An important game for Big East and NCAA Tournament seeding takes place Thursday night when unranked Pittsburgh (19-6, 7-5 Big East) plays at No. 21 Notre Dame (18-5, 8-3).
Pitt needs this win much more than the Irish as the Panthers, who had been ranked in 43 consecutive polls since December 2005, dropped out of the Top 25 following last Friday's 72-54 loss at Marquette. It was Pitt's worst loss in a Big East regular-season game in seven years, or since an 84-64 defeat at Rutgers on Feb. 11, 2001.
Pitt has been ranked as high as No. 6 this season but has lost four of its past eight games.
The good news for the Panthers is junior starting point guard Levance Fields is back.
In his first game back after being out since a Dec. 29 game against Dayton because of a fractured bone in his left foot, Fields was rusty against Marquette, going 1 for 7 from the field and scoring just four points in 20 minutes.
Fields took his struggles in stride. The Pitt training and coaching staffs had been telling him that it was going to take some time for him to get back to where he was before the injury. (NCAA Injury report)
"No matter how long I would have waited, that would have happened because I missed so much time," Fields said. "I would say I was 85 percent. Of course, I wasn't 100 percent. But I knew that going in. I'm not going to make any excuses. I tried to give what I could. Obviously, it wasn't enough, and we got blown out."
Fields is the Panthers' third-leading scorer at 11.3 points per game and leads the team in assists, averaging 5.2 per game.
"We didn't expect him to be 100 percent," Pitt coach Jamie Dixon said. "Hopefully, he'll get there shortly."Sam Young has given Pittsburgh a go-to scorer all season. The junior is averaging 17.9 points and 6.7 rebounds, increasing his scoring by more than 10 points per game from 2006-07.
The Fighting Irish look to snap a five-game losing streak against the Panthers while trying to extend their school-record home winning streak to 35 games.
Notre Dame hasn't faced Pittsburgh since its 100-97 double-overtime road loss Jan. 4, 2006. The Panthers have won all five meetings since Jan. 12, 2004, including a pair of victories at the Joyce Center (the teams haven't played in 777 days).
This will be the first time Pitt sees Notre Dame sophomore Luke Harangody. The sophomore forward leads the Big East with 20.4 points per game and is the conference's second-leading rebounder (10.3).
The Irish are atop the conference in scoring with 80.2 points per game, while Pittsburgh is in seventh with a total of 74 points per game. Conversely, the Panthers are fourth in scoring defense giving up a stifling 62.7 per game, while the Irish are eighth, allowing 68.5 per contest.
The Irish are easily the conference's best-shooting team from beyond the 3-point line, converting on 40.5 percent of their attempts.
A win tonight for the Irish means they keep pace with third-place Connecticut and take one step closer toward a first-round league tournament bye and top-four finish. Pittsburgh just needs to get its confidence back after last week's lopsided loss.
"We've got to bring everything (tonight) because they're not going to back down from us," said Irish point guard Tory Jackson. "They know about the (home win) streak. They're probably one of the teams that feels, 'We're going to break it.' "
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