DEJUAN BLAIR, ALL-AMERICAN

It's got a nice ring to it, right? Well, that came true today, as Blair became the first Pitt player to earn first-team All-American honors since Billy Knight in 1974. Send It In Jerome Lane and his backboard-breaking dunk earned second-team honors in 1988, and that was the last flirtation any Panther had with this achievement.

The big man has some big goals for the tournament, as documented today by Ron Cook:

"We're going to Detroit. We've worked too hard to lose now," Pitt center DeJuan Blair said.

That was before the doomed trip to New York, but Blair didn't back off much last night after the brackets were released. The loss to West Virginia? What loss to West Virginia?

"I guarantee you'll see a whole different Pitt team, starting Friday," Blair said. "We're ready to go to work."

Sounds a lot better than the "The refs, they have it out for me" ,"They want to get DeJuan Blair out of the game" rhetoric from last week, no?

Blair named first-team All-American by writers [Trib]

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