Now that the first two rounds are complete, here are some of my thoughts and observations about this NCAA Tournament ...

Davidson sniper Stephen Curry is yet another reminder that shooting is not completely a lost art. Players who learn how to shoot and work on the fundamentals of their shot are invaluable. It is not a surprise given that Curry is the son of this former NBA sharpshooter ...

It is clear that Curry drilled his son on the fundamentals of the game and taught him the fine art of shooting. If you watch that clip, you see a lot of similarities in the way father and son shoot the ball -- it is something sweet.

Dell Curry played 16 seasons in the NBA and much of the latter part of his career he was able to find work because he could shoot it and provided instant offense off the bench. Think about this -- Curry shot 40 percent from 3-point range for his career. That's pretty ridiculous considering he took almost 3,100 3's. He also shot 84 percent from the free throw line -- which is pretty incredible, though his son is shooting about 89 percent from the line.

So what's my point? Shooting is an art form and it is one that can be developed. When you see a guy who isn't afraid to make it rain from 25 feet away, it is a thing of beauty. But Curry is more than a shooter, he's a scorer and that makes him a lot of fun to watch because there are times when he makes great defenders look silly.

And The Wildcats provide yet more evidence that when it comes to NCAA Tournament time, if you have one guy who can go off for 30 -- or 40 like Curry did in round one -- on any given night, you have a chance to win every game. Georgetown led that game by 17 and made the mistake of letting Curry, who was struggling a little bit early in the game, get warmed up. The next thing you know, the Hoyas were trailing.

Davidson might not win another game, but don't be surprised if they do because Curry - a scorer who is a pure shooter -- is an X-factor that no other team really has.

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We're a provincial bunch here in Pittsburgh so the West Regional is clearly our favorite.

Of course we all know that Xavier's coach, Sean Miller, was an excellent former Pitt player and UCLA's coach, Ben Howland, had a big hand in building the Panthers into an excellent Big East team. And West Virginia is one of our "local" teams. But if there has to be a Pittsburgh connection, well, a good friend and mentor of West Virginia coach Bob Huggins is Pittsburgh-based AAU king, J.O. Stright.

But what's the connection with Western Kentucky? Well, we had to stretch for this one -- and a huge stretch at that -- and you have to think "Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon" in order to follow this jump, but here goes: Western Kentucky Coach Darrin Horn was an assistant at Marquette during the Dwayne Wade era. And Marquette's coach, Tom Crean, is a former Pitt assistant ...

See how that works?

As far as the actual basketball -- UCLA has lived a charmed life this year and had at least three games handed to them by officiating. I think they could win the national championship, but sooner or later you'd have to figure the refs aren't going to bail them out. That being said, they are too strong for Western Kentucky and I expect them to be in the Elite Eight.

Xavier and WVU is a very intriguing game and I really think it will come down to this -- how well Joe Alexander shoots the ball. The Mountaineers will bring their defense and they'll rebound hard as they always do. But the team struggles on offense sometimes and they need Alexander to be on his game so that when they go through those stretches where nobody else seems to be able to shoot straight, they can call his number and get some points in order to stop the Muskateers runs.

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I was going to write about how Pitt doesn't really get it yet in terms of what really matters when judging elite programs, but I'll leave that to my colleague Bob Smizik who spelled it out in this morning's paper. Elite programs understand that you are defined and remembered by what you do in the NCAA Tournament.

And for all the glitzy statistics that we are constantly bombarded with from those up on the hillside, the reality is this -- the Jamie Dixon era has produced a 6-5 NCAA Tournament record and of those six wins, five of them have come against Central Florida, Kent, Wright State, Virginia Commonwealth and Oral Roberts. That's not exactly a who's who of great college programs and just in case you missed it, they were seeded 14th, 12th, 14th, 11th and 13th.

The only quality NCAA Tournament win the Dixon-led Panthers have produced in five years was against Wisconsin in 2004 -- and even then Pitt was a No. 3 seed and Wisconsin was No. 6, so they were supposed to win that game. And taking it one step further, the Panthers have yet to beat a team they were not supposed to beat in the NCAA Tournament, which, by the way, is something the women's team pulled off last night with an upset win over No. 3 seed Baylor.

What does it all mean? It means that the Panthers are a very good team within the cozy confines of the Big East (and its officiating crews) but they are not yet an elite program. They have been an excellent program from the standpoint of consistency and beating teams they are supposed to beat. But until they begin to consistently fare better in the tournament that matters, they aren't that much different than the Gonzaga's of this world -- an excellent regular season team that isn't yet good enough to get it done when it counts.

One other thing: We've been told constantly that the Panthers have played the "toughest schedule in the country" over the past two seasons. Let's examine that a little closer -- they've played 28 non-conference games in that two-year span and only four -- Duke and Mississippi Valley State this year and Wisconsin and Florida A&M last year -- were tournament teams. In other words, they played 24 games against non-tournament teams and their schedule strength is highly overrated.

Again, Pitt's run has been marvelous and has produced some great moments, but the Panthers are not yet an elite program and might not ever become one.