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Two wins or bust for Pitt
Kendall
Chaz Palla/TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Joe Starkey can be reached via e-mail or at 412-320-7810.
Walking around town evoked the same sort of a blah feeling most people probably experience when they see "Pitt" on their NCAA Tournament bracket.
Nobody - and I mean nobody - is talking about this team, whether hyping it as a Final Four threat or ripping it as a possible upset victim against 14th-seeded Wright State tonight at HSBC Arena.
As senior forward Levon Kendall said, "It's just sort of, we're there."
I combed the Internet yesterday (what else is there to do in Buffalo?) looking for somebody - anybody - who's picking Pitt to get as far as the Elite Eight. Among the few dozen "expert" forecasts I found, there was only one such person, columnist J.A. Adande of the Los Angeles Times.
Adande wrote, "I think it'll be UCLA coach Ben Howland's old team, Pittsburgh, that takes out Duke and then the Bruins (in the West Region). I'm not sure UCLA will have an inside answer for Aaron Gray. Make my theme music for this region LL Cool J's album 'Walking With a Panther.' "
If Pitt doesn't get out of the weekend alive, make my theme music for this region Beyonce's hit song "Deją vu."
Let's be honest. Anything less than a trip to San Jose, Calif., and the Sweet 16 will make this season a colossal disappointment.
Right?
"Oh yeah, without question," senior guard Antonio Graves said. "There's no doubt about that. We have the team, and we know we can achieve our goals."
Which are?
"Oh, Final Four-plus," Graves said, smiling.
Actually, a loss in the Sweet 16, especially at the hands of No. 2 seed UCLA, would be perfectly understandable.
Before then? Not so much.
Let's not forget, Pitt was a preseason No. 4 and was ranked as high as second in the country in late December.
The team was widely praised as the class of the Big East until Georgetown started rolling, and it enters this tourney as a No. 3 seed, which means the tournament committee expects it to know the way to San Jose, at least.
Junior forward Mike Cook believes Pitt's low profile could be a motivating point. Cook also isn't afraid to speak the harsh truth.
"We haven't played well in big games this year," he said. "You can't really blame people for not putting us in there. We have to go out and prove to people we can win the big games."
Kendall agreed.
"That's been a little bit characteristic of us," he said. "We haven't made it past that hump in the past, as far as the Sweet 16 is concerned, as well as in some games this year. I think we've won some big games, as well, but I think we need to prove ourselves before we start getting that respect."
Cook cited Wisconsin, Georgetown (twice, including the Big East final) and Marquette (twice) as big-game losses.
Of course, Pitt also beat Marquette and Louisville on back-to-back nights - a feat few schools could expect to achieve.
Indeed, we've seen enough to know the Panthers have it in them to survive Buffalo and perhaps even San Jose.
Should they get past Wright State, they will be favored, rightfully so, against the winner of the Virginia Commonwealth-Duke game.
It's not like a loss in Buffalo would be grounds for disbanding the program - six consecutive NCAA Tournaments puts Pitt in some pretty fair company - but it would absolutely make this team an underachiever.
