(Photo Credit: AP/Fred Beckham)
A monster, a beast, dominant, special, powerful.. I'm trying to the think if I am missing any adjectives that were used to describe DeJuan Blair last night. He pretty much slammed a 7'3 center, and made it look EASY. For the 1 of you who didn't watch Pitt lay the BEAT down on UConn, Pitt won 76-68.. and finally looked like the team we all want them to look like...
A team that will make it past the Sweet 16.
The Pittsburgh Panthers ventured up to Hartford, CT last night in what may have been one of their biggest games ever. I am sure you can come up with equally, if not more important games in the past 30 or so years (Pitt/Duke from last year was kind of a big deal from MSG), but last night had that "big fight feel" that really takes ordinary sports games to the next level. And in a game like this, superstars shine..
It was a perfect storm of national sports attention.. All day when I was able to kick on ESPNRadio.com I heard about Pitt/UConn.. the 6:00 PM Sportscenter was essentially a preview for the 7:oo PM tip-off, then the 11:oo PM Sportscenter lead off with about 5 minutes of highlights and analyis of the game.
The biggest drawing card was the match-up of DeJuan Blair and Hasheem Thabeet. We know what Blair brings to the court, Thabeet on the other hand looks nightmare-ishly imposing on paper. He is 7'3, blocks shots with the power the Big East hasn't seen since Patrick Ewing and pretty much dunks 90% of the time. On the Sportscenter pregame one of the talking heads clearly explained why Pitt was going to win, and hit the nail directly on the head.
I'm paraphrasing here, but the point was, "If Blair can contain Thabeet from not dunking, taking very few shots and use his strength to move him around, Pitt will win".
Good call, man in a suit. Just a quick snapshot of Blair and Thabeet's stats show a VERY one sided battle, that if this was a UFC fight, would have been called 20 seconds into the first round. Blair shot 10 of 17 for 22 points.. pulled down 23 rebounds (!) and only committed 2 fouls. Big Hasheem on the other, other, other side of the coin shot a BLAZING 1 of 5 for 5 points and 4 rebounds. Hmm.. there's a word I'm looking for here.. to describe what Pitt's 6'7 center did to the 7'3 monster in both of their biggest games of the season... Got it.
Sonned.
Just a few other notes from the game before I jump into what I woke up to... Sam Young once again proved to be one of the top scorers in big-time college hoops last night. He had 12 points in what felt like the first 90 seconds and finished with 25 points. Fields was slumping pretty much all game, but his confidence was never rattled, and hit two 3 pointers toward the end of the 2nd half that killed any momentum UConn had. Love that. Hope you all enjoyed that game, as you can tell, I sure did.. Happy Tuesday!
PG: Ray
Fittipaldo breaks down what happens with Number 4 beats Number 1..
ESPN: The game made
Sportscenter's "Highlight of the Night"
ESPN: Andy
Katz says this all way better than I did..
The Trib: The Pirates get to keep Nate
McLouth long-term.. which really means until the trade deadline in 2011..
NHL: Oh yea.. the Pens did play yesterday afternoon.. and lost in a shoot-out.
Madden: The super-genius talks
firin' the
ol' Coach.
