This Big East title trumps 2003 crown
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NEW YORK -- They say the first of anything good always is the best. I'm not too sure about that this morning. If I'm ranking Pitt's Big East Conference tournament championships, the one last night has to top the 2003 title.
If I hadn't watched it with my own eyes, I wouldn't believe it.
Honest to goodness, it was every bit as stunning as Pitt's 13-9 football win in Morgantown, W.Va., Dec. 1.
The 74-65 win last night at Madison Square Garden against a Georgetown team that is good enough to win the national championship would have been amazing enough. But there was so much more to Pitt's terrific week on Broadway. It won four games in four days, three against higher-seeded teams Georgetown, Marquette and Louisville.
Phenomenal.
"We're the toughest team," freshman center DeJuan Blair crowed afterward in the middle of the pandemonium at midcourt. "I think we're the toughest team in the nation."
The Panthers are champions of the toughest conference tournament, anyway.
No one can argue that point.
"And we're peaking at the right time," Blair said. "It ain't over for us. It's just starting. Now, we're going to get by the Sweet 16. The sky's the limit for us."
Who saw this coming? Wasn't it just 13 days ago that Pitt was blown out at West Virginia amid some speculation that it had to win its final regular-season game against DePaul to assure its NCAA tournament bid?
Well, you don't have to fret about that bid now. It will be disappointing if Pitt gets anything less than a No. 4 or No. 5 seed when the brackets are announced tonight.
The 2003 championship was something special because of the way coach Ben Howland and guard Brandin Knight willed the Panthers to the title. But that Pitt team was much better during the season than this one. It was a No. 2 seed in the conference tournament and had to win three games -- against Providence, Boston College and Connecticut -- to cut down the nets.
Respectfully, this championship trumps that one.
The Pitt players showed so much toughness here that one New York columnist suggested they change the team name to Gritt. I like that. It fits.
"For whatever reason, I don't think we were playing as aggressive as we needed to, say, 10 games ago," Pitt coach Jamie Dixon said. "We were able to get back into it and do the things we do. We have just been more physical, more aggressive. We're more like we normally are. More like Pitt."
The Panthers certainly took Georgetown's best shot. The Hoyas, who won the Big East regular-season championship and then blew out Villanova and West Virginia here, roared to 6-0, 11-5 and 22-16 leads. But each time, Pitt answered. Tournament MVP Sam Young made a 3-point shot. Gilbert Brown converted a 3-point play. Ronald Ramon made a 3.
It was hard not to get the feeling that this was going to be Pitt's night.
The second half belonged to Pitt despite it making just 19 of 36 free throws. That horrible stat was more than offset by the Panthers' 41-29 edge in rebounding. Blair grabbed 10.
"I got tired of hearing about Roy Hibbert," Blair said of Georgetown's 7-foot-2 center. "I was watching SportsCenter last night and it was Roy Hibbert this and Roy Hibbert that. Well, I think I showed everyone who DeJuan Blair is tonight. Ten and 10 isn't bad for a freshman at the Big East tournament."
When Blair worked hard for a rebound and turned it into a layup and free throw and 53-42 lead with 7:25 to go, the countdown to the celebration began.
.It's impossible to overestimate the significance of this title. Winning the Big East tournament is incredibly difficult because of the ferocious competition. Connecticut coach Jim Calhoun put it best a few years ago when he said, "Neighborhood battles are the best. We want to win in our neighborhood."
Dixon and his players share that mentality. They went to bed last night knowing they are right at the top of the Big East bullies list. They haven't just played in seven of the past eight tournament championship games. Their two titles match the two won by Connecticut and Syracuse in the past seven years.
You think this is the Golden Era of Pitt basketball?
"What we've done over the last seven years, national championship teams haven't done in terms of consistency," Dixon said.
It has been some run, especially at the world's most famous arena. Let me put Pitt's success under the Garden lights -- the brightest in college basketball -- in perspective:
In the Panthers' first 18 years in the Big East, they went 6-18 in the tournament and didn't win more than one game in any year. In the past eight years, they have gone 19-6 with those two championships and the seven Saturday night appearances.
Calling it the Golden Era of Pitt basketball just doesn't seem to do it justice.
First Published March 16, 2008 12:00 am
