Mitsch: Pitt owns the talent to make a long tournament run

Turns out Pitt’s 2009 Big East tournament stay wasn’t completely useless. Pitt’s courteous… Turns out Pitt’s 2009 Big East tournament stay wasn’t completely useless. Pitt’s courteous bow to West Virginia in the quarterfinals last Thursday at Madison Square Garden was ugly enough to sting the eyes and incite irritation in many, but at least it means there won’t be any excuses for Pitt in this year’s NCAA Tournament. Everything is in place: Pitt’s a No. 1 seed. The team has stayed relatively healthy. And the rested players should be plenty motivated to rough up the best and worst the East region can offer. If all goes as it should, Pitt will make the Final Four, maybe even win the school’s first national championship since the start of the Great Depression. If not, and the Panthers slide easily out of the field yet again, there’s nothing to blame but the team itself. If Pitt doesn’t make the Final Four ‘mdash; anything less for a two-time No. 1 with two All-Americans would be a failure ‘mdash; it’s because Pitt choked. End of discussion. Granted, Pitt hasn’t made it past the Sweet 16 despite making the NCAA Tournament each of the last seven seasons. And there have been some epic stumbles during those years. But, simply put, none of those teams had the talent like this year’s, with two solid NBA prospects and a point guard destined to be a pro somewhere. Carl Krauser won’t shoot 20 times per game on this team. Dwyane Wade won’t single-handedly beat this team. Patrick O’Bryant won’t push around DeJuan Blair, and Antonio Gates won’t out-duel Sam Young. Now, these guys were all here last year, and Pitt still slumped out of the Tournament in the second round. The excuses: 1. Health. Levance Fields was playing nowhere near his ability when he came back from a debilitating foot injury, the same one that’s costing Marquette guard Dominic James the two biggest months of his life. Mike Cook was out. Pitt was banged up. Aside from minor injuries this year, Pitt is at full strength. 2. Fatigue. Here’s where the loss to West Virginia becomes important. Pitt lugged its No. 7 seed through four straight wins in the 2008 Big East tournament to eventually win the championship and suddenly became the hot pick to win the whole thing, especially when Bob Knight chose the Panthers to do so. Unfortunately for Knight, though, the Panthers embarrassed him perhaps more than they did themselves when they decided they only wished to play through two rounds and lost to Michigan State. Suddenly, then, the reason Pitt looked so strong coming out of the Big East tournament was why the team appeared weak after only one round played in the NCAAs. The Panthers played four games in four days, after all, against tough opponents during the Big East title run. They had to be tired from that, right? Maybe if they hadn’t expended so much energy inside the Garden then they wouldn’t have struggled so much against Michigan State. So this year, when Pitt appeared destined to be a sturdy national championship candidate after going 28-3 in the regular season, many in and around Pitt hoops felt that the Panthers might want to focus a little bit more on making a run in the NCAA Tournament than in the Big East tournament. In hindsight it appeared as if Pitt didn’t focus at all on the Big East tournament, which I’m sure isn’t true. But with a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament all but guaranteed, Pitt walked off the court at the Garden as leisurely as taking a stroll through Central Park. There was no mistake after the game, either. ‘As hard as it is to say, I’d rather lose in the Big East than in the NCAA,’ said Pitt center DeJuan Blair. Well, they lost pretty quickly in the Big East tournament. Now all the Panthers will get the chance to rest up for the NCAA Tournament. All the focus has been directed toward this. They should be at their best ‘mdash; the best a Pitt basketball team has probably ever been. That means not only making it past the Sweet 16, but to the Final Four, maybe even to the title game. Referees get paid to call games evenly. Injuries are always a risk. If the Panthers bow out early yet again, this year it’s all on them.