Pitt’s Jamie Dixon picked up some great news today when it was announced that Centenary’s Chase Adams, a 5’10 waterbug point guard originally from Baltimore, is transferring to play for the Panthers and he will be eligible immediately.  With Centenary’s recent decision to move down from D1 to D3, all of its players were given the option to transfer to another school without penalty.  Dixon must be ecstatic because his returning backcourt is relatively inexperienced (Ashton Gibbs was the presumed incumbent), but now he’ll be adding the 2009 Summit League DPOY, a player who was eighth nationally in steals per game (2.7).  This goes along with some nice numbers in scoring (14.6), rebounds (4.2) and assists (4.5) per game.  It sounds as if Adams will fit the Panther ethos of hard work and defense to a T…

Get lost, Frodo and company.  Liv Tyler, you can stay.  But recognize, today, it’s the USA U19s who are the toast of New Zealand.

In an event we’ve had a fun time following this summer at RTC, the USA Under-19 squad took the gold medal at the Under-19 World Championships in Auckland, New Zealand over the weekend, going a perfect 9-0 for the tournament.  Tyshawn Taylor (Kansas) led the Americans with 18p/2r/6a/5s in the finals against the U19s from Greece, with UTEP’s Arnett Moultrie adding 10p/9r/2a.  The USA placed two players on the All-Tournament Team (which, in New Zealand, is apparently called the “All-Star Five”), namely Taylor, and Butler’s Gordon Hayward.  The title is the Americans’ first in this competition since 1991.  Incidentally, if you’d like another name to watch out for (we had previously told you about Rutgers’ Mike Rosario who played for the Puerto Rico U19s and the 54 he plopped on last-place France), don’t forget Croatia’s Mario Delas.  He was named the tournament’s MVP and is currently set to go 18th on nbadraft.net’s 2011 mock draft.

Sing it proud, guys. (Credit: usabasketball.com)

The final against Greece was indicative of the entire tournament for the US squad in that it was a true team effort.  In the final, all but one player on the team played at least 11 minutes and there were seven players who contributed at least seven points.  Jamie Dixon (Pitt), Matt Painter (Purdue) and Chris Lowery (Southern Illinois) crafted a US team with players suited for those crazy, confounded international rules, not to mention one that produced an extremely balanced attack, and they brought home the hardware.

Of course, the big question is what each individual player will take from this experience — besides a sweet gold medal which looks a little like a NYC subway MetroCard tied to a lanyard, and what I’m sure are some lovely photos of the NZ countryside — and how he’ll apply it to the rest of his college career.  Travel of this nature can only help to broaden a young man’s mind; and we all know that everyone wants to beat the tar out of the United States whenever they get the chance and that everyone guns for us.  That’s a sentiment some guys on this team (like Taylor from Kansas, Darius Miller from Kentucky, eventually Seth Curry from Duke) might be used to, and while that environment provides invaluable experience for everyone involved, it’s especially good for players from smaller programs.  Doesn’t look like Moultrie or Hayward had a problem with it, eh?  It’ll also be interesting to see if Southern Illinois makes a jump forward this year with Lowery having spent quality time around two of the best in the business in Dixon and Painter.  In any event, great work all around, gentlemen!  Enjoy showin’ off the new bling.

I’m beginning to think that there is some bizarre Arizona–USC connection going on after USC announced that former interim Wildcat  coach Kevin O’Neill was going to take over as the Trojans new head coach. You may remember O’Neill from the Lute Olson fiasco after the 2007-2008 season, but O’Neill also has prior coaching experience at the college (171-180  in 12 seasons) and pro level (helpful if you’re running a program like the one Tim Floyd apparently ran in LA the past few years).

To recap the action at Arizona and USC the past two years:

• O’Neill takes over for Olson on an interim basis, but then Lute stabs him in the back and comes back for a short period before eventually retiring. O’Neill goes to work for the Memphis Grizzlies for a season.
• Arizona hires Russ Pennell to take over for Olson after O’Neill is let go.
• Tim Floyd guides the Trojans to respectability before O.J. Mayo comes to town. The Trojans manage to make it back to the NCAA tournament the year after Mayo leaves.
• Arizona decides not to renew Pennell’s contract and starts searching for big name to take over. They decide on Floyd, who briefly decides to take the job before changing his mind. Arizona eventually hires Xavier head coach Sean Miller.
• Floyd resigns leaving USC scrambling to find a head coach as it loses multiple recruits who decide to go to other programs. USC gets turned down by several big names including Jamie Dixon and Reggie Theus before selecting O’Neill.

