Seemed even sillier to type that for the post title, but there it is.

The American-Pitt game is on ESPN3.com if your ISP offers it.

Otherwise it will be somewhere on the radio or some technically not quite legal feed. Which I don’t want to know but some other wise soul will post in the comments.

Tonight Pitt will go for their 12th win of the season and close out the non-con part of basketball season. It’s against American, and no one is expecting much of a problem.

That, of course, isn’t what makes this game kind of big. The expected win, will be Coach Jamie Dixon’s 200th win as head coach at Pitt.

With the firing and hiring on the football side, Dixon’s hire has gotten a bit of a second look. It has paid off in a way I know I never expected.

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In one of the many jobs I have had in my life, I worked as a bank teller for Union National/Integra/National City/PNC Bank for a few years at Pitt and a little beyond. I would float from branch to branch filling in for sick or vacationing tellers. Eventually it timed out where a branch I was working out in Penn Hills got held-up.

It was the first and only time I’ve had a handgun stuck in my face. It happened quickly. I didn’t even look into the eyes of the masked robber. I just stared straight at the handgun — very aware how easily I could die at that moment — and then gave him the money. All the other details of that day and the robbery have fallen away after nearly 20 years. But I will never forget looking straight into the barrel of the weapon.

So everything about this situation sucks.

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