Gutter: Insert your witty "Pitt lost in the Sweet Sixteen again" cliche here

Okay, let’s say the obvious:

Pitt lost in the Sweet Sixteen. Again. Fourth time in four tries. Fourth time in six years. Nevermind that they got there; it only matters that they died there. Again.

Is it out of the way? Good, because I don’t want to hear it. This isn’t a program problem. Those four losses featured two different head coaches and a dozen or two different players. It’s hard to say that a college program has a problem getting past a hurdle like the Sweet Sixteen since the personnel of the team changes over time. And at Pitt, not only have the players changed, but the coach has changed, too.

So this isn’t a problem with the program. That’s not the story. The story is how Pitt lost this game, the game played in 2007, not 2002 or 2003 or 2004. 2007.

Do we have that out of our system then? Good.

For Pitt, the Sweet Sixteen opponent in 2007 was UCLA, coached by former Pitt head man Ben Howland. The game was proceeded by piles of talk about how the game would pit Howland against his former assistant, Pitt coach Jamie Dixon, and how the game would feature two teams that played very similar styles. In particular, the teams shared a common focus on playing tough, lock-down defense.

For once, the pre-game talk was on-point, as Pitt and UCLA engaged in the basketball equivalent of a 9-6 football game. The final score was 64-55, and if you’re a fan of defensive basketball (and I guess there are people like that out there), then you probably loved this game. Otherwise, you probably hated it. Actually, I take that back: if you’re a fan of watching two teams really gut it out and play very hard against each other, then you were probably really into the game, even if Pitt and UCLA didn’t score much.

And really, you have to admire the effort of both Pitt and UCLA. Both teams wanted to play tough defense and make it really difficult for the other team to score, and both teams did just that. But why, exactly, is Pitt’s season over? Why couldn’t they beat the Bruins on Thursday night?

Well, it’s quite simple. Two reasons, really.

1. Pitt made a low percentage of their high-percentage shots.
2. UCLA shot miles above their heads from the free throw line.

That’s really what it comes down to. Time and time again, Pitt had layups that were on the low end of the difficulty scale, the highest of high-percentage shots, and they bricked them. Never mind Ronald Ramon’s fine three-point shooting (4-of-7); sure, those shots helped Pitt look like it could mount a comeback, but it was the bunnies that didn’t fall that killed their chances.

Numbers don’t usually lie, and this stat certainly doesn’t: Pitt hit 20 of their 55 field goal attempts.

Earlier this week, I had a chance to speak with former Pitt player Brandin Knight. Knight is currently the Panthers’ video coordinator, and he played at Pitt when Howland was the head coach. Figuring that he would know as well as anyone, I asked him what it takes to beat a Ben Howland team. He said a couple things about sustaining pace and tempo and that sort of basketball speak. Then he summed it up succinctly:

”It all comes down to who’s making shots. That’s the main thing.”

How very prescient, Brandin.

That’s what it was: Pitt needed to make its shots. And not the tough shots, not the fadeaway jumpers from just inside the line, not the turn-around hooks, not the NBA three’s. Pitt needed to make the shots that it makes on a nightly basis, the shots that piled up 29 wins this season. This was a team that shot nearly 70% against Georgetown during the two teams’ regular season match-up in Pittsburgh. Now, on that night they got a few lucky bounces, but by and large their astronomical shooting percentage came from getting the high-percentage shots to fall.

That’s what they needed against UCLA. And that’s what they didn’t get.

Pitt was even with UCLA in rebounds. They had more assists and fewer turnovers than the Bruins. And they had more blocked shots, more offensive rebounds, and more steals.

But the shots didn't fall for the Panthers. As such, they lost. Simple as that.

And then there’s the matter of UCLA making every single free throw. Okay, not every single one, but 23 out of 26 is pretty darn close to 100% (according to ESPN, it’s 88.5%). The thing of it is, the Bruins are a team that shoots 65% from the charity stripe. They’re not a great free throw shooting team. They’re not even a good free throw shooting team. As a matter of fact, they’re widely considered to be among the worst free throw shooting teams in the nation, at least among the teams that are considered to be “good.”

