Okay, time to get all the stories out there linked and listed.

Pitt is atop the Big East with a 6-0 record. As if a top-5 ranking, preseason pick to win the conference, and being in the top-5 of the conference for Coach Dixon’s tenure didn’t put enough of a target on this team’s back. Not that I’m actually complaining.

In case you hadn’t noticed, Pitt has upperclassmen. UConn thinks that’s crazy because cool programs have nothing but kids turning pro early and a coach that runs off anyone else.

Pitt set a new attendance record of 12,925. Breaking the old record by 5. Incrementally pushing until the fire marshal gets pissed.

While many of us were stuck watching the end of the Mizzou-K-State game, there were plenty of new visitors to the Pete in the media taking in the place for the first time.

By the time DJ Khaled’s “All I Do Is Win” started pounding, with the students rocking like they were at an actual show and following the chorus’ instructions to a tee, I half expected the Oakland Zoo to part down the middle and Ludacris to appear and drop his verse.

It was electric.

Spine tingling.

I purposely looked down my row to my right to see if I could tell whether the rest of the media there were similarly moved.

Some were uneffected, had probably seen it before and were no doubt worrying about their deadlines (feel sorry for them).

Some hid it well.

Some had little smiles on their faces.

Some were in slack-jawed awe.

And some just loved a program cover.

(Which I have been told was also a poster the school handed out at a game last year. Want.)

Nasir Robinson was a key part of the scoring early. During the liveblog, many of us figured he would taper off and might not score again in the second half. Instead he continued producing and went for 21 points on 8-12 shooting.

Pitt appeared to take control in the first half, hitting five of its first six shots. When Zanna and Wanamaker followed with consecutive dunks, Pitt led, 19-0, forcing Boeheim to take his second timeout during the run.

“It was great,” Wanamaker said. “We had our fans into it. Our adrenaline was pumping. Syracuse is a great team and they made their run. But we stuck to it and won the game.”

Said Robinson, who scored the first nine points of the run, “I was just relaxed. My teammates found me, and I just made the plays.”

And according to Mike DeCourcy, was the ideal player to exploit the zone.

A 6-5 power forward from Chester, Pa., Robinson is small for his position and doesn’t make a difference as a perimeter shooter. But he was an ideal player against the zone because there’s intrinsically no one assigned to put a body on him and wear him down. He wound up shooting 8-of-12 from the field and scoring 21 points.

“I beat my defender off the dribble, used my guard ability and just attacked,” Robinson said.

Syracuse did not bring star forward Kris Joseph into its game against the Panthers because of the head injury he sustained during Saturday’s win over Cincinnati.

But consider who the Orange have brought into this game over the past decade or so – since Pitt basketball essentially was reinvented in the 2001-02 season – without it really mattering much: Wesley Johnson, Andy Rautins, Gerry McNamara, Jonny Flynn, Carmelo Anthony. Pitt still has won 80 percent of its games against Syracuse during that period.

So yeah, it would have helped the Orange to have Joseph playing on the wing. But no, it probably wouldn’t have made a difference.

And as a team, once again, Pitt shredded the Syracuse 2-3 zone.

Brandon Triche confessed after Monday’s game he “had no clue” why Pittsburgh is so successful against SU and its zone defense.

“I just know they’re tougher than us at this point,” Triche said. “They’re smaller than us – about 6-5, 6-6. They just get in there, rebounding and being tough in there.”

Which essentially is the answer they have been stuck giving since 2001. One of the things after the Tennessee loss that the analysts and pundits said, was that the Vols with their length and size advantage were a bad match-up for Pitt. Cuse has the bigger guards and wing players to go with a decent sized frontcourt. But Pitt was able to handle them on both ends a lot better.

Meanwhile ‘Cuse fans are (re-)learning the lesson that Pitt fans learned last year about semi-elite big men coming in from the high school level to high-major collegiate basketball. They tend to struggle — especially on defense.

[Fab] Melo, Syracuse’s 7-foot first-year center, seemed to break out of his season-long struggle with six points, four rebounds and four blocks in SU’s win over Cincinnati on Saturday.

But in the first two minutes of Monday’s game at No. 5 Pittsburgh, Melo allowed Pitt forward Nasir Robinson to get inside and score the game’s first five points. Boeheim took Melo out of the game at the 18:02 mark and never put him back in.

Baye Moussa Keita, another freshman center, went in for Melo. Keita lasted five minutes, but Boeheim yanked him after Pitt scored eight more points in the paint. Pittsburgh scored the game’s first 19 points, prompting Boeheim to go with a small lineup for the rest of the game.

Not saying it was the only reason Pitt ripped off a 19-0 run to start, but it definitely played a factor in Pitt’s scoring. Not to mention, why the Orange looked so worn down by the end of the game. They essentially played just six guys the whole game.

Between the shallow depth and having to keep coming back against Pitt throughout the game, Boeheim seemed to at least tacitly agree that his team just didn’t have enough in the final 10 minutes.

But the short-handed Orange lacked enough energy to complete a final push against the Panthers. Shortly after Syracuse tied the game, Pittsburgh went on a 9-to-1 run to take control of the contest.

“We battled back, but it’s a long way to battle back,’’ Boeheim said. “We just didn’t have enough after that.’’

Coach Dixon got his first technical foul of the year, and in a couple seasons. It happened, when McGhee was fouled. No one could figure it out. I’m guessing Coach Dixon is still trying to understand what happened.

The only questions down the stretch were whether the Orange would cover the plus-six spread (they did not), and what Jamie Dixon said to earn his first technical foul this season.

“I raised my arms,” Dixon said. “But I didn’t say anything.”

This is true, by the way.

“He just called the ref over and pointed to the scoreboard to show it was eight-to-three in fouls [against Pittsburgh],” Wanamaker said. “That’s what the ref told me, and I asked him if he was kidding. But he said coach can’t do that.”

Apparently not.

I guess the ref hates facts. Or… something.

Then there was that whole 19-0, 19-17 and runs back and forth in the first half to have everyone trying to reference something similar in their memory.

The scoreboard glowing 19-0 was surreal. That it soon after read 19-17 was, well, unbelievable.

Even Dick Groat, the longtime radio analyst for the Panthers and onetime Duke All-American, shook his head. He said at halftime he had never been privy to such swings in momentum.

And if Groat says he’s never seen it, you can be certain it’s a rare occurrence.

Nor did Vitale or anyone else talking about this game. But the one thing that makes this typical for so many games in the Big East?

“In this conference, it’s not just about throwing the first punch,’’ the Pittsburgh senior said. “It’s about how you respond. You survive in this league. Survival of the fittest.’’