Panthers 20 wins for the ninth consecutive season. One league victory in their final five games will give them double-figure Big East wins in each of those years. No league member can match that streak.

They’ve done it mostly with players who stayed in the program four years and bought into the culture of selflessness established by coach Jamie Dixon and his predecessor, Ben Howland.

This might rival Gonzaga’s rise to national-power status as the most dramatic transformation for any program in the past 10 years.

Heady times.

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