The Xavier-Pitt game is roughly scheduled to start at 4:50 PM ET. It follows the GT-OSU game that starts at 2:20 PM in Milwaukee. Regionally, it will be Xavier-Pitt, Texas A&M-Purdue or Cal-Duke for the later games. Gonzaga-Syracuse is the early game.

Plan accordingly.

Plenty of capsule previews before any NCAA Tournament. This one stuck with me heading into the weekend.

The Panthers are all about ball movement, working the ball around to get short jumpers, layups and trips to the line. More than 2/3 of their made shots come off of a pass, and when they get out of that approach is when they have trouble. They don’t shoot well for a tournament team, getting by on second chances and foul shots. Defensively, they play as if to beat their own offense: protect the glass, don’t foul, stay in position. Strangely, five of their eight losses came against teams that missed the dance. Oakland doesn’t present a problem; Xavier does in a second-round matchup that will play like a Sweet 16 game and be decided in the last minute.

The Xavier Coach, Chris Mack, got into a rather silly pissing match with a Minneapolis columnist. Both sides look rather foolish. Mack because the columnist always can get the last word (or pixel) in. The columnist because he comes off as a self-promoting asshat.

The story for Xavier, in case you missed it, was Jordan Crawford.

On the national stage, Crawford once again became a known commodity. When he arrived at Indiana, he entered as a high-profile recruit expected to help lift the program back to prominence. After transferring to Xavier following Kelvin Sampson’s demise, he watched from the sidelines for a year. After dunking on LeBron James in a summer camp, his two days of fame faded into a season toiling off the national radar in the Atlantic 10.

After Friday’s show, his show is not going anywhere. Well, except almost certainly to the NBA. But that is a story for another day.

Well, maybe sooner if the sophomore keeps it up.

The media play-up is that this is a rematch of last year. But at least one Xavier player put it in perspective.

Xavier has a few new faces, too — and a new head coach, Mack, who took over when Sean Miller left for Arizona.

“We’re two completely different teams,” Xavier’s Jamel McLean said. “It’s not a rivalry game between us. But we do know in the back of our minds that this was the team that knocked us out last year. We’re not going to try and make it bigger than it is.”

Primary starters from last year, Derrick Brown, B.J. Raymond and C.J. Anderson are gone as well.

Xavier needed Crawford to go off, because they got nothing inside from their senior center Jason Love. He’s slightly undersized, but has been a solid inside guy. Should be another good match-up for Gary McGhee. Love — obviously — expects a physical game.

Q: What’s the plan for hanging with their physicality?
JL: We’ve just got to do what we’ve been doing the last eight or nine games of the season. We’ve been rebounding so much better. Jamel McLean for instance, with 14 rebounds (Friday), he’s been rebounding the hell out of the ball toward the tail end of the season. Kenny Frease, (Friday), he stepped up for us. We’re physical, too. We’re not scared to bang other guys.

Q: What sticks out from playing them last year?
JL: Just that they’re the most physical team maybe in the country. They take a lot of pride in that. You have to match it. If not, they’ll punch you in the mouth, and you’re going to end up with a loss.

If you are wondering (and you probably are not), yes someone outside of Pittsburgh has noticed Gilbert Brown’s on-and-off game. I wish otherwise, but I believe Pitt needs him to somehow break the pattern for a win on Sunday.

Enjoy the moment, before moving on.

Most impressive, perhaps, was his team’s balance. Pittsburgh had six players score in double digits. The Panthers didn’t create or maintain their large lead through explosive flurries or individual brilliance. Instead, Pittsburgh slowly, methodically, and completely ground the Golden Grizzlies down.

“I liked the balanced scoring,” Jamie Dixon said. “Once we were able to get going, we could find some guys for open shots, and things started rolling.”

Defensively, the Panthers chose not to double-team Oakland center Keith Benson, who played all 40 minutes and scored 28 points. The upshot was that Oakland’s shooters didn’t get open looks outside, and it paid off — Pitt held Oakland to 4-of-21 shooting from three, and no matter what Benson did, it wasn’t enough to keep up with Pitt’s balance on the offensive end. Note to the rest of the NCAA tournament: This is how No. 3 seeds are supposed to win.

I noticed there was an undercurrent among Pitt fans. A developing big man possibly going to the NBA. Facing a Pitt big man. Shades of Patrick O’Bryant and Bradley going at Aaron Gray. Of course, unlike Bradley, Oakland didn’t have a guard that was strong, crafty and hot.