But they made their free throws on Thursday night. Meanwhile, Pitt was 8-of-14 from the line. That’s a 15 point difference in free throws alone. A 15 point advantage in a 9 point game is a big difference.

And so it goes. Pitt lays an egg, and the season is over. The Panthers may be able to take something away from this game, knowing that they had a chance to top UCLA and advance to the Elite Eight.

But they didn’t make their shots, and they aren’t moving on.

It’s over.



Anyone want to talk spring football?

Gutter: Who do you think you are? Nickelback? (part 3)

I meant to post on this when it first came out, but several other things happened (namely Bob Smizik’s overwhelming excitement, Bill Peduto dropping out, and the Pirates having a good inning), so I got a bit distracted. But those digressions have passed, and now I can get back to a recurring subject on this blog:

The continuing saga of members of the Pitt men’s basketball team refusing to address the media (Part one, Part two).

Well, it happened again. See Ron Cook’s column in the 3/20/2007 issue of the Post-Gazette. Cook writes about Pitt basketball players Levance Fields (point guard, men’s team) and Marcedes Walker (center, women’s team) and the impact that those two have on their respective teams. And what’s more, Cook writes about the off-court relationship of Fields and Walker. It’s been known for some time in Pitt circles that the two are romantically involved; now Cook has outed them to the public.

But that’s not what this is about. Granted, there are probably a lot of cheap jokes to be made about this situation, but I’m going to attempt to avoid them (Raul Mondesi makes enough jokes for the both of us). What’s relevant, at least to me, is something Cook mentions about seven or ten paragraphs into the column.

It’s unfortunate, Fields refused to come out of the Pitt locker room yesterday to talk about Walker’s game, probably because his teammates were teasing him unmercifully when they found out someone wanted to talk to him about his girlfriend of more than a year.

Hey, we’re not proud of it, but it’s a guy thing.

No, no, no, Ron, don’t let Fields off the hook that easy. Fields refused to talk to the media. Period. Don’t make excuses about being embarrassed or too proud; Fields refused to talk.

Now, this may not be the same situation as when Fields refused to talk when the team was leaving for Buffalo. Maybe he really didn’t feel comfortable talking about his relationship and, quite frankly, I’m not sure it necessarily needs to be written about in One of America’s Great Newspapers. It’s rather gossipy, and even though Cook sticks mostly to basketball, the relationship angle is still the theme and focus of the column.

That being said, I don’t think it would have harmed anyone to have Fields give a couple quotes about the way Walker plays and her game (on the court, that is). Walker talks about the way Fields plays, why not have Fields do the same? I spoke with someone about this idea, and they felt that the column was based on a poorly-chosen subject (the relationship) and that it shouldn’t have been written to begin with. I’m not interested in debating the column itself. What I’m interested in is the fact that, once again, Levance Fields has flat-out told the media ‘no.’

And it wasn’t just Cook that got ‘big-timed.’ The day that Cook was conducting his interviews was Monday, the day that the men’s basketball team was leaving for San Jose, where they would face UCLA in the Sweet Sixteen round of the NCAA Tournament. As was the case when the team was leaving for Buffalo, a number of players and coaches addressed the assembled media throng at the Petersen Events Center loading dock before boarding a bus to the airport. And, just like last week before they left for Buffalo, Fields slipped past the media.

Aaron Gray spoke to the media. Levon Kendall spoke to the media. Mike Cook spoke to the media. Ronald Ramon spoke to the media. Keith Benjamin spoke to the media. Jamie Dixon spoke to the media. Brandin Knight spoke to the media. But Levance Fields, the team’s starting point guard, the player who will lead the Panthers onto the court and act as their floor general when the team looks to advance past the Sweet Sixteen for the first time in school history, refused to speak.

So I ask again:

Who do you think you are? Nickelback?