O’Neill led the Wildcats to a 19-15 record and yet another NCAA tournament bid in his single season in Tucson, but according to some sources had difficulty connecting with the Wildcat players. While that may be a problem at some programs, I’m sure that the administration at USC will appreciate having a coach of one of their two major programs who follows the rules. While we would normally consider USC one of the best positions in the country, O’Neill has his work cut out for him with recruits leaving in droves and NCAA sanctions on the horizon.

Buzz:  Memphis Offers Bruce Pearl $21M over 7 Years.  News out of Tennessee is contradictory depending on which end of the state you’re on, but we’re reading that Memphis has targeted Bruce Pearl as the man to keep the uptempo Memphis style moving forward.  UT is scrambling to make sure they don’t lose their most talented basketball property. 

Buzz:  Jamie Dixon Considering the USC Job?  On its face, this sounds absurd, but when you learn that Dixon is a North Hollywood kid whose wife is a graduate of USC, this rumor starts to make a little more sense.  We’d still be utterly shocked to see this happen, as USC is a football school first, second, and third, but it’s worth mentioning and tracking. 

After nearly 10 days of college basketball critics bemoaning the lack of excitement in this year’s edition of March Madness, two of the Big East’s best teams answered all of those critics by submitting an all-time classic. After one of the strangest 10 seconds you will ever see, Scottie Reynolds made an end-to-end run that might replace the Danny Ainge and Tyus Edney versions on NCAA Tournament highlight reels from now on as this was on a much bigger stage with a trip to the Final 4 on the line. Even with Reynolds miracle, Pittsburgh still had its shot, but a 75-foot desperation heave by Levance Fields was off-target and the Villanova fans which filled TD BankNorth had their biggest moment since 1985 when Rollie Massimino, who attended the games in Boston, guided the Wildcats to their only national championship.

It was a game that showed off everything that the Big East was this year: tough, physical, surprisingly high-scoring, and always entertaining. The Wildcats came out of the gates strong and held a 22-12 lead with 9:27 left before the #1 seeded Panthers joined the fight. Relying on its three stars (DeJuan Blair, Sam Young, and Fields), Jamie Dixon‘s squad cut the lead to 2 with an 8-0 spurt in 1:09. From that point forward, the two team traded punches like world-class heavyweights (back when being a heavyweight actually meant something) as neither team was able to stretch their lead beyond 5 points. Villanova relied on a balanced attack (Dwayne Anderson with 17 points, Reynolds with 15 points, Dante Cunningham with 14 points, and Shane Clark with 11 points) while Pittsburgh relied heavily on its two 1st team All-Big East performers (Young with 28 points and 7 rebounds and Blair with 20 points ant 10 rebounds) to keep it in the game.

A tight game throughout. . .

After trading haymakers for nearly 37 minutes without either team achieving any separation, Pittsburgh appeared to have a chance to do so coming out of a Villanova timeout with a 4-point lead and the ball out of bounds with 3:05 left.  Instead, that’s just when the madness started. Jermaine Dixon, who had hit a tough jumper just moments earlier  (with a shot that was reminiscent of one that his brother Maryland star Juan Dixon used to hit not too many years ago) to give the Panthers the lead, had the ball stolen from him and in an attempt to recover fouled Dwyane Anderson for the conventional 3-point play. A Sam Young turnover and a Corey Fisher lay-up later, the Wildcats had the lead with 2:16 left, but Fields hit a pair of free throws to give the Panthers the lead back. The Wildcats showed their mettle by scoring the next 5 points to take a 4-point lead with 47 seconds left. As he has done all night long, Young provided the answer for the Panthers with a clutch 3-pointer (“Onions!” as Bill Raftery would say) with 40 seconds left to cut the lead back to 1. A pair of Fisher free throws and a Reggie Redding free throw allowed the Wildcats to stretch the lead back to 4 with 20 seconds left.

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We’re back for the Elite 8 today. As we mentioned yesterday, the tournament up to this point hasn’t been as exciting as we are used to, but perhaps all this chalk means that we will get a phenomenal last three rounds. The match-ups today look like they will produce some solid action (particularly in Boston) so we’re definitely looking forward to that.

• 4:40 PM: #3 Missouri vs. #1 UConn
• 7:05 PM: #3 Villanova vs. #1 Pittsburgh

In the first game, it will be interesting to see how Missouri’s frenetic style holds up against UConn and what impact Hasheem Thabeet will have in that style of game. One guy to look out for on UConn is Kemba Walker who might thrive in an up-tempo game. In the nightcap, we have two of the Big East’s top teams going against each other in a rematch of a game that Villanova won behind Reggie Redding‘s 18 points and 7 rebounds. DeJuan Blair only had 9 points and 8 rebounds in 23 foul-riddled minutes. An interesting subplot to this game is that some are heralding it as a look at the future of Big East coaching with Jamie Dixon pitted against Jay Wright.

