Three Rivers Three Links: March 26

It's Sweet 16 Day! The day our beloved Pitt Panthers hope to (finally!) move past the Sweet 16 for the first time since the tournament expanded to 64 teams. It would be a big W for all Panther fans to finally see and to know that the previously unbreakable Sweet 16 glass ceiling has finally been shattered. Standing in the way of our Pitt Panthers are the Xavier Musketeers, a very tall squad at basically every position that is led by former Pitt star Sean Miller. With all that in mind I wanted to go through a few different Musketeer blogs that are out there and see if I can find what their take in all this is:

1. Our leadoff-hitting Xavier blog is called Crosstown Shoutout. I just linked to the front page, because their main preview for this game is breaking down Pitt, and well that's not really something a Pitt fan is going to read. Still, their Pitt preview impressed me. I've seen too many blogs do opposing team previews and F it up something awful. These guys did a nice job. Still, you can obviously go through some of the older posts and find some Xavier team info if you'd like.

2. Head to Musketeer Blogosphere for a few different posts on the Pitt and the game, as well as a bunch of other posts about (obviously) the Musketeers. I also just linked to the front page of the blog, so scroll through whatever you want to see there. As I figured, most of their game preview is also breaking down Pitt. Still, there are a good number of other posts about the X-men worth a look.

3. Finally, some stories from the Cincinnati Enquirer: Sean Miller talks about how tough of a test Pitt is for the X-men. And here are some random notes about the game from the Enquirer.

I'll be back later today with my own preview of this thing.

Finally, I wanted to wrap things up today with a little comment about the controversy over the now-infamous Sidney Crosby video from Puck Daddy. Yesterday in the Links, I wrote about that video and talked quite negatively about Puck Daddy. Greg, the editor at Puck Daddy, shot me (and I'm guessing others who talked negatively about it) an e-mail and gave a bit of inside info about the video that does change things a bit. I'm guessing you've probably read the e-mails that were sent to the Pensblog by now, and as things turn out, those e-mails probably weren't so legitimate after all, especially the "poor college kid" e-mail. Greg sent me the full video and it was pretty clear he wasn't taken advantage of on the cutting-room floor, as the kid claimed in his Pensblog e-mail.

While I still am dubious about the motivations behind that video and obviously don't agree with the impressions left from the video, I also appreciate the way Greg handled this backlash. I'm sure its a bit tough when you have so many blogs bashing you out there, especially when the thing they are bashing you on isn't actually true, either. I can't blame him for e-mailing and getting this whole thing straightened out. So thanks for the heads up Greg.