The guys at Marquette Hoops linked to the BE Coaching rankings. They also have a countdown clock ’til they officially join the Big East. And I just noticed this:

Looks like the BE is changing logos. Couldn’t find any press release or even a version of this logo on the BE site.

ACC Basketblog also linked to the coach ranking in their Friday round-up. Be sure to check out their story on Clarence “Big House” James.

You hear and read the pious crap that comes from college coaches about their players. How they want what’s best for them. How they understand the difficulties. Well it is so, until it makes their jobs more difficult. This piece from Andy Katz has coaches whining about underclassmen testing the draft waters.

Two to three weeks, max. That’s the total time college coaches say underclassmen should have to make up their mind about staying in the NBA draft. How long do players get now?

Try nearly three months.

College players have from the end of their season until June 21, a week before the NBA draft, to make a decision on staying in the draft. Yes, they have to declare by May 14, but they have another five weeks after that during which they can still withdraw and return to school, as long as they don’t sign with an agent (though you know many get advice from one).

The NBA personnel want the time to evaluate the player on an individual basis. They want to see the player – either against other players in similar situations at the Chicago pre-draft camp the first week of June or in individual workouts at the NBA teams’ practice facilities, under their supervision and against a selected group of players with equal or similar talent.

That’s right, basically if a player wants to consider going into the draft, ending their eligibility, and affecting their entire future. They should make up their mind irrevocably in no more than 21 days.

Why? So the college coaches can go out and recruit their replacements.

While that may make the coaches’ jobs easier, it would screw the players and defeat the whole purpose of the chance for college underclassmen to find out about where they could go in the draft. To work out for teams, to attend pre-draft camps, and generally get a feel for what their future holds regarding playing basketball.

I know, I should be with the coaches on this. After all, with Carl Krauser testing the draft waters Pitt Coach Jamie Dixon can’t be sure whether he needs to prepare for a new starting point guard and can’t offer another scholarship to a high schooler, junior college player or prep player until he knows what Krauser is doing. Going with the coaches, would clearly favor the schools.

Sorry. That’s unfair to Krauser and other college underclassmen. You know too many would err on the side of going pro. I like the period as it is. It gives players the time they should have to decide about leaving school and starting their career. These college coaches who talk so much about wanting what’s best for their kids suddenly lose interest the minute the kid looks to the pros.

Wonder how they would like a rule that restricts when they could make a job change. Only leave for a pro job in a 3 week window, or jump to another school within a certain timeframe after the season ends. I’m sure they would howl long and hard about how unfair and restrictive it would be.

I’m not going to do any ridiculously early prognostications for BE basketball until closer to the NBA draft. At that time, while still stupidly early, at least I’ll know which juniors are jumping and which are coming back to school. Instead, I’ll do something even more subjective and speculative: ranking the 16 coaches in the Big East.

Obviously it is mostly subjective, but there are some variables such as accomplishments, recruiting/player development, reputation, potential and pedigree that can factor into it. Especially in some cases. It comes down to these questions: How would you feel if this guy was the head coach of your team? Would you like your chances of winning with him? How would you like to face a team where he is the head coach?

The top 4 are reasonably set to me. They have the extended resumes that makes them hard to unseat from their perches by the other 12 for at least 3 or 4 more years at best. After that, it starts getting harder.

1. Jim Calhoun, UConn — 2 National Championships, 2 Final Fours, 6 Elite Eights,10 Sweet Sixteens. Has won the BE regular season 8 times and the BE Tournament 6 times. Built UConn from a program with a modest rep (at best) to one of the best, top programs in the country. Even before coming to UConn, he actually made Northeastern relevant in the Boston area. Excellent recruiter. His teams always seem to improve as the season continues. Just voted into the basketball hall of fame.
2. Rick Pitino, Louisville — You could argue that he should simply be tied at #1 with Calhoun and I wouldn’t put up much of a fight. Still, there has to be a second place and in my list, it’s Rick. Pitino has won everywhere in college. He has taken 3 teams to the Final Four. 1 National Championship, 2 Championship Games, 5 Final Fours, 7 Elite Eights. He may annoy you (or just me), but you can’t really argue with the success.
3. Jim Boeheim, Syracuse — The Grand Master of the Big East. Elected to the basketball hall of fame this year. Has a National Championship. Over 700 wins in 29 seasons at Syracuse. The fact that his teams have historically underachieved keeps him out of the discussion for the top spot. He’s a solid #3.
4. Bob Huggins, Cinci — Call him “Thuggins” (Lee) or “Huggy Bear” (My wife and many other Cinci alum), but you have to give him his due. You may not like the man, the style, the kind of players or the graduation rates. Fact is he’s been to the Final Four. He’s been in the NCAA 14 straight years, he’s won the C-USA regular season 10 times and the conference tourney 8 times. The team has underachieved in the NCAA, but you’re reasonably certain of getting there each year.
5. Tom Crean, Marquette — In only 6 years as head coach, he has rebuilt Marquette, gotten them into the Final Four, and is at the top of every school’s wish list when there’s a coaching vacancy. He has been consistently good at recruiting and has a solid track record for developing the players — Wade and Deiner.
6. John Beilein, WVU — Prior to the start of this season I thought that Beilein was one of the better coaches in the Big East. He made me look good. Beilein is a basketball lifer who has slowly and steadily climbed the college basketball coaching ranks to this point. His teams play precise, smart basketball. A very good game coach. The players improve each season and during the season. Because of where he’s been, he’s never had the best talent, and it will be interesting to see if he can finally land some of the better talent after this season, and if he can use it.
7. Jay Wright, Villanova — What a difference a year makes. Last year, he would have been down near the bottom. His team was inconsistent, selfish, and just gave games away despite the talent. It seemed that his success at Hofstra was simply because his talent was so much greater than the rest of the conference, but in the BE he was exposed. He could recruit, but coaching appeared non-existent. Now ‘Nova was a phantom call from the Final Four. He showed he could game plan and adjust in game this season.
8. Jamie Dixon, Pitt — Took a tumble in his second season as a head coach. Last year he was BE Coach of the Year. He is one of the better recruiters in the conference. His coaching flaws, though, were exposed. He had a difficult time managing his bench and using substitutions. All too often the team would come out flat and completely out-of-sorts to start the game, and it seemed to get worse as the season wore on. In-game adjustments were inconsistent, to be kind. Player and team development was definitely called into question as there was no improvement on this team from the beginning to the end of the season. Lots of questions.
9. Mike Brey, ND — He has the resume and pedigree. A key assistant for Mike Krzyzewski at Duke from 1987-95. He spent 5 successful years at Delaware, before taking over at ND. Everyone raves about the players he recruits, and expects big things. It’s been downhill, though. In his first season with Matt Doherty’s players (and whoever was the coach before him), ND finished first in the BE West Division and