The Pittsburgh Panthers are a huge seed on the March Madness odds for their opening round contest against the East Tennessee State Buccaneers as the NCAA Tournament kicks off in just a few days.

The question for the Pitt Panthers isn’t going to be can they get past the first round – or the first weekend, for that matter – it will be a question of whether they can get beyond the Sweet Sixteen. The Panthers have been led by head coach Jamie Dixon for six seasons and in that time, they have qualified for the NCAA Tournament every single year. That’s a positive. But in those six years, they haven’t been past the Sweet Sixteen. That’s a negative.

March Madness betting handicappers have realized that the bar has been raised for the program, which is a good sign, but now they have to jump the new bar that has been set or they will be just half-satisfied once again.

The current version of the Panthers, though, is built for a serious run and quite frankly, anything besides the Elite Eight will be viewed as a huge disappointment. March Madness betting handicappers should take a good look at the Panthers’ roster. They are led by a talented point guard, Levance Fields, a senior forward who can fill it up in Sam Young and a powerful post presence in DeJuan Blair. Those three players are well above average at their positions, which is why the Panthers are where they are.

And while the scoring for this team has increased, March Madness betting sharps have noticed that the defense is just as stifling. Only seven opponents have scored more than 70 points per game on the Panthers this season.

There are a couple of issues for the Panthers to watch out for. For starters, the Panthers typically lose when DeJuan Blair gets into foul trouble. When he is forced to sit on the bench, the Panthers just don’t have the same inside-out game and the team struggles. In all four of the Panthers losses, Blair was in some sort of foul trouble. To be specific, Blair has fouled out in three games and in each of those games, the Panthers have lost.

Secondly, you have to wonder about health for this team. Maybe an early round exit from the Big East Tournament was a blessing in disguise for the Panthers, who were banged up near the end of the season. Fields used the extra week to recover, even though he played through pain against West Virginia. March Madness betting sharps shouldn’t be too concerned as of right now, but keep in mind that the Panthers might not be the healthiest squad heading to the Tournament.

Their first-round opponent, East Tennessee State, who have been a tricky first-round opponent in the past. No No. 16 seed has ever come closer to winning against a No. 1 seed than ETSU. In 1989, they fell short of top-ranked Oklahoma by one point. No No. 16 seed has ever defeated a No. 1 seed.

March Madness betting sharps should note that ETSU feels a little slighted that they got stuck with a No. 16 seed. They felt that with their RPI, they could easily have been one or two seedings higher. As a No. 14 seed, ETSU toppled the No. 3 Arizona Wildcats back in 1992.

Overall, this will be the eighth appearance by ETSU in the NCAA Tournament. They are just 2-8 to this point.

ETSU maybe is a bit better than a 16 seed and if they can get Blair into foul trouble, anything can happen. But the more likely scenario is the Blair dominates the paint, since ETSU hasn’t seen anyone of his caliber through their Atlantic Sun Conference run.

March Madness betting is all about the upsets but ETSU would need some miraculous help to get past the Panthers in this first round matchup.

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