By The Associated Press

This year’s NCAA tournament is a family affair for the Dixons.

Pittsburgh coach Jamie Dixon is taking his Panthers to the men’s tournament for a third straight year. Not to be outdone, little sister Maggie led Army to its first bid in the women’s field, six months after getting her first head coaching job.

“What can I tell you? It’s beyond belief,” said their proud father, Jim Dixon. “It’s a wonderful, wonderful thing.”

Historical, too. The Dixons are believed to be the first brother and sister to coach in the Division-I tournament in the same year.

“It was never determined, This is what you’re going to do, be the first brother and sister in the NCAA tournament,”‘ Jim Dixon said. “You never thought about those implications. But since this is what we’ve got, we’ll take it.”

Though there are 12 years between Jamie and Maggie, the oldest and youngest of the three Dixon kids, the two have always been close. There was never any sibling rivalry, and because of their age difference, they never went through that period of fighting and squabbling most brothers and sisters do.

Maggie was 5 when Jamie went off to school at TCU, and still in grade school when he went to play overseas. But when he’d go back to Los Angeles to see his family, Maggie was sure to be close by.

“I remember he bought me my first Cabbage Patch Kid,” Maggie Dixon said, laughing. “When he was younger, he was really quiet. It was kind of like me the younger sister running around, being rambunctious. He’d always bring me around with his friends, and I just loved him to death.”

All three of the Dixons were into sports growing up. But it was clear early on that Jamie had a special talent for basketball.

“He was playing point guard and directing teams all over the place at 6 years old,” Jim Dixon said. “And Maggie was the same way. She just loved it. She used to play in the backyard all the time.”

Maggie had hoped to play in the WNBA after graduating from the University of San Diego. When the Los Angeles Sparks cut her after a tryout in May 2000, she was devastated.

Naturally, one of the first people she called was her big brother.

“I remember that very vividly,” Jamie Dixon said. “Not being there at the time and knowing – I’ve been there before. I was cut by the NBA so I know the feeling. It was tough, but the next day she really showed me what she was about.”

Jamie was already well into his coaching career by then. After stints at UC-Santa Barbara, Hawaii and Northern Arizona, he followed Ben Howland to Pitt in 1999 as Howland’s associate head coach and recruiting coordinator.

Maggie Dixon had thought about coaching, and even sent out a few resumes. But the talk with her brother accelerated the process.

“He said, If you want to do this coaching thing, do something drastic,”‘ she recalled. “That’s what I did.”

A friend was moving to Chicago, and Maggie offered to drive with her. When she got to Chicago, she dropped in on DePaul coach Doug Bruno and asked if he’d hire her. Though he didn’t know her, Bruno offered her a job working one of his camps.

A few weeks later, he hired her as a graduate assistant. Dixon was promoted to full-time assistant the next May, and Bruno’s recruiting coordinator a year after that. In May 2004, Bruno made her his top assistant.

“I went from walking off the street to being a recruiting coordinator in two years,” Dixon said. “Jamie and I always joked that I was going to be a head coach before he was.”

That, of course, didn’t happen. When Howland left Pitt for UCLA after the 2003 season, Dixon took over. The Panthers went a school-record 31-5 in his first season, and reached the regional semifinals for a third straight year.

He’s 75-21 in three seasons, with NCAA appearances each year. The Panthers (24-7) are the fifth seed in the Oakland Regional this year, and open the tournament against Kent State on Friday night in Auburn Hills, Mich.

“I’m so proud and impressed and really happy for how his career has played out,” Maggie Dixon said. “That has a lot to do with how he carries himself and how he deals with people. It’s not just this year, obviously this year is great, but I’m just so proud of his whole career.”

And her brother equally so.

When Army found itself without a coach last October, two weeks before practice began, the Black Knights called Maggie Dixon.

“I knew she’d have success,” Jamie Dixon said. “I knew it was going to happen, but obviously didn’t know it would happen this quickly. The timing did not lend one to believe there would be immediate success in the first year.”

After scuffling through the first half of the season at .500, Army won nine of its last 11 regular-season games. It then beat Lafayette and Colgate to reach the Patriot League finals, where the Black Knights (20-10) earned their first trip to the NCAA tournament with a 69-68 victory over Holy Cross.

Army, the 15th seed in the Cleveland Regional, plays perennial powerhouse Tennessee on Sunday in Norfolk, Va.

That sets up one of the few conflicts between brother and sister: If Pitt beats Kent State, it also will play Sunday.

“It’s probably tougher for my dad and my mom, who want to figure out a way to go to both games,” Jamie Dixon said.

After spending the early part of the week at West Point with Maggie, Jim Dixon hopped on a train Wednesday so he can watch his son’s team in Auburn Hills. His wife, Marge, returned to Los Angeles after spending last weekend on the East Coast, and wasn’t sure where she was going to go.

As for Jamie and Maggie, they’re just enjoying the ride.

“The exposure the last couple weeks for Jamie’s team and my team really means a lot,” Maggie Dixon said. “Jamie and I are going to be doing this for a long time. Hopefully people will still think it’s a cool thing in 20, 30 years.”

AP-ES-03-15-06 1700EST