The Pitt Athletic Dept. is pushing Eric Gill’s catch and run in the final minute as the ESPN/Pontiac Game Changing Play. Good.

At this point, it is actually leading the voting 40-32 over the Michigan State play.

Go and vote.

While Pitt is getting plenty of respect, everyone prefaces their previews with comments like “the loss of Page and Brown” and/or mention of the poor outside shooting. I noted that in the first exhibition, that Freshman Ronald Ramon, caught everyone’s eye by shooting 5-7 from behind the 3-point line. Well Luke Winn was scouring the exhibition boxscores, and he noticed.

Freshman guard Ronald Ramon could be the cure to Pitt’s long-range shooting ills. The rookie from the Bronx hit five 3s on seven attempts in the Panthers’ first scrimmage against Carnegie-Mellon on Nov. 6, and added two more against Gannon on Nov. 14, making him 7-for-11 on the season. The rest of the Panthers have made eight treys combined. This is a team that won the Big East last season while shooting just 30.6 percent — the second-worst mark in the conference — from behind the arc. Any semblance of a perimeter offense will give Chris Taft and Chevon Troutman the breathing room they need in the post.

Also, some more news about the radio broadcasts of Pitt games and Coach Jamie Dixon’s radio shows.

Or go here and listen to the Tim Brando Radio Show from 3-6 (either via Real or Winamp). Why? Well it seems Tyler Palko was named The Sporting News Player of the Week. That means he will be interviewed on the national radio show this week.

Beano Cook said in his column about Palko:

There may not be a quarterback in the country who has had a better season as a first-year starter than Pittsburgh’s Tyler Palko, the first player to ever throw for five touchdown passes against Notre Dame.

A bit of hyperbole, but Palko did lead Pitt to a win over one of Beano’s favorite teams.

Most of the stories in papers where a Big East school is located is like this from the Trib. Essentially, it regurgitates the Big East Press release. It was announced too late to do much else, but expect some comments from some coaches in the next couple of days — especially from Jim Calhoun who was pushing a 2 division format.

There were some minor exceptions, like this from NY Newsday:

How this will affect St. John’s is uncertain. Geographically, the Red Storm is closest to Seton Hall, Rutgers and Connecticut. In terms of rivalries, St. John’s-Georgetown was among the keystones of the conference in its formative years and, because both programs are starting over with new head coaches, they remain a good match. But the Queens school also has a great history with Syracuse.

“St. John’s is excited about the future of the Big East and, with the new structure, we’re hopeful that the traditional rivalries stay intact,” coach Norm Roberts said yesterday. “We’re also looking forward to creating rivalries and traditions with the new member teams.”

The setup sounded familiar in Louisville.

Tranghese said the repeat matchups will be designed to “help our television partners and accentuate rivalries.”

U of L coach Rick Pitino recognizes the sound of that. In Conference USA, the Cardinals and several other high-profile teams played a more difficult league schedule in order to set up more attractive TV games.

“We’ll get the worst part of it,” Pitino quipped. “We’re not going to come out smelling like roses. TV will influence it, and that will make it tough, but that’s a tribute to the great tradition of Louisville basketball and Freedom Hall and our fan support.”

Pitino even began a tongue-in-cheek lobbying effort. He’ll have eight newcomers on next season’s team, among them a freshman class that Hoop Scoop recruiting service already ranks as No. 1 in the nation. But Pitino had a different message for TV executives and Big East schedule makers.

“I’d just tell them that we’re just a bag of doughnuts trying to get a break in life,” Pitino said. “They should put us on the back burner for a year. I wouldn’t even put us on TV next year we’re going to be so young. We’ll still have pimples all over our faces, so don’t put us on TV.”

Cinci coach Bob Huggins naturally was one that doesn’t relish the idea of facing tough opponents too often.

“I’d rather play everybody,” said UC coach Bob Huggins. “I think that’s more equitable, but they’ve got to do whatever they think is best.”

Each school will have three “mirror” schools that it will play on a home-and-home basis each year.

A source close to the Big East said that one of UC’s mirror schools will be Louisville, a longtime Bearcats rival. Cincinnati’s other two mirror schools have yet to be determined.

No one is going to complain too loudly. The whole expansion and revamping the Big East and all conferences is about money and TV. This is just part of it.

Tyler Palko’s post-game commentary made it to the ESPN weekday punditry shows yesterday. Around the Horn put it up against the Anna Nicole Smith drunken presetntation at the American Music Awards show the other night as to which was “worse” — Anna Nicole, easily. Pardon The Interruption had it as part of the “mailbag” segment. Neither Kornheiser or Wilbon had a real problem with it. Wilbon, actually used the instance as another reason to blast at the stupidity and uselessness of the immediate post-game interview feature which never actually provides useful information.

Hopefully this will be the last day it is even a topic of discussion. Ron Cook defends Palko and follows Wilbon’s approach of condemning shoving a microphone in someone’s face after a very emotional moment.

It was also a topic, it seems in the mornings.

Shock jock Howard Stern jumped on the Tyler Palko bandwagon Monday after witnessing the Pitt sophomore quarterback’s off-field performance at Notre Dame Stadium two days earlier.

Stern, never one to shy away from menacing the FCC, supported Palko for the expletive he used in celebrating the Panthers’ victory when being interviewed by an NBC sideline reporter.

Minutes after becoming the first quarterback in history to throw for five touchdowns against the Irish, Palko said, “I’m so proud of our (bleeping) football team.”

I don’t bother listening to Stern, so if anyone who listens can e-mail me their impressions, I’d be happy to post them.

Even the Irish mascot Regis Philbin apparently wanted to mention it on his show. Unforutunately, the article doesn’t tell us what Philbin had to say about it. I won’t insult anyone, by assuming they watch Regis and Kelly.

Pitt has control of its destiny to a large degree again. I think I’ve mentioned once or twice, how much of a problem that can be. Oh, it doesn’t control getting a BCS bid, but if it even wants to make the Insight Bowl and not wait for another bowl to open up, it has to win. Pitt is close and if you want to see how they could make the BCS bowl, it is in the sidebar to this article.

In Harris’ weekly Big East teleconference call, he admitted that the WVU game is a really big game with all of its implications.

“The chances we have are only there if we win,” Harris said on his weekly teleconference. “We have to do everything we can do to win this game because it is a big one. We’ve had two excruciating losses the last two years, so there is more riding on this one than maybe your normal one.

“But I’ve found that if we take care of our business, everything else works itself out. So we have to get ourselves ready to play our best game of the year. We need to win and if we do, some other things could happen for us. It all starts with a win.”

Some members of the media are doing something of a mea culpa regarding Harris calling out some of the players during training camp and pre-season. Seems Harris did know which players needed a bit of a verbal kick in the ass to get focused (Greg Lee). I for one am very happy to be wrong about my concerns.

“I had a good feel for the pulse of our team and our players,” Harris said. “[Media] ran with [my criticism of my players] and ran with it in a negative way, but one thing you recognize now is that, once we get down, we don’t stay down. We are a tough team. I’m not saying we’re the toughest team around, but this is one of the most mentally tough, hard-hitting, we won’t die, teams I’ve had the pleasure to coach.”

Fair enough.

The name change from Team Pittsburgh to Panther Club was noted. Pat wondered why they just didn’t go back to the original name of “Golden Panthers.” I would hazard two possibilities: Golden Panthers sounds like a retirement community of old Pitt alumni and they can use that term as a really high level of donations within Panther Club.

Apparently WVU Coach Rich Rodriguez would like to play the game now, rather than a week later. So would I. The longer the wait, the more time to speculate, ruminate, and overprepare. Pitt has not done well in big games when it has too much time to think about it.