3:55 PM: I love college basketball, but is it a good idea to encourage people in Detroit to spend their last dollar to get tickets? Isn’t that what caused this financial crisis (outside of the idiots on Wall Street playing around with CDOs and credit default swaps)?

4:15 PM: I’m guessing this is the part of the NCAA tournament where CBS uses human interest stories as filler.

4:38 PM: Here we go…  let’s hope for a group of E8 games like in 2005 (where three of the four went to OT)…

4:43 PM: The problem I see with Mizzou pulling the major upset in this game is that UConn is very comfortable playing this style.  A matchup against Pitt would have been a more interesting contrast for Mizzou to take advantage of.

4:46 PM: Horrid start for Mizzou and fantastic start (obviously) for UConn.  The Huskies are already 6-7 from the field with several wide-open shots available.  The thing about Missouri is that theie pressure can get them back into games, but it’s going to be tough to turn over AJ Price and Kemba Walker.

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Because of the NCAA’s refusal to give us a media credential (or discuss the issue and our side of the case), we were forced to go to today’s open practice to get an up-close look at the teams. As an aside, if anybody has extra tickets for the games in Boston for the Sweet 16 or the Elite 8 (in case your team gets cheated by the refs), send me an e-mail at rushthecourt@gmail.com and I might be able to take them off your hands.

The guys who don't want me covering the game

Let’s get one thing out of the way. The East Region open practice might have been the most boring 5 hours of my life (not counting lectures). There’s a reason the NCAA makes this event free (outside of the fact that they more than make up for it through the $8 programs, $5 Cokes, and $23 baseball caps). The crowd was 95% white males in their mid-30s or above along with a handful of kids chasing autographs from players who they were looking up during the practices checking to see which ones had the best stats. My favorites were the old guys sitting behind me who kept on commenting on how good Gary McGhee and Brian Zoubek were (the tallest guys on the court) and what outstanding pros they were going to be. Anyways, here are my thoughts and pictures (some pictures are from my iPhone because I forgot to charge my digital camera) from each team’s “practice”.

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The East Region: A Look Back, A Look Ahead  (By Dave Zeitlin and Steve Moore)

A look back: Here are some of the bests and worsts of the first two rounds of the East Region – as well as some other haphazard notes …

Most impressive team remaining: Villanova. The Wildcats’ dismantling of UCLA was a sight to behold.

Shakiest team remaining: Pittsburgh. I sat next to a diehard Pitt fan at a sports bar Friday. I knew it was a bad sign when he turned to me disgusted midway through the second half and said, “Just root for East Tennessee State. I know you want to.”

Don’t forget about us:  In Xavier’s opening-round win over Portland State, the Musketeers shot 54 percent from the field and committed just seven turnovers. In their second-round win, they held Wisconsin to 25 percent shooting. Xavier has now won at least one game in six of the last seven NCAA Tournaments.

Don’t forget about us either: Duke is back in the Sweet 16. Oh, how we missed you.

Best performance: Pitt’s Sam Young was electric against Oklahoma State, scoring 32 points, grabbing eight rebounds and blocking three shots.

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We’d like to apologize for our coverage yesterday. We had some technical/communication issues regarding the post yesterday, but I’ll be back covering the games today so everything should be back to normal. Here’s a quick rundown of the games we’ll be covering today:

Early Games

• 12:15 PM: #14 Stephen F. Austin vs. #3 Syracuse
• 12:25 PM: #9 Tennessee vs. #8 Oklahoma State
• 12:30 PM: #11 Utah State vs. #6 Marquette
• 12:30 PM: #14 North Dakota State vs. #3 Kansas

Afternoon Games

• 2:45 PM: #11 Temple vs. #6 Arizona State
• 2:55 PM: #16 East Tennessee State vs. #1 Pittsburgh
• 3:00 PM: #14 Cornell vs. #3 Missouri
• 3:00 PM: #11 Dayton vs. #6 West Virginia

Evening Games

• 7:10 PM: #16 Morehead State vs. #1 Louisville
• 7:10 PM: #12 Arizona vs. #5 Utah
• 7:20 PM: #10 USC vs. #7 Boston College
• 7:25 PM: #13 Portland State vs. #4 Xavier

Late Night Games

• 9:40 PM: #9 Siena vs. #8 Ohio State
• 9:40 PM: #13 Cleveland State vs. #4 Wake Forest
• 9:50 PM: #15 Robert Morris vs. #2 Michigan State
• 9:55 PM: #12 Wisconsin vs. #5 Florida State

Quite frankly, today’s slate looks a lot more interesting than what was on yesterday. There are 3 games in each of the 4 groups that seem like they will be entertaining except for the afternoon set where only the 6/11 match-ups really catch my eyes. Feel free to leave your thoughts or questions on any of these games or the ones from yesterday in the comment section. I’ll be back around noon to cover the day’s action.

12:15 PM: Ok. We’re about to get underway. I was a little delayed by the fact that the bus to RTC East decided to pick up 3 people in wheelchairs, which slowed down my trip significantly (had to get them in/out during 6 stops). Is anybody rooting for Stephen F. Austin just because they can’t stand Eric Devendorf?

12:20 PM: “The best look the Lumberjacks have had so far”? That was only their 2nd possession of the game. The crows is awful in Miami. I know its early, but there is nobody there. I have to say the NCAA did a pretty poor job with their pod placement. I’ll have to double check, but Miami is probably the worst pod location in terms of distance from the participating schools (and the fact that they don’t care about sports in Miami).

12:30 PM: Rough start for Stephen F. Austin in Miami. Already down 10-2. Hopefully they can keep it close although this was probably the game that was the most likely to be a blowout in this group.

12:35 PM: Did anybody pick upsets in this group of games? I have North Dakota State and Utah State.

12:40 PM: Good game in Dayton (Ok State 14, Tennessee 13 with 12:20 left in the first half). In Boise, Lazar Hayward is up 7-5 on Utah State.

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Pittsburgh (#1, East, Dayton pod)

vs. East Tennessee State (#16)
Mar. 20 @ 2:55pm

Vegas Line: Pittsburgh -20

Thanks to Vegas Watch for providing these graphs that measure the moving average of a team’s spread (moving avg.) over time vs. the spread for each individual game (indiv).  If a team’s moving average is higher than zero, then Vegas currently has a higher opinion of them than Pomeroy, and vice versa.

General Profile

Location: Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Conference: Big East, at-large
Coach: Jamie Dixon, 150-41
08-09 Record: 28-4, 15-3
Last 12 Games: 10-2
Best Win: 76-68, Connecticut, 2/16/2009
Worst Loss: 81-73, Providence, 2/24/2009
Off. Efficiency Rating: 122.9 [2]
Def. Efficiency Rating: 92.2 [34]

Nuts n Bolts

Star Player(s): DeJaun Blair – 15.6 ppg/12.2 rpg; Sam Young – 18.7 ppg/6.1 rpg; Levance Fields – 10.7 ppg/7.6 apg
Unsung Hero: Jermaine Dixon – 9.0 ppg
Potential NBA Draft Pick(s): DeJuan Blair, 13^th overall in 2009 / Sam Young, 22^nd overall in 2009
Key Injuries: No injuries to report
Depth: 29.4% mins, #206
Achilles Heel: DeJuan Blair and fouls – Pitt is 0-3 when their big guy fouls out, and 28-1 when he stays on the court.
Will Make a Deep Run if…: Everything goes as expected.
Will Make an Early Exit if…: Blair gets in foul trouble, and the other Pitt stars can’t make up the difference.

NCAA History

Last Year Invited: 2008, Round of 32
Streak: Pitt is dancing for the 8^th straight year.
Best NCAA Finish: 1941, Final Four
Historical Performance vs. Seed (1985-present): -0.40 wins per appearance

Other

Six Degrees to Detroit: Head coach Jamie Dixon (1) took over in 2003 at Pitt after Ben Howland (2) left for UCLA. Howland’s Bruins won a spectacular game again Gonzaga in the 2006 tournament, with Adam Morrison (3) starring for the Zags. Morrison was the first draft pick by Michael Jordan (4), who famously played for the Chicago Bulls (5), who were at the time the chief rival of the Detroit Pistons (6).
Distance to First Round Site: 256 miles
School’s Claim to Fame: “Send it in Jerome!” In 1988, Pitt forward Jerome Lane had one of the most spectacular highlight reel dunks ever, shattering the backboard with a slam against Providence.
School Wishes It Could Forget: In 2005, a University of Pittsburgh scientist named Gerald Schatten was linked to a South Korean embryo-cloning debacle that made international controversy. Generally, schools don’t like their faculty members getting involved in such things.
Prediction: FSU doesn’t have the firepower, outside of Douglas, to take down Pitt, and Blair should dominate over Duke’s tepid post players. In the end, Pittsburgh makes it all the way to the Final Four, but can’t quite make it to the title game.

Major RTC stories: None

Preview written by…  Matt the Intern