Pitt has announced that Levance Fields and Trevor Ferguson both signed and submitted their Letter of Intent to play at Pitt starting in 2005.

With the signings of Ferguson and Fields, Pitt will welcome five new players to campus for the 2005-06 season. Ferguson and Fields join three other student-athletes who signed NLIs in the fall: power forward Tyrell Biggs, post player Doyle Hudson and small forward Sam Young.

Pitt’s recruiting class has been ranked among the nation’s top-25 nationally in two different polls: Hoopscooponline.com (No. 13) and Rivals.com (No. 25).

The signing period runs through May 18.

The press release has bio info on the two.

This will be a solid recruiting class that seems to be flying under the national radar. Good. Pitt has definitely been best when underestimated.

Levance Fields was named NY Newsday’s Player of the Year.

Xaverian coach Jack Alesi was most impressed with Fields’ leadership and his ability to rally his team. “He’s beyond the normal scope of what a great player is,” Alesi said. “He makes others around him better and he knows when he has to take over.”

In the Jordan classic, where he scored 18 points, they all came in the second half. Let the comparisons to Krauser begin.

“I like the light on me,” he said. “I come from Brooklyn, from the Brownsville area. I grew up in a tough neighborhood and when you step onto the court, you have to have a lot of heart and be ready to play to your fullest.”

It is the way Krauser, another New York native, has played the game, and Fields is likely to step in as the heir apparent at the point for Pitt, should Krauser stick in the NBA and not return to the Panthers for his final season.

The other Pitt recruit who stood out in the final high school all-star games was Tyrell Biggs. He feels confident about coming in and making a difference.

Biggs, who is the third consecutive Pitt recruit to earn most outstanding player at the Chicago all-star game, is eager to come to Pitt, where he expects to be joined by the Panthers’ other newcomers in mid-June for summer workouts.

“I can offer a good inside-outside presence. I know that it’s a really big difference between high school and college, but with a lot of hard work and hustle and communication with my teammates, I think we can be a real good team.”

This will be a team high on potential, but short on experience.

Pitt news articles should be coming to a near stop this week. Spring Practice is over, the new logo is here, and Pat just let us know that he got the materials to renew our football season tickets. I have some topics and posts I will be working on, from some suggestions e-mailed to me by readers. If you have any, to suggest feel free to e-mail me.

One more article talking about the Blue-Gold Scrimmage. Strange that it would appear that Pitt suddenly has depth at tailback.

The coaches are now going into the film rooms and groups.

The coaches must evaluate players and positions and come up with a depth chart.

“Now we’re going to sit down and evaluate every tape of every spring practice and figure out what we need to do to improve ourselves,” coach Dave Wannstedt said. “We know where we need to improve. We have to keep talking about pass rush. We have to generate a pass rush on defense. But we got done what we needed to and now we will refine things as coaches. We will find what we need to delete and what we need to add on and get ready for training camp.

“That’s the next step. It is a process. We have a long way to go but we’re off to a good start.”

Last year, the defense was way ahead of the offense. Something we saw through the first few games. This year, the defense is not as advanced as the offense.