Ron Cook of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette with a pathetic piece on jumping on the Pitt basketball bandwagon.

There might be hope yet for the long, hard winter.

It comes in the form of the Pitt men’s basketball team. Heaven knows we need it after watching the underachieving Pitt football team lose too many games at home and seeing the exasperating Steelers lose too many games, period, and hearing of the inconsequential Penguins and their depressing financial plight day after day.

Maybe it’s unfair to put a city’s sports hopes on one college team, but these Panthers seem up for the challenge. If their ridiculously easy 64-37 win against Penn State is any indication, they have everything they need to take another run at the Big East Conference championship and have a long stay in the NCAA tournament.

Nice.

Get realistic. Pitt is likely the 3rd best team in the Big East, behind Syracuse and UConn (and it is a very close #3 with Notre Dame right there). Expectations for Pitt are hopeful but modest. New coach, key players gone, and no clue about this team until conference play starts.

Yes the win over Penn St. was impressive, even if Penn St. really sucks. Still, let’s not put expectations too high right now. I still have some qualms.

I’m very worried about the backup point guard — Antonio Graves. Carl Krauser, the starting PG, played 33 minutes. Graves, a freshman, played 14 minutes. He had no assists, 1 turnover and was scoreless on 0-4 shooting. In the 6 games this year, logged a total of 53 minutes, 4 assists, 3 turnovers, and 13 points (5-16 shooting, 3-8 on 3 pointers). Graves needs a lot of work. An injury to Krauser and the season could be toast.