Make your peace now, because Pitt just doomed you

East Regional

DAYTON, Ohio -- Your bracket is screwed. Yes, you. Because you picked Pittsburgh to win the East Regional, and maybe even to beat someone in the Final Four. Hell, maybe you got really ambitious and picked the Panthers, who did after all look so dominant in the almighty Big East this season, to win the whole 2009 NCAA tournament.

Well, you're screwed. Your bracket is screwed. Because this Pittsburgh team was lucky to beat 16th-seeded East Tennessee State in the first round on Friday. Pittsburgh won 72-62, but the margin was that comfortable only in the final seconds. It was a one-possession game in the final 2½ minutes, and if ETSU could shoot at all -- a weakness I highlighted Thursday after watching its dreadful shooting in practice -- the Bucs would have beaten Pittsburgh.

By 20.

Pittsburgh was that bad Friday, which means your bracket is that screwed. Don't be mad at me. Be mad at Pittsburgh, which was constructed by Jamie Scheyer-Face, er, Jamie Dixon, who coached Friday with more intensity than any of his players showed. Or any two of his players showed. Or any five of them.

Dixon wanted this game.

His players wanted this game over.

East Tennessee State shot 30.7 percent from the floor (23-for-75), and was just 4-for-22 on 3-pointers (18.2 percent), and even missed half its 24 free throw attempts.

And was in the game until the final minute.

Pittsburgh, minus DeJuan Blair, was terrible. Blair had 27 points and 16 rebounds. And three assists. And two steals. And no turnovers. He was fabulous. It's hard to say he was All-American good, because East Tennessee State is lousy on the interior, but Blair was the best player on the floor Friday by a large margin.

Nobody else for Pittsburgh was terribly good. Or any good. Sam Young, the Panthers' other leading All-America candidate, had 14 points and 13 rebounds -- and if you think that means he had a good game, then you must not have watched it. Because he wasn't 14-and-13 good. He grabbed 13 rebounds, all of them on the defensive end, because somebody had to grab them. East Tennessee State missed 52 field goals and 12 free throws, a total of 64 missed shots. That's a lot of defensive rebounds. And although the Panthers are bigger and burlier and more battle-tested after playing in the hallowed Big East, they allowed the smaller, skinnier, lesser Bucs to grab 20 offensive rebounds.

Levance Fields didn't bring his 'A' effort to Dayton. (US Presswire)

How does a 16th seed shoot 30 percent from the floor and still make a legitimate bid to knock off a No. 1 seed? By taking 20 more shots from the field, which is what East Tennessee State was able to do. All that offensive rebounding helped the Bucs amass such a shot advantage. Well, the offensive rebounding and the turnovers. Pittsburgh committed 18 turnovers, including five from normally reliable point guard Levance Fields, who led the country this season with a 4-to-1 ratio of assists to turnovers but managed just six assists with his five turnovers Friday.

Fields was a disaster. He never got to the foul line. He never stole the ball. That kind of inactivity is shocking for a point guard in 36 minutes of game time, though after watching Fields up close and personal -- and seeing how heavy he is -- I can't say I'm surprised by his inactivity. Look, in the interest of consistency, I must use the same word today to describe Fields that I used yesterday to describe Oklahoma State point guard Byron Eaton. And that word is "porker."

In addition to his hustle stats, or his lack thereof -- including one rebound in 36 minutes of a game featuring 101 missed shots by both teams -- Fields missed all five of his 3-pointers. That includes a sinfully bad one with 1:48 remaining and the Panthers leading 64-59. On that possession Fields held the ball for 30 of the 35 seconds on the shot clock, then hoisted a 25-footer that had no chance.

And he's a senior making his 97th career start.

Anyway, it wasn't just Fields. It was Young and the rest of the Pittsburgh supporting cast behind Blair, who had to be a one-man gang to get his team past the 16th-seeded Bucs.

Scary.

Well, scary for you. I'm not scared. I have Pittsburgh losing in the Elite Eight to Villanova. Not that Villanova looked all that good in its first-round game against American. But Villanova was pushed by a team that shot 43.5 percent from the floor and made 10 3-pointers.

Pittsburgh was pushed by a team that wasn't pushing in the first place.

Your bracket is screwed. So is mine, since I've got the Panthers in the Elite Eight. That'll never happen.

And based on the early returns from this tournament, on the close calls and the losses, how good was the Big East this season, anyway?