Gutter: Curb your enthusiasm, Bob

So the Pitt women’s basketball team lost to Tennessee last night. No big surprises there. Tennessee is one of the best women’s basketball programs in the country, while Pitt is, in reality, still a program on the rise.

Nevertheless, if not for the shootings at Duquesne and the Penguins’ beyond-expectations performance, the Pitt women’s team could be the sports story of the year in Pittsburgh.

Consider: three years ago, in Agnus Berenato’s first year as head coach of the women’s team, the Panthers won a whopping six games (two in the Big East). They more than doubled that number the next season, with a 13-15 record. Then, last season, the Panthers took a giant step forward, winning 22 games (the first 20-win season since 1993-94 and tying the school record for most wins in a season, a mark set in the 1980-81 season). 2005-06 culminated with the Panthers just missing the cut for the NCAA Tournament; instead, they settled for a run to the Final Four in the WNIT.

Even if you don’t care about women’s basketball, any sports fan has to be able to respect that kind of turn-around. And it continued this year, as Pitt won a school record 24 games and earned a spot in the NCAA Tournament for the first time in the program’s history.

It seems to me that that’s the kind of story that writes itself, particularly if you’re a columnist in Pittsburgh. On top of that, it seems to me that writing a column on Tuesday night’s game would be rather easy, given that the accomplishments of the Pitt team have really been tremendous.

But apparently that’s not the case for Bob Smizik.

Let’s look at what Sir Smizik had to say on the occasion of Pitt’s first appearance in the women’s NCAA Tournament:

The predicted sellout never materialized. Neither did a hoped-for upset victory by the Pitt against powerhouse Tennessee.

Okay. So never mind that he starts by pointing out what didn’t happen in the game. Look at the way the paragraph ends.

But with the six games that took place this week in the first and second round of the NCAA tournament at the Petersen Events Center, women's college basketball took a large step forward locally and the Pitt program continued to gain respect as it attempts to climb to the elite level of the sport.

That sounds about as exciting as a brochure for a funeral home.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but I’ve always been under the impression that part of the benefit/challenge of being a columnist is that you write from a perspective. You, the writer, are part of the column and you, the writer, are what makes it work. Reporters don’t have that luxury, instead being focused on retelling events and disseminating information. The public has columnists to provide perspective; instead, Sir Smizik has given us text that would probably be too dry to appear on the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation’s dour website.

Sir Smizik then spends the next six paragraphs (to be fair, two of the graphs consist of one sentence each) extolling the greatness of Tennessee superstar Candace Parker. Fair enough: with 30 points, the outstanding Parker dominated Pitt and ensured the victory for Tennessee.

(I should point out that the Tribune-Review’s John Harris, who in roughly 8 months at the Trib has written just a handful of non-Steelers columns, was compelled by the Pitt-Tennessee game to devote his entire column to Parker. However, Harris did contribute a Pitt-centric piece on Saturday before the Tournament began.)

After Sir Smizik has given Parker her necessary due, he then moves onto the fact that the game did not reach Berenato’s goal of selling out the 12,500-seat Petersen Events Center.

There had been a concern that the Volunteers, whose storied success has earned them a large traveling fan base, might have a larger and/or more vocal rooting section than Pitt. It didn't come close to happening.

With help of 300 free tickets distributed to students and a reduction to $5 for the price of student tickets, a crowd 8,791 was in attendance, about 3,700 short of capacity. It was overwhelmingly in favor of Pitt and was vocal throughout the game in its support of the Panthers.

If Sir Smizik is driving at the “large step forward locally” that women’s basketball has taken, he’s got a funny way of doing it. Essentially, he’s pointing out that it took 300 free tickets and a $5 ticket price to get a less-than-capacity crowd in the door. But hey, at least they cheered for Pitt, right?

Berenato, a relentless promoter who in four years has massively upgraded what was a miserable Pitt program, several times predicted a sellout at an interview sessions a day before the game.

"I really expect a sellout as long as the media gets the word out and talks about our great game."

