By JOHN P. WISE
One Great Season
It's funny that when the NCAA Tournament field was unveiled last week, of all the top seeds, Pittsburgh looked to have the easiest path to the Final Four. But those cute little Panthers did what they do best on Saturday; they underachieved in the postseason and became the first No. 1 team to be eliminated.
Give Butler much credit, but not all of it. Pitt needs to stop gagging in the tournament.
Overall, day one of the Round of 32 turned out to be a pretty nice little Saturday. Here are some other take-aways:
+ Brandon Knight's tournament resume so far? A driving basket with two seconds left to beat Princeton on Thursday, and 30 points on Saturday to lead Kentucky over West Virginia and into the Sweet 16.
+ I thought Florida was a little over-seeded, but the Gators are showing they're pretty good. They followed a 28-point win on Thursday with a gut-check win over a UCLA team that was playing pretty decent basketball. With Pitt out of the way, Billy Donovan's squad could grab the Southeast Region and advance to Houston.
+ That San Diego State-Temple game was a good one, but the Aztecs should not have struggled with the No. 7 Owls.
+ SDSU's conference rival BYU hammered Gonzaga to give the MWC two teams in the Sweet 16. It's the Cougars' first such appearance in 30 years. Nice to see them continue their magical season despite the absence of Brandon Davies.
+ Cincinnati didn't look great down the stretch against Connecticut late Saturday night, but now that the Bearcats' season is over, it's impossible not to notice one thing: the job for which everyone's praising Mick Cronin? It has little to do with the 26 wins this year. Cronin tore down and then re-built the culture in Cincinnati, and as a UC alum who frequently rips that basketball program, I'm sold on a coach who appears to be doing things the right way.
+ Neat television after Kansas State's game against Wisconsin last night. A reporter asked K-State's Jacob Pullen about the school scoring record he broke during his team's narrow loss to Wisconsin, causing the star guard to break down next to coach Frank Martin, who jumped in with some questions of his own for the reporter: "That's what you wanted to see? That what you were trying to get out of him? Make him cry here in front of people?"
+ Emotional television wasn't limited to Tucson. CBS or Turner or somebody kept a camera on the young daughter of coach Donnie Tyndall in the closing moments of Morehead State's loss to Richmond in Denver. Showing the emotion is one thing, but a director staying on the shot for as long as he or she did was a little much. Don't feed the Twitter nasties when you don't have to.
Looking Ahead:
+ Sunday's Michigan-Duke game certainly lacks the characters this matchup brought us two decades ago, but it's still neat that they're playing just days after ESPN rolled out its compelling "Fab Five" documentary. Duke should win this one, too.
+ Ohio State fans should be scared about George Mason today. The Patriots are very similar to Ohio State, in that they can beat you on the perimeter, with drive-and-kicks, with balance. They're not dominant on defense, but they are steady and they play hard.
+ If Derrick Williams plays 40 minutes, that Arizona-Texas game will be a good one. The Longhorns have the bigs to slow Williams, or perhaps even get him into foul trouble. But if he keeps his head and plays within himself, this one should produce a fun finish.
+ With four teams playing today, the Big Ten can really make a statement, and if they win all of them, they'll send five teams to the Sweet Sixteen.
+ I was surprised to see Louisville coach Rick Pitino on the CBS set, but I thought he did a good job and even called the Kentucky-West Virginia game right. He said during halftime that UK would need to assert itself in the first five minutes of the second half to claim control of the game, and that's what the Wildcats did.
Conference Check:
ACC: 4-1
America East: 0-1
Atlantic 10: 3-2
Atlantic Sun: 0-1
Big East: 8-7
Big Sky: 0-1
Big South: 0-1
Big Ten: 6-2
Big West: 0-1
Big 12: 3-3
Colonial: 2-1
C-USA: 0-2
Horizon: 2-0
Ivy: 0-1
MAC: 0-1
MEAC: 0-1
Metro Atlantic: 0-1
MVC: 0-1
MWC: 4-1
Northeast: 0-1
Ohio Valley: 1-1
Pac-10: 3-2
Patriot: 0-1
SEC: 4-3
Southern: 0-1
Southland: 1-1
Summit: 0-1
WAC: 0-1
WCC: 1-1