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| Wednesday, January 23 Updated: January 24, 1:20 PM ET Pitt prepared for long-awaited return to tourney By Joe Lunardi Special to ESPN.com |
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Joe Lunardi's "Behind the Bracket" is a periodic look at teams you may not be thinking about as NCAA Tournament teams. PITTSBURGH -- There's nothing like the first time. Barring a rather unlikely set of circumstances, the name "Pittsburgh" will appear on your television screen around 6:40 p.m. on Sunday, March 11. And we're not talking Steelers, we're talking Panthers. Pitt's Panthers in the NCAA Tournament? You bet your bracket. For some schools, a berth in the NCAA field is a given (sorry, Chapel Hill). For others, it's the grand prize for three or four days of skill and/or luck in a one-bid conference tournament. For a few others with higher expectations, it is an enormous relief when the "bubble" doesn't burst. Then there are the perennial weak sisters, near-annual pin cushions for their multi-bid conference brethren. They are the Northwesterns of the big time, relegated to the NIT at best and losing seasons at worse. Every year the top half of their league is asked to dance, and every year their name isn't called. But not this year. At least not for Pitt. The Panthers have had a losing Big East record for nine of the last 10 seasons. They have not played an NCAA Tournament game in nine years (nor won an NCAA game in 11). That was so long ago, Bill Clinton was chasing coffee shop waitresses in Little Rock. For a Division I football school in a major conference to experience such extended failure is, well, a major failing. Think about it. Six conferences-the ACC, Big East, Big Ten, Big 12, SEC and Pac-10-now dominate the NCAA bracket. Their respective memberships comprise 68 teams. Who among them has gone the longest without a sniff of the NCAA Tournament?
So excuse the current Panthers their giddiness. Only six "majors" have experienced a longer NCAA drought in the 64-team era. North Carolina State should break its drought as well this year, but the Wolfpack at least have two NCAA championships. Pitt has no such pedigree. When it's been such a long time, as it is for the Panthers, it really feels like the first time. Maybe we should have seen it coming. Pitt stunned Miami, Notre Dame and Syracuse on consecutive nights to reach their first Big East title game last March. And third-year coach Ben Howland obviously knows what he's doing. The Panthers hold opponents to 57 points per game, they rebound like Wes Unseld and they share the ball well enough to shoot a healthy 47 percent from the floor. Pitt is also a tidy 17-3 after a homecourt drubbing of Syracuse on Tuesday night. Sure there is a heavy dose of Robert Morris, Oakland and Savannah State on the schedule -- understandable when you haven't had a 20-win season in a decade. But that is more than offset by marquee victories over Ohio State, St. John's, Boston College, Georgetown and now the Orangemen. Despite losing two of its top three scorers from last year's 19-14 squad, Pitt never believed the second division finish predicted for 2001-02. It takes a confident club to hold the nation's No. 10 team to 16 points in 16 minutes and outrebound them by 24-7 in a half. No wonder Fitzgerald Field House has been rocking lately. This grand old gym, to be replaced next season by the Petersen Events Center, is a 6,798-person love affair between campus and team. The 2002-03 Panthers will be better still. There are no seniors among the top six guys in this season's rotation. The new arena will be better, too -- cleaner, roomier and with all the modern amenities. But newer is rarely more fun. And teams burdened with expectations frequently fail to meet them. The thrill is in the surprise. And in doing it for the first time. Joe Lunardi is the resident Bracketologist for ESPN, ESPN.com and ESPN Radio. He is also editor and publisher of www.bracketology.net. Write to Joe at jlunardi@home.com. |
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