Don’t ignore that Gary McGhee did a great job on Benson.

Consider that Benson played all 40 minutes and scored 16 of his points – five in a span of 5:10 in the first half and 11 over 4:35 in the second – during stretches where McGhee was replaced by Dante Taylor and J.J. Richardson.

What was impressive, was the way McGhee used his strength, and played smart. He made sure to get position and keep Benson further from the basket. Forcing either tough shots or passing out. Benson could not go through McGhee and didn’t have good angles on shots when he tried to go around him. Great job by the coaches, but an even better job by McGhee on executing it.

Still, Benson has done very well in developing at Oakland and aside from increasing his strength it his hard to say the Summit League will challenge his game any further. So, he has to decide about the NBA.

Pitt, like so many teams in the first couple days of the NCAA Tourney started out slow.

For the first 10 minutes of its NCAA first-round game Friday against Oakland at the Bradley Center, Pitt had the look of a team that hadn’t played in more than a week. There were turnovers, ragged offense and some less-than-stellar defense that led one to believe that the Panthers might be in for a long tussle against the Golden Grizzlies of the Summit League.

But in the final 30 minutes of what turned into an 89-66 runaway victory for third-seeded Pitt, the Panthers looked like a team that made the most of their practice time after the early exit in the quarterfinals from the Big East Conference tournament.

The one thing that I was seeing that was good in that poor start, was that Pitt had energy. They were moving the ball. They were making attempts to penetrate. On defense, they were going after it. A lot more board crashing. It just was that the shots weren’t going. Rattling around. Not falling.

“We were getting to the basket, but we were missing some layups, forcing some shots and I thought we should have been dumping them off and dropping them off as their big guys rotated over,” Pitt coach Jamie Dixon said. “That’s what we did as the half progressed.”

The Panthers missed their first six shots Friday, which meant that going back to halftime of their Big East Conference quarterfinal ejection at the hands of Notre Dame, they were 6 for 26 from the floor when Gilbert Brown hit for three of his 17 points with 5:51 elapsed in the half. Even with that, Pitt would get all of one field goal in the first 7:52.

“We looked nervous out there; I was nervous — I know that,” said junior guard Brad Wanamaker, whose jumper with 6:59 left in the half gave Pitt the lead it never relinquished and ended a near nine-minute stretch that Oakland found itself on top. “Patience was a big key for us.”

The demarcation as far as most are concerned, came with blood.

Oakland coach Greg Kampe said senior Derick Nelson’s absence with a head injury was key in Pitt’s 89-66 victory in the NCAA Tournament on Friday, but so was the 10-minute delay as trainers worked on him. Oakland led, 14-10, at the time of the stoppage.

“I really thought it was going our way,” Kampe said. “I thought the 10 minutes that we stood there really hurt us. There was pressure on them (Pitt). They were missing some shots. They were struggling. I think there were some things in their mind there, and everything was going our way, and then there was that pause.”

Nelson was injured after catching an inadvertent elbow to the left temple from center Gary McGhee in the first half. Nelson, who scored 36 points in the Summit League title game, missed the final 10 minutes of the first half, and Pitt scored 29 of the next 37 points to take the lead for good. Nelson returned in the second half after getting a handful of stitches, but he was ineffective from the field, going 0 for 7 with one point and five turnovers.

There was nothing dirty about it. Nasty looking, but there was no intent or anyone even claiming that McGhee was out of control.

Moment is over. On to Xavier — again.

Take it away, Luke:

The first round is completed, and the lone survivor of yesterday’s top 3 is leader George Lesko, who has BYU over Murray State to go to the final four.

Today’s second place trailing by 5 with Ohio State as a national champion is Samuel Friedman. Other distinguishable marks in his bracket include a final four of Ohio State, Syracuse, West Virginia, and baylor, with the Hoopies advancing over Baylor. Mr. Friedman also has Texas over Kentucky, and Cornell to the Elite 8.

3rd place is Michael Meadows, who believes Kentucky will be cutting down the nets with a win over Georgetown(haha!!).

I am in 155th place, but it’s not how you start, it’s how you finish.

Pulling up the rear is Kevin Corcoran. Man, I don’t even know where to start with your bracket. Texas to the elite 8, and Utah State, Richmond to the Sweet 16.

On a side note, it looks like we have a large contingency with WVU winning it all.

Here’s to you: Todd Gack, Rob Wittig, Kevin Gagliardi, Jacob Meyer, Josh Mohl, Peter Biggs, and Samuel Friedman(has them runner ups).