March Madness: After a strong regular season, Pitt earns a No. 3 seed in NCAA Tournament
By Alex Oltmanns / Staff Writer
published: Sun, 14 Mar, 2010
The wait is finally over. The selection committee announced the field of 65 last night with Pitt getting a No. 3 seed in the West Region to advance to its ninth straight NCAA Tournament.
Its bracket is highlighted by No. 1 seed Syracuse, along with second-seeded Kansas State and strong mid-major teams such as Butler and Gonzaga.
But up first for the Panthers as they travel to Milwaukee are the No. 14 seed Oakland Golden Grizzlies, the champions of the Summit League. They come into this game riding an 11-game winning streak.
The two teams share one common opponent in Syracuse, who Oakland lost to 92-60 in December. But Pitt won’t be overlooking any opponents in this Tournament, especially not after last year when the team narrowly avoided being upset in the first round by East Tennessee State — a No. 16 seed.
“You can’t take any game lightly, and that’s something we learned especially from the first game [last year],” sophomore guard Ashton Gibbs said.
Oakland is led by its 6-foot-11 center Keith Benson, who averages 17 points and 10.5 rebounds per game. While the Panthers don’t know much about their first-round opponent yet, they know that they will need to stop Benson down low.
“I know they got a real big guy, and he’s pretty good in the post,” redshirt freshman guard Travon Woodall said.
The Golden Grizzlies are also led by guard Johnathon Jones and forward Derick Nelson, who each average 12.4 points per game to give their team several scoring options.
“They’re a versatile team, have pretty good size and come from a pretty decent league,” Gibbs said. “So now it’s just about not taking them lightly and acting like we’re playing against a Big East team.”
The Panthers’ last game against a Big East team didn’t go so well, as they lost 50-45 to Notre Dame in the quarterfinals of the conference tournament. They struggled to get in a rhythm on offense and hope to rectify that with a week off before they play again on Friday.
“It’s just about execution, and that’s defensively and offensively,” Gibbs said. “We have to execute defensively more and more and if we do that the offensive flow will be much better.”
While the Panthers finally earned some respect by getting a No. 3 seed in a season when not many people gave them respect and were picked to finish ninth in the Big East, they have all the motivation they need in this postseason.
“I’m motivated because we lost our last game,” Gibbs said. “Now it’s just about executing in practice and carrying it over to the game.”
If they are able to win their first-round game, the Panthers will face the winner of the matchup between No. 6 seed Xavier and No. 11 seed Minnesota on Sunday. Xavier is no stranger to Pitt, as they met last year in the Sweet Sixteen with the Panthers winning 60-55.
Pitt is one of only seven teams to have advanced to the last nine NCAA Tournaments. But it hasn’t been able to make it to the Final Four any of those years. If the team were to make it there this season, it would have to go through Salt Lake City in the regional finals
But Pitt isn’t resting on its laurels or looking ahead as it will direct all of its attention towards Oakland in the next few days.
Comments
Pitt's seeding and placement in the West bracket
When I saw that Pitt was placed in the West, I just rolled my eyes. This is the fourth time in the last six years Pitt has been in the West Region — which, with few exceptions, means the Panthers have to play several hundred miles from home. It seems the selection committee goes out of its way to put Pitt as far away from its home and familiar courts as possible. There are exceptions, though. Let's run down Pitt's first round and regional locations in the Howland/Dixon era (with seeds in parentheses) ...
2002 South Region (#3): Pittsburgh's Civic Arena, then Louisville
2003 Midwest Region (#2): Boston, then Albany
2004 East Region (#3): Milwaukee (where we had to play Wisconsin in 2nd round), then East Rutherford, N.J.
2005 West Region (#9): Boise (lost to Pacific in 1st round)
2006 West Region (#5): Detroit, lost to Bradley in 2nd round
2007 West Region (#3): Buffalo, then San Jose, Calif.
2008 South Region (#4): Denver, lost in 2nd round
2009 East Region (#1): Dayton, then Boston
2010: West Region (#3): Milwaukee, then Salt Lake City if Pitt makes the Sweet Sixteen
With the exceptions of 2002, 2003, 2006 and 2009, Pitt has had (or would have had to) travel to another time zone for its games in either the first and second rounds. That's almost two-thirds of the time in the last 9 years. I realize that Pitt's in the Big East, and with so many teams making the tourney, they can't put all the conference members close to home. But even when Pitt's been a top three seed, it's had to do a lot of traveling — often to places where people don't know that "Pitt" is how you say it ... not "Pittsburgh."
That all said, I LOVE the draw Pitt got in this year's bracket. Of course, I said that the years they had to face Bradley and Kent State, too ... and we know how that turned out. But I like our second-round match-up against Xavier — which isn't as dangerous without Pitt grad Sean Miller coaching them — and Kansas State has the whiff of an over-seed to me. Yes, they are good. But they haven't tasted serious NCAA competition much in recent years. The Wildcats' appearance in the tourney in 2008 was their first in 12 years, and they didn't make the dance last year. I liken them to South Carolina, which came out of nowhere to get a #2 seed in 1997 and got bounced in the first round (to Coppin State in Pittsburgh's Civic Arena, of all places).
Jim Lakely
Pitt Grad 1992
Former Sports Editor and Managing Editor of The Pitt News
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