BUFFALO – If Pittsburgh had any inclination to play at anything less than full tilt last night, those worries were squashed by what they saw waiting in the wings before last night’s workmanlike 79-58 thumping of Wright State.

For while the Big East runner-up Panthers idled, waiting to take the floor for their first-round NCAA West Region game, they heard HSBC Arena explode; Virginia Commonwealth had upset Duke, and the hotly-anticipated Pitt-Duke showdown tomorrow had vanished.

Now, it was a matter of making sure Pitt kept its half of the hyphen alive.

“I knew we had the proper mindset coming in here,” Pitt coach Jamie Dixon said after his team took care of its business. “We have things we want to accomplish and we did exactly that.”

All five Pittsburgh starters scored in double figures, led by Ronald Ramon with 14 and Sam Young with 13. Center Aaron Gray added 11 points and nine rebounds. For Wright State, Dashaun Wood scored a game-high 13.

Maryland 82, Davidson 70

There was a moment there when you could sense the eyes of basketball America fixing their glare on HSBC Arena, even as you were sitting inside HSBC Arena. All of the usual warning signs were in place – a high seed was struggling, a low seed was flying, all of the previously neutral members of the audience had leapt with both feet onto the growing bandwagon.

“You could definitely feel the pressure building,” said Gary Williams, son of New Jersey, coach of Maryland, the No. 4 seed in this Midwest Region, whose Terrapins found themselves trailing by eight points with a little more than 16 minutes left in this first-round game.

Sometimes, such moments build into memories, the kind on which the NCAA Tournament prospers. And sometimes, they simply passed into the mist. Like this one. Maryland (25-8) is too good, too strong, too deep. And in the end, Davidson was simply too overmatched to maintain the dream.