What aspect of their game must the Panthers focus on most?

Being a No. 1 seed in the NCAA tournament has certainly has benefits, but it's no guarantee of success [ read PG story ].  What aspect of the Panthers' game do they need to focus on most to reach the Final Four?

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First, I really believe they've got to step up their defensive intensity.  The fact that this year's team is so superior offensively to any other Howland/Dixon Pitt team has covered the fact that the team is usually very inferior on the defensive end.  They've shown flashes of quality D, but too often the intensity comes and goes.

Offensively, I don't think it's a big mystery that other teams will try that 1-3-1 zone, attempting to duplicate WVU's success, so obviously Jamie's got to get the guys ready to face that.  They've also got to get ready for the full-court press, which has doomed many a Pitt team.

Lastly, they've got to call tight fouls in practice and get Blair out of the habit of making some silly fouls which will doom the team quicker than anything.

March Madness is Dixon's glass ceiling.  His teams are solid and prepared well enough to get to the dance, but the team never has a killer instinct or intense focus that great teams have and that get you far in this tournament style. The "company line" was that the bad WVU loss was the wake-up call PITT needed to get on track for the tourney.  After yesterday's near historic embarassment, Fields and Young were saying the ETSU game was the wake-up call the team needed to get going.  Why after 34 games and a number one seed does this team still need wake-up calls?  Just get it done.  There is plenty enough talent on that team to get to the Elite 8.  But Fields couldn't have looked worse and Young showed why he again was passed up by the national media as one of the country's leading players.  Sam, you want to be one of the top players in the country start playing like one and drop the conevenient one liners that always explain away your lack of effort and general small-time play in big games. If not for Blair, who will surely be gone after this underachieving team winds up another too-short stay at the March invitational, PITT would have had an average season and probably been a 7 seed with even a shorter tournament life-span.  All this leads back to a coach who is great for the regular season but can't find his mojo when the lights shine the brightest.  Marty Schottenheimer ring a bell?  His short comings are further reflected in the fact that with all of PITT's success over the last 8 years, we still have below-average recruiting classes while other programs continuously re-load great talent.  We would have never gotten Blai had it not been for the fact he is from here and wanted his mother to see him frequently.  Dixon is a solid coach and a decent man.  And I hope he stays at the alma mater I love for many years.  But great coaches are defined in the tournament, and by all definitions Jamie Dixon is really out of his league at the Big Dance.  

I have to agree with leepaisan.  The key to Pitt in this tournament will be coaching.  We all know that this team is capable of beating any other team in the country.  If they have nights where the shooting is just off and they lose, we will have to accept that (though the key to this team is not their shooting % on the first shot, but second chance points), but that has not been the case the last two games.  Pitt was outcoached in both the WVU and ETSU game.  The players were not prepared mentally, both in regard to motivation and preparation for the 1-3-1 and full court press.  Pitt always plays well when they are the underdog, and underdelivers when they are favorites.  This tells me that the team is motivated by external forces and not internally by the coaches or players. 

After watching Blair in the ETSU game, I him to get on the team and make sure everyone is much more motivated to play than last game.  Of course there are a lot of external voices that question Pitt, so motivation should not be an issue.  I just hope we are better prepared to handle defenses that the whole world knows are coming.  A good opposing coach will also have different full court and zone looks.  A team that has aspirations of winning the championship will not only have to overcome their known weaknesses, but be able to react to new ones as they are uncovered.

That said, I think Dixon is doing a great job.  We still don't have the recruits that other schools do, and we continue to compete at the highest level.  Next year's recruiting class is getting better, and this team has the opportunity to make recruiting in the future much easier for the coach.