You got her there, don’t you Sir Smizik? Is that “Berenato…several times predicted a sellout” line an “eat your words” slap from the venerable Sir Smizik to the upstart Berenato? Is he cautioning that her mouth should not write checks that her fanbase can’t cash? Why is it necessary to throw in that jab, especially when the Pitt women’s basketball team is fresh off the highest point it has ever reached?

It seemed like wishful thinking at the time, but almost came to fruition. Berenato's attempt to put the onus on the media was uncalled for. Both the local print and electronic gave the event ample coverage, perhaps more than it deserved.

Okay, Bob, now you’re just being a dick. Honestly, I can’t see what the point of this is. Since she came to Pitt, Berenato has embraced the media at every turn. Prior to every press conference she has ever held at Pitt, Berenato has personally introduced herself to each media member in attendance. And at the conclusion of her press conferences, she announces her appreciation for the media’s attention. Berenato understands the role that the media plays in promoting a program, especially one that needs as much promotion as Pitt women’s basketball does.

And, really, why does Sir Smizik think that the event might have received more coverage than it deserved? This is the Pitt women’s basketball team making its first-ever NCAA Tournament in school history, and playing at home no less. Then throw in the fact that that two No. 1 seed, nationally-recognized teams are playing at the Petersen Events Center (Tennessee and North Carolina), and you have a pretty big deal going on.

But apparently not to Sir Smizik. In fact, while the Panthers were making the NCAA Tournament for the first time in school history, traffic patterns in Oakland were far more notable to Sir Smizik on Tuesday night.

The crowd was late arriving because of a massive traffic jam in lower Oakland. It took some people 90 minutes to make the 1-mile drive from the Parkway exit in Oakland to the game.

Thanks for that update, Sir Smizik. What’s the weather going to be like this week?

What the event displayed more than anything is just how far the women's game has come. No sport has come further faster in the past decade in terms of improved play than women's basketball.

No, Sir Smizik, what the event displayed is how far the Pitt women’s basketball game has come. Women’s basketball has been popular for quite some time, and the power teams have been huge draws for years. At Tennessee, for example, the court at Thompson-Boling Arena is named “The Summitt,” in honor of the Volunteers’ women’s basketball coach, Pat Summitt. I know that the Post-Gazette has sent Sir Smizik to the Super Bowl even though the Steelers weren’t in it, so perhaps he considers himself a nationally-minded scribe, but the first word in Pittsburgh Post-Gazette is still Pittsburgh; as such, I don’t think it would hurt to acknowledge the fact that Tuesday night’s event displayed just how far the Pitt women’s basketball program has come.

And as to his claim that “no sport has come further faster in the past decade in terms of improved play than women’s basketball,” well, that’s an impossible-to-quantify statement that reeks of columnist looking to fill space.

Parker might have been the most accomplished player on the floor but she was far from the only one.

Pitt has two excellent players in Marcedes Walker, who scored 19, and Shavonte Zellous, who scored 18.

"Zellous was a tough guard for us," Summitt said. "It seemed like she was getting more open shots than I liked. She got off 18 shots. That was the most disappointing part of our defense."

Summitt acknowledged that Pitt is on its way up.

"Tonight is going to be a wake-up call for a lot of people in terms of seeing this Pitt team against our team and seeing how they performed,'' she said.

"We'll be back," Berenato said, "bigger, stronger and faster."

Ah, a breath of fresh air: an actual mention of Pitt in this column, a piece that is perhaps mis-titled as “Panthers, Berenato gain a lot of respect.” Only with Summitt’s quote does Sir Smizik really reference any increase in respect for the Pitt women’s basketball program. And really, couldn’t that quote have been a jumping-off point for a column that actually does reflect the growing respect for Pitt as a national program? I’m sure Summitt said more than just that one sentence; why not use the esteemed Tennessee coach’s statements as evidence of how far the Pitt program has come? It’s certainly worth something when Pat Summitt, the winningest coach in college basketball history (men’s and women’s) is giving you credit, particularly if you’re a program that has come as far as Pitt has in such a short amount of time.

But Sir Smizik doesn’t go in that direction. Instead, he closes the column with this inspiring look at the future of Pitt women’s basketball.

This event, with Berenato pushing the sport, also will be back in Pittsburgh. When that happens, they won't have to give away tickets to fill up the building.

Really gets the blood flowing, doesn’t it?

I’m not saying Sir Smizik should be a cheerleader for the Pitt women’s team, just as he shouldn’t be a cheerleader for any sports team. But this occasion, this event (as he repeatedly calls it), is big enough and represents so much that is positive about sports that it should merit some noticeable excitement from one of the city’s most-respected columnists. But it comes off as the writings of a grouchy newspaperman who has been around too long to appreciate the fact that sports can still make you feel good.

I know it’s women’s basketball, and I know that the sport turns off a lot of sports fans. But it’s a story that can inspire true sports fans, and it’s a story that deserves better than a mailed-in column like the one featured in Wednesday’s edition of one of America’s Great Newspapers.

Gutter: Who do you think you are? Nickelback? (part 2)

So, as I was saying, an unpleasant theme has been developing on the Pitt men’s basketball team this season. No, it’s not the team’s on-again/off-again shooting. No, it’s not the team’s apparent inability to beat the best opposition. And no, it’s not the repeat losing performance in the Big East championship game.

As a matter of fact, the theme I’m referring to has nothing to do with things that happen on the court. What I’m referring to is the fact that members of the Pitt men’s basketball team have repeatedly refused to address the media throughout the season.

Okay, maybe I’m extra sensitive to this issue because I’m among the members of the local sports media who focus on covering Pitt athletics. Maybe the average person, or even the average sports fan, says, “Hey, who really cares if they talk to the media? After all, they’re only college kids: do they really need to talk to the media?”

That’s a legitimate question and, admittedly, one I’ve asked myself. Never mind the simple, media-centric answer that the members of the media have a job to do and, by refusing to talk, the players are making it difficult for those people to do their job. Never mind that. I think that the question of whether the players should have to address the media drives at a basic issue regarding all sports media:

Simply put, what’s the point?

Why does sports media exist? What is the goal, ultimately, of sports coverage? One can argue that it’s only natural for sports fans to want to learn as much and collect as much information about their favorite sports teams and, as such, sports media exists to provide that coverage and information. But I think that there is more to it with regards to college sports.

Premise: Colleges/universities have two basic functions.

1. Education/research

2. Fund-raising

And not necessarily in that order.

With that premise in mind, a cynic could extrapolate that college sports, for all of their ambitions, fall into the second category: fund-raising. Then again, perhaps it’s being pessimistic to say that only a cynic could hold that view, because I am hard-pressed to find a basic core reason for colleges to support athletic programs beyond the revenue that they produce.

Of course, revenue is a bit disingenuous, because it applies to more than just sales of tickets and merchandise. There are sponsorships, corporate collaborations, advertisement opportunities, and, last but never least in the world of college athletics, donations. And the more time I’ve spent around college athletics as a professional observer, the more apparent it has become to me that donations and cultivating donors is perhaps the highest aspiration of college administrators. Everything that’s done, on an administrative level, seems to be geared toward procuring the next large donation.

And from what I’ve seen, nowhere is this goal more prevalent than in the athletic department.

This isn’t to be disparaging, either. I understand that the purpose of increasing donations is to improve the college/university, and there’s nothing wrong with that. But for a university like Pitt, where the majority of the big-money donations probably comes from athletic supporters, the athletic department has a rather large responsibility.

Which leads us to the interaction of university athletics with the media. When you look at things from a long view, the university wants to see its sports teams portrayed favorably by the media because a positive image would seem to portend more donations. As such, athletic department officials often take many steps to maintain a positive relationship with the media in the hopes that good tidings will keep the coverage fair. In the end, this filters down to accommodating the media members as they attempt to accomplish their professional goal of covering the sports teams; part of covering the sports teams is interviewing players and coaches.

I think you can draw the conclusion here:

If the athletic department wants to project a positive image in order to maintain current donors and produce new ones, players and coaches need to be made available to the media.

There are certain stipulations, perhaps written, perhaps not, that come with being an athlete at a major university, particularly if you play a high-visibility sport like men’s basketball, and especially if you are a central figure in that high-visibility sport. One of those stipulations, like it or not, is that you act as a representative of the team and the university by dealing with the media. That’s just part of the deal.

But not for the Pitt basketball team, apparently.

Now, I’m not completely without compassion for the human condition, and I understand that there are times when an 18-22 year old might not want to speak publicly, particularly in moments of heightened distress. Take, for instance, the Pitt-Louisville game this season, when the Panthers suffered one of the worst losses of the past six years. After that game, Aaron Gray was the only player that spoke to the media, which is unacceptable considering that there was no limit to the number of players who would have been of interest following such a loss.

I get it: that loss sucked, and nobody wanted to talk about it, especially not to the media. But, as I said before, that’s just part of the deal.

Do you remember when the Pitt football team lost at Ohio University in 2005? The game was probably the worst loss that team has endured in this century, and quarterback Tyler Palko threw three interceptions, including one that was returned for the game-winning touchdown in overtime. A fierce competitor, Palko had less than no interest in talking to the media after that debacle. But he did it anyway, because he understood that it was his responsibility as a key member of the team.

And after every single game that Tyler Palko started as quarterback, he addressed the media. As a member of the media covering Pitt, I watched all of those games, and I can understand that after a lot of them Palko would have much rather gotten back on the bus and rode home in silence. But he didn’t: instead, he did his duty and spoke to the media. For all the things that bothered me about Tyler Palko (and there were a few), I respected him for always talking.

I wish I could say the same thing for Pitt’s basketball players.

Gutter: Who do you think you are? Nickelback? (part 1)

Let me set the scene:

It was Tuesday, March 13th, and the Pitt men’s basketball team was preparing to leave for its bus trip to Buffalo, where the Panthers play Wright State in the opening round of the NCAA Tournament on Thursday night. A small gathering, probably numbering somewhere around 12 or 13, of media had assembled on the loading dock outside the Petersen Events Center, waiting for the Pitt players and coaches to emerge from the building. The idea here was that the media would interview players and coaches on their way from the loading dock to the team bus.

It wasn’t the ideal setup, but it was serviceable. After all, it worked last year, when it was about 11 degrees outside. At the very least, the weather was mild on Tuesday.

So we, the media, waited. The announced time for this informal press conference was 3 P.M., but few things happen on time, particularly with this team, so we waited. No big deal: the weather was warm and there was a rather interesting air that afternoon. To elaborate: Nickelback was playing a concert at the Petersen Events Center Tuesday night, so the loading dock area not only served as parking for Pitt’s team bus, but also nearly a dozen buses for the band. There were buses everywhere, creating a virtual wall of touring coaches.

It was an interesting scene, but since the assembled media (representing three television stations, several newspapers, a radio station, and at least one website) were reporters of sports, not music, the Nickelback entourage (which truly was grand in its scale) was of only passing interest.

And we continued to wait.

Sometime after 3:30 or so, the team started to emerge. First came shooting guard Ronald Ramon. As the soft-spoken Ramon walked from the building to the bus, the media group gathered around him, and he gamely stopped and took questions. While the majority of the media was interviewing Ramon, sophomore point guard Levance Fields and several of his teammates came out of the Petersen Events Center and headed to the bus.

Here is where it got interesting.

Knowing that Fields would have more to say than the normally-reserved Ramon, one or two media members broke off and approached him for an interview. It was a slow approach, and one reporter pulled ahead of the others and got to Fields first. Standing back, I watched the reporter talk to Fields but I couldn’t hear what was said over the sound of the buses. What I do know is that only a few words were exchanged before Fields headed for the bus and the reporter came walking back with a bewildered look on his face.

