2010 NCAA Basketball Tournament: Pittsburgh vs Oakland

The Big East has struggled in this particular NCAA Tournament, and that's putting it mildly. However, at least one team in the collapsing conference is holding up its end of the bargain.

Coming in with the reputation as being the biggest and baddest conference in the land, the assemblage of 16 schools encountered an opening-act horror show. The first round went... well... poorly, to say the least. The conference saw half of their eight teams get knocked off, and an oft-touted team like Villanova played like it deserved to lose (and frankly should have). Moreover, if there was one team that people didn't have confidence in, it was Pitt.

The Panthers have become something like a Wisconsin of the East. You would be hard-pressed to find a team that lost more last season than Pitt, but the Panthers still managed to finish tied for second in league play and earn a three seed in the NCAA Tournament.

It's pointless in trying to lie or put up a brave macho front: A great many writers and pundits had many doubts about Jamie Dixon's club. The Panthers don't have a true point guard. They don't have any interior scoring. They don't have anywhere near the talent of the other top teams in the country.

And yet, while one hesitates to say that an 89-66 win over a team from the Summit League convinced the cognoscenti that the Panthers are for real, this 23-point triumph sure did make some folks question the would-be decision to pick Xavier to beat them in the second round on Sunday afternoon.

Of all this issues with this club, perhaps the biggest knock on the Panthers was their lack of offensive fire power. Where was this team going to get their scoring from? Sure, Ashton Gibbs is good for 15-20 points a night, but is there anyone else on this team that you can rely on for consistent points?

Again, Pitt didn't exactly answer those questions with Friday's performance, but the Panthers sure made a good argument. Pitt was down 18-13 just 11 minutes into the game, but the Sons of the Steel City used a big run late in the first half to spark an offensive explosion, finishing with their second- highest scoring output of the season. Their highest? The 98 points the scored in a triple OT game against West Virginia on Feb. 12, a night when the Winter Olympics Opening Ceremonies took place and distracted people from college hoops (if they ever followed college basketball in the first place).

The Panthers lit up the Bradley Center scoreboard in Milwaukee by putting six players into double figures. Guard Ashton Gibbs wasn't one of those six, finishing just 1-of-7 from the floor for just seven points. It's quite impressive that this team could ring up such a big number with Gibbs - its premier 3-pint shooter and free throw man - staying quiet from the field. Perhaps folks have been underestimating this team.

Let them do so at their pronounced peril.

WHAT'S NEXT:

Pitt moves on to the second round to take on Xavier on Sunday. It will be an interesting matchup. For my money, Xavier is the better team. The Musketeers have more size inside, they have better guard play, and they have a culture of winning. But maybe it's time people stopped betting against Pitt. The Panthers have a knack for winning in spite of the odds and the prognosticators' opposite leanings.

NCAA Tournament First Round Recap - Pittsburgh vs Oakland

WHAT'S NEXT: