Part 2 of my look at the Big East past to future is at College Basketball (Part 1, here) is up. I’ll be re-posting it on PSB next week. My little co-guest-blogging stint at Yoni’s site is over, and I want to thank him for the invite. If you’re not reading College Basketball Blog, you should. Yoni does a great job covering a subject he truly loves.

We’ve had a spike in traffic in the last couple weeks here. Pitt fans and alumni are trying to find out what is going on with the coach search. We’re sharing what we know, and adding to the speculation. Hopefully, without taking ourselves or the subject matter too seriously.

We do appreciate the comments and there have been some very kind e-mails to us. It is gratifying. So I just want to take a moment first to thank some of our earliest readers, commenters and e-mailers. B.B., JFC, Tony in Harrisburg, Matt, James and Steve — all of you have been great. Thanks for the comments, thoughts, challenging assumptions, extra info. Everything.

To the newer readers, thanks for coming back. I’m sure you’ve figured out that this is not an unbiased source of information.

Considering we do this for fun, and without much in the way of self-promotion, it’s almost funny and at times a little unnerving to realize people are coming here to get information.

Hopefully Pitt will make a good hire in the next week or two and we can get back to actually discussing the games.

Pitt crushed Coppin St. This was not a surprise. No Pitt player went more than 25 minutes in the game. Pitt cruised to a 73-42 win. Pitt never trailed. An easy win against a bad opponent.

I mean, both papers came with the same angle on this game — Coppin St. once upset South Carolina at the Civic Mellon Arena in ’97 in the NCAA Tournament. A #15 seed over a #2 seed. That was really all they had to sell this game against a MEAC team from Baltimore (hell, I didn’t even know where Coppin St. was, and I was born in Baltimore).

I was feeling down last night about the coach search. I’m not saying I feel good about it now, but I’m trying to stay on more of an even-keel. There should be some reason for encouragement. AD Jeff Long appears to be racking up some frequent flier miles this weekend.

He flew out to New Jersey to interview the Giants Defensive Coordinator (and former Steeler Defensive Coordinator) and former Pitt player Tim Lewis. This is an intriguing interview to me. Lewis’ name seems to have come out of nowhere. In the last few days the names have been rather consistent, and he wasn’t mentioned. Not living in Pittsburgh any longer, I wonder how people feel about Lewis since he was let go as defensive coordinator. Did he come in for a lot of abuse. I realize he isn’t comparing well to LeBeau as defensive coordinator this year. The more cynical side of me wonders if this interview is just to appease the NCAA by interviewing an African-American.

Today Long flies to an “undisclosed location in the Midwest” to meet and interview Bo Pelini. On Sunday, Long flies to Indianapolis to interview Matt Cavanaugh, the offensive coordinator for the Ravens. It’s unclear how serious either side is. Paul Zeise at the P-G has his doubts.

The Lewis interview is also important to me, because it is about the only thing that gives me some hope that AD Long might be looking at more than a narrow little group.

So far the process has been questionable and closed off to say the least. In Long’s press conference on Monday, Long said candidates did not have to have ties to him or Pitt. Yet that’s all it has been. Look at the names. Wannstedt was a Pitt alum, and close to Chancellor Nordenberg; Rhoads is the present defensive coordinator; Pelini is co-defensive coordinator at Oklahoma where Long was the assistant AD; Cavanaugh and even Lewis both played for Pitt.

Where is even the spark of creative thinking? It seems that Long hasn’t gotten much past his “mental short list.” And this search, in a much shorter time frame, has become remarkably similar to finding a successor to Howland. Run at a bigger name, then go with the assistant.

Maybe I’m wrong about Rhoads. Maybe he is like Fulmer at Tennessee when they ran off Johnny Majors. No, wait, I’m sorry. According to history, he resigned after not getting an extension with 2 years left on his contract. That seems oddly familiar. Or maybe he’s like Bob Davie at ND after Holtz.

What is surprising me, is how Pitt has suddenly accelerated the search. It seems like a bit of panic to what should have been the expected losses in commitments. A search that Long indicated might take weeks not days, looks like it could be settled by the end of next week. I just think they need to look at a few more guys.