PItt social media sending a Fede signal ?

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his double digit seed most likely to advance. He is currently on First Take talking us up. Sure hope he’s right.

The big storyline heading into today's game is how Pitt will do against a good defensive team in Iowa State. The Cyclones had the top defense in the Big 12 (at least in points per game) and they are No. 8 in adjusted defensive efficiency on KenPom.

But this is not the first good defensive team Pitt has faced this season. By my count, the Panthers have played eight games against teams ranked among KenPom's top 50 defenses:

6. Mississippi State
15. Duke (twice)
17. VCU
18. Northwestern
26. Virginia
49. North Carolina (twice)

You probably already know the conclusion I'm going to draw, just from looking at that list of teams. Pitt was 5-3 in those games, with two of the three losses coming against Duke and the most recent win coming on Tuesday against Mississippi State.

5-3 isn't an overwhelming record - just a shade over .500 - and if we just go by top-25 defenses, it's 3-3. But there's one other stat: offensive efficiency. I think that's relevant because, of the six Pitt opponents who ranked in the top 50 in defensive efficiency, Duke is the only one that also ranks in the top 50 in offensive efficiency.

So my thought is this:

Pitt has been able to handle - and beat - good defensive teams this season, provided those teams are not also good on offense. That was the challenge with Duke: the Blue Devils were able to stifle Pitt's offense and score at will.

None of the other defensive teams were able to do that, and eventually, Pitt broke through against their defenses to win.

One other point to consider: of Pitt's five wins against top-50 defenses this season, four were one-possession games. The Panthers beat Virginia, UNC (both times) and Mississippi State by a combined total of 7 points. So they're not blowing out good defenses - but they're doing enough to win.

And one final thought:

While Iowa State's defense is tops in the Big 12, the Cyclones are at the bottom in three-point FG% defense. Baylor is an interesting comparison here, as the Bears have pretty similar numbers to Pitt - in both volume and shooting percentage - from three. Iowa State beat Baylor three times this season; here's how the Bears shot in those three games from deep:

Game 1 in Ames - 5/22
Game 2 in Waco - 10/28
Game 3 in the Big 12 Tournament - 14/29

Overall, that's a 36.7% shooting percentage, but the number is obviously brought down by that first game. In the last two games, Baylor shot 42.1% from three, and in the Big 12 Tournament, the Bears shot 48.3%. So this defense can give up three's. It didn't turn into wins for Baylor, but there should be opportunities for Pitt to score from deep.

…of Barry Bonds’ head when it was SMALLER than Willie Mays’ head. WOW!


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In this week's 3-2-1 Column, we're getting ready for Pitt-Iowa State, talking about spring football and a lot more.

And now they're the only school to lose to a 15-seed twice.

Absolute trash if they could shoot at all they’d be up by 10 based on rebounds and missed shots

Instead ….down by 9..,

Looks like virtually 100% of brackets have already been busted. This might be the earliest ever. Who here has one of the only remaining perfect brackets?

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Mr. Selfish announces he’s in the portal the day of the play in game!

It's here: Pitt's first round game against Iowa State tips off this afternoon. Get ready for the showdown with our full preview on today's Morning Pitt.

Boise is honestly god awful

so let's see some predictions and thoughts.

As I sit here tonight, I am weirdly confident in Pitt winning tomorrow.

Iowa st is 3-7 over their last 10 and 6-11 since early January.

Iowa St plays very strong D, however over the past month or so they have not been defending the 3 well at all. They have had turnover issues and while they rebound pretty well they aren't what Mississippi St was at rebounding. Iowa St shoots about 67% from the FT line and aren't a great 3 point shooting team either (though better than Miss St for sure haha).

Saying all that, I think Pitt is going to just enough to pull this game out, I just have that feeling. I think their D will be just good enough, they will rebound just enough and hit shots when they have to.

Blake has said all the right things but just maybe he goes off and gets hot...I feel like he is due to hit like 6 3s in a game (though hopefully he doesn't force anything).

I say Pitt 68 Iowa St 61....and a date with the Fighting Sean Miller's on Sunday!

Let's go!!!!

Couple thoughts:

1) WVU seems like an absolute max bet. Very average Big 10 opponent, Maryland has been awful away from home. Huggins gets a win tomorrow and they will absolutely put a scare into Bama.

2) If you ask most people who don’t follow basketball, and maybe some on this board, what is the line for Duke -Oral Roberts, they’d probably say Duke by like 14-16 points. It’s only 7. It’s basically the same line as it was against us. If you are betting Duke - just be careful. 12 seeds cover at an amazing clip, and it’s not hard to imagine the announcers tomorrow being like “where is the Duke team from the ACC tournament?”. I think Duke can get to about the Elite 8, but the line tomorrow being where it is screams take Oral Roberts. I think Duke survives a very close one.

3) Just bet against the Mountain West. All of them. No matter the opponent.

4) I would also pound the Under in the Charleston game. Feels like a close 65-62 game, I don’t think they get to 140.

5) Big Money line underdogs I would bet outright: Furman, Charleston.

6) Random, ugly game that I would bet the lower seed: UNC Asheville. I don’t think UCLA blows them out, 17.5 seems like a little too much.

Just witnessed one of the dumbest plays to lose a game, any game in any sport, in my life. Ya got to google it boys.

He has written so many great songs that it hard for me to pick a favorite or the best song he has written and recorded. For a long time, I thought it was “Born To Run,” the title track of the album that got him on the cover of Time Magazine and made him a superstar.

It has everything a great song should have: In my mind it’s the anthem of a generation (my generation); it’s epic; it’s rebellious; it has great chord changes, multi-crashing crescendos, and hooks which rival anything that Lennon & McCartney wrote. It captures important human emotions: love, despair, hope, desperation and more, seamlessly interchanging between them.

However, with the passage of time, I am torn between it and “Thunder Road” from that same album. I was at one of the concerts in Barcelona when the “Live in Barcelona” music documentary was filmed and I noticed how connected the audience was to it. A 95% Spanish audience singing every word of a 35 year old American rock song. (The audiences sing along with some of the lyrics in Born To Run, but not all. On Thunder Road, there are times in concert where Springsteen stops singing and simply holds his microphone out toward the audience and lets it sing.) It too has an epic quality enhanced by multiple chord changes, along with perhaps Springsteen’s greatest line ever: “Well, I got this guitar and I’ve learned how to make it talk.”

I rank them #1 and #1A, but I’m not sure in what order. There certainly is no shortage of other contenders. Just wondering what others think.

For your enjoyment, here is the “official video” of Born To Run and the video of Thunder Road from the Live In Barcelona video, one of the 22 Springsteen concerts I have attended since March 1975, five months before the album Born To Run was released.

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