“I just got big-timed,” the reporter said.

Turns out Fields didn’t want to talk that day. No particular reason. He just didn’t want to talk.

The point guard of the No. 10 Pitt men’s basketball team didn’t want to talk.

The floor general of a three seed in the NCAA Tournament didn’t want to talk.

He didn’t want to talk, so a reporter trying to do his job “got big-timed” by a sophomore in college.

Time and again this season, various members of the Pitt men’s basketball team have refused to talk to the media, whether it’s after a game or during mid-week media availabilities. And usually the players who refuse to take questions are the same ones who would have the most to talk about, such as Fields, on the brink of his first NCAA Tournament as a starting point guard, or sophomore forward Sam Young, who declared a moratorium on speaking to the media mid-season just as he was becoming a frequent topic of discussion on sports talk radio and Pitt message boards for his inconsistent play that was, at times, brilliant, but was also hampered by knee tendonitis.

And then there was Aaron Gray, the pre-season All-American, pre-season Big East Player of the Year, the team leader in scoring and rebounds, and the reason that Pitt earned a lot of early recognition, since his decision to not enter the NBA draft made Pitt a likely Final Four team.

But as he was racking up double-doubles on a nightly basis, for a time it became difficult to track down the 7’0” Gray for an interview. A premier nationally-recognized player on a premier nationally-recognized team, and he didn’t want to talk to the media. This isn’t a 2 points in 12 minutes per night player: this is the player who is widely considered to be the source of Pitt’s success this season, and he didn’t want to talk to the media. If Pitt won a game this season, it was probably because of Aaron Gray, and if they lost a game, that was probably because of him, too. But he didn’t want to talk to the media.

And for several mid-season games this year, Gray did not talk. His silence was broken when Pitt played at Villanova, as a reporter from Gray’s hometown paper got an interview. Following the Panthers’ return from that trip, Gray appeared to have lifted his blanket refusal, and he addressed the media several times throughout the remainder of the season. It can be noted, however, that he was among the Pitt players who avoided the media en route to the team bus on Tuesday.

Of course, on Wednesday, Gray and two of his teammates were at the podium in Buffalo, taking questions from the media who were present for the NCAA Tournament. Apparently when the national stage is calling, it’s not so troubling to do interviews.

I know there are other topics that should be addressed in this blog, such as what the obligations of players should be, but this is pretty long, so I’ll start a separate entry to look at some of that stuff.

Peak: What's great about college basketball

There’s something to be said for pure human emotion.

Sitting in a banquet/meeting room on the third floor of the Sewell Center at Robert Morris University on Saturday afternoon, in the wake of the RMU women’s win in the Northeast Conference championship game, the full range of emotions was on display.

There was RMU senior forward Sugeiry Monsac, a native of the Dominican Republic who scored 21 points on Saturday, the second-highest total in the game. Monsac was part of RMU’s unstoppable scoring force, along with junior Chinata Nesbit who scored 28. But while Nesbit and RMU head coach Sal Buscaglia spoke during the post-game press conference, Monsac just kept smiling, periodically giggling and occasionally interjecting with an exclamation of disbelief that her team is headed the NCAA Tournament for the first time in school history.

It was elation. And it was unadulterated.

Rewind 15 minutes. In the same place where Buscaglia, Nesbit, and Monsac sat discussing the post-season and the NCAA Tournament and winning the NEC and how far the Robert Morris program has come, some far more somber bodies filled the chairs, namely Sacred Heart head coach Ed Swanson and seniors Amanda Pape and Jasmine Walker.

In this scene, the soft voice of Swanson broke the silence of the room, giving the requisite credit to the victors before attempting to explain his team’s failure to a group of people who couldn’t be more unfamiliar with the squad. He was flanked by two players who combined to score 38 of his team’s 66 points, but to look at them or listen to them speak, you would think that Pape and Walker had personally tanked the game.

Actually, that’s not true. Pape didn’t speak at all during the press conference, instead holding her head in her hands, covering red eyes that were swollen with tears. She barely looked up, and by the time the press conference was over after seven or eight minutes, her tears had started again.

Oprah Winfrey, Montel Williams, and a dozen reality shows would pay millions for this kind of display of true feeling.

Such is March in American college sports. And not just the standard NCAA-bracket busting-Cinderella story-12/5 upset variety of March Madness. This was a game of two teams playing for an NCAA Tournament bid. These teams were playing for the chance to keep playing. And on a mild Saturday in Moon Township, in a gymnasium that has been surpassed by numerous high school facilities, before a crowd of 850 people (a generous estimate), the true madness of March was there.

You see, there was no chance of an at-large bid for these teams. It was win or go home. Don’t even bother to watch the Selection Monday show; if you don’t win, you aren’t getting in. That’s all there is to it. So whatever you have in you, whatever there is that drives you, whatever it is that makes you who you are, you have to dig into that, pull it up, and throw it all on the court. And that’s exactly what they did.

To recap for those who missed the NEC women’s championship game:

RMU took off in the early goings, leading 25-10 at the midway point of the first half and holding a 38-25 advantage at halftime. But Sacred Heart woke up for the second half, opening the period with a 13-1 run that put the score at 39-38. From there, it was a battle of tooth and nail, as the two teams, both playing for the chance to keep playing, went back and forth for 16 minutes. When Sacred Heart tied the score at 52 with 9:22 left, it was the game’s first tie since 0-0, and Pape’s layup a minute later gave the Pioneers their first lead of the contest.

Sacred Heart eventually established a six-point lead with 5:39 to go, but the powerful duo of Nesbit and Monsac battled back for RMU. With 4.5 seconds left and RMU ahead 68-66, Pape got a pass from an inbounds play, drove the lane, and put up a shot. The ball careened off the backboard, missing the rim and ending Sacred Heart’s season.

The (estimated) 850 fans in attendance stormed the court, and for all the emotion that would later fill the press conference room, it was magnified in the seconds after the final buzzer sounded.

Elation. Despair. Satisfaction. Disappointment. It was all there. And on top of it all was a feeling that everyone in the building could share, a feeling that no matter what else was going on in the world of college basketball, the Sewell Center in Moon Township had just played host to a game that reminded everyone in attendance of a basic truth:

This is what it’s all about.

It’s about two teams, with their futures on the line, playing their hearts out and doing everything possible to emerge as victors. For two hours that afternoon, nothing else mattered.

“I wouldn’t be in tears if I didn’t give 100%,” said Sacred Heart’s Walker, who scored 18 points and grabbed 12 rebounds. Walker, along with Pape, who scored 20, each played the full 40 minutes in the game. 100% indeed.

Later that night, several hundred miles away, in a packed arena and on national television, Pitt and Georgetown faced off for the Big East men’s conference championship. It was a game that Pitt fans, players, and coaches would probably like to forget, since the Panthers put in one of their most dismal performances in recent memory.

But while the loss was disappointing, it’s hard to say that the players for Pitt or Georgetown had anything even approaching the desperation displayed by Robert Morris and Sacred Heart. Because no matter how much the Panthers or Hoyas or their coaches tell you that they want to win the Big East tournament because it means something, it is impossible that it could have meant as much as the NEC championship game.

Win or lose, Pitt and Georgetown are in the NCAA Tournament. The same couldn’t be said for Robert Morris and Sacred Heart. For those two teams, the season was laid before them in one contest: the winner would be the team that recognized the opportunity to continue playing and seized that opportunity, while the loser would be the team that didn’t have enough to earn a post-season spot.

When was the last time Pitt had a game of such magnitude? When was the last time Pitt was playing in a game with everything on the line? Yes, the NCAA Tournament games are huge and are filled with plenty of pressure, but this game was played for the right to even take part in that tournament. The weight of the world was on the shoulders of the women who took the court on Saturday, and they responded with a game that was a fantastic representation of just how much they wanted to keep playing.

There’s something to be said for pure human emotion.