Devin Ebanks. Scottie effin’ Reynolds. Tom Crean at Indiana. They all are connected by one evil thread.

Kelvin Sampson. The disgraced coach of Indiana and before that, Oklahoma has been an indirect but substantial thorn in the side of Pitt for several years. It looks to be that way until Ebanks goes pro.

He bails on Oklahoma for Indiana after NCAA trouble. That move reopened Scottie Reynolds who had committed to the Sooners. After Sampson left, Reynolds ends up at Villanova and we all know what went down last year in Boston.

He can’t stop making his excessive recruiting ph0ne calls — including to one DeJuan Blair — and everything implodes in Indiana. A outstanding recruiting glass runs away, including Devin Ebanks to West Virginia to make things that much better for Bob Huggins and the Hoopies.

That set things up for the new coach. Tom Crean can’t resist and brings his guard-heavy approach. This produces immediate recruiting success in Maurice Creek and Crean naturally beats Pitt at MSG this past year.

Now Pitt heads into a Sunday game with Xavier. A team with not only an ex-Indiana recruit in Terrell Holloway, but a transfer from Indiana after Sampson left in Jordan Crawford.

So if you have a system to disperse the negativity of the Sampson stink, do it. I’m going with giving blood. They can take the normal pint, but I’ll offer an extra if it will help.

Whatever it takes.

A feature on Gibbs in USA Today on how he has been one of the go-to guys for Pitt. For some reason it seems a surprise to reporters that Pitt wants to make a deep run. What? You think they were going to play a “happy to be here” card?

The game is scheduled for roughly 2:45. We will see if it goes that way.

If you need to break it out from the blog Click Here.

You don’t think Coach Dixon and the rest of the staff wasn’t banging that point home all day yesterday? You don’t think that was on the recorded message each kid got on their wake-up all in their hotel room?

Safe to say that while Georgetown ostensibly took some pressure off Pitt as the potentially biggest disappointment if they lose, a whole mess of pressure was added to Pitt and the other Big East teams. An absolutely disastrous day for the conference when even the lone win felt like a loss. It was ACC-esque.

That was a wild day, and it seems likely that no matter what happens today will seem like a letdown nationally compared to Thursday. My god, even Lehigh made Kansas nervous for a while in the first half.

Three of the #3 seeds played. While only one was upset, New Mexico and Baylor had tough games (Baylor tied with under 3 minutes left). There are no gimmees.

So, beware Keith Benson, another late-blooming center. Oakland actually expected to be here. Their plan is to attack Pitt the way they have played all season.

I don’t think Pitt is looking past Oakland or more than one game at a time.

After Gibbs only took four shots in the loss to Notre Dame, he is going to look for his shot a little more. Meanwhile, Oakland plans to stick one guy on Gibbs like glue.

[Johnathon] Jones, who has fared well covering some top guards this season, will be counted on to stay with Pitt sophomore Ashton Gibbs, the Big East’s Most Improved Player.

“I’ll say this, and (Gibbs) will score 30,” Oakland coach Greg Kampe said, “but we’ve got a guy I think can guard him.”

He’s a small pesky guard (5-11), so that will be an interesting match-up.

Gotta say, the story on Oakland coach Greg Kampe makes him seem like a good guy.

Lots to do to clear the 12 hours or so of Tourney watching, so that’s it. Liveblog this afternoon.

Courtesy of Luke, here’s how the Pitt Blather Bracket is looking:

After a day one filled with upsets(putting me in 131st), we now advance to day 2 of the tournament.

Leading us into day 2 is George Lesko, with an interesting bracket. Mr. Lesko has Xavier over PITT(BOO!!!!!!), and BYU over Murray State in the Elite 8, to join other selected upsets such as Old Dominion over Baylor, St. Mary’s over Villanova, and Missouri to the Elite 8.

In 2nd place is Renato Miguel

In 3rd place in Brandon Murray, who seems to have an opposite bracket. He has Murray st., OK State, and Xavier in the Sweet 16.

All of them have Kansas winning it all.