DeJuan Blair and Sam Young will be the big winners tonight when their names are called sometime after the midpoint of the first round of the NBA draft and they officially join the Millionaires' Club. But they won't be the only winners. When each is picked, the announcement will start: "Team X selects from the University of Pittsburgh ... "

Don't underestimate the value there.

"It's all positive," Pitt coach Jamie Dixon was saying this week over the telephone from Colorado Springs, Colo., where he's coaching USA Basketball's under-19 team and preparing for the world championship tournament July 2-12 in Auckland, New Zealand.

"There are no negatives when your players are going to the NBA. It doesn't matter if they go as seniors or juniors or sophomores."

It's another significant step for a Pitt program that came within a fabulous length-of-the-court drive by Villanova's Scottie Reynolds of perhaps going to the Final Four last season. There hasn't been much not to like about Dixon's first six years on the job -- his record is a staggering 163-45 -- but, if you really wanted to nitpick, you could say he wasn't sending his players to the NBA.

Not anymore.

"This will be three in two years," Dixon said. "That's a pretty good number."

Former Pitt star Aaron Gray is making a nice living with the Chicago Bulls after being a second-round pick in 2007. Blair and Young should become Pitt's first No. 1 picks since Vonteego Cummings in 1999 and just the seventh and eighth in school history. Be a big hit at the corner tavern tonight while you're watching the draft by naming the other six: Billy Knight, Mel Bennett, Charles Smith, Jerome Lane, Eric Mobley and Cummings.

Getting players to the NBA is a big deal. Top recruits want to play at a school that will get them ready for the pros. Suddenly, Pitt is looking more like a destination stop for them.

The thing Dixon can sell to recruits about Blair and Young is that both are true products of the program. Neither was considered a prized prospect, Blair out of Schenley High School and Young from Friendly High School in Fort Washington, Md. No one could have predicted they would be NBA first-round picks.

That's mostly a tribute to the players, for sure.

But it's also a tribute to Dixon and his staff.

Young's road to the NBA was longer and more difficult, a year of prep school followed by four years at Pitt. "He was always our hardest worker," Dixon said. "It was great to have a guy like him to be able to point to and show the rewards that come with hard work."

Big East Conference coaches voted Young the league's most improved player in the 2007-08 season. That's the award that means the most to Dixon. That's a direct reflection of coaching.

"I've lost track of how many we've won," Dixon said.

For the record, five since Dixon joined Pitt's staff as Ben Howland's assistant in 1999: Ricardo Greer, Brandin Knight, Carl Krauser, Gray and Young.

"I would have thought DeJuan would have won it last year," Dixon said. "To go from not being picked to the conference's preseason team to being Big East Co-Player of the Year, that's pretty good improvement."

Blair is leaving Pitt after just two seasons, but his time here will have a lasting impact on the program. The same is true of Young and his four seasons. And don't forget point guard Levance Fields, who, like Young, was a part of a senior class that won a school-record 112 games and came up just short against Villanova in the East Region final in March.

"Levance has been in a lot of camps and is getting a lot of workouts," Dixon said. "I would think he'll get to a camp with some team [as an undrafted free agent]. I wouldn't be at all surprised if he makes a team."

Fields will play somewhere professionally next season, if not in the NBA. If Blair and Young are No. 1 picks -- as everybody in or close to the league is saying -- they will be locks in the NBA because first-round picks get guaranteed two-year contracts with club options for a third and fourth year.

Don't think for a second that top recruits won't notice.

Incoming freshman Dante Taylor is Pitt's first McDonald's All-American since Brian Shorter and Bobby Martin in 1987.

It's nice to think many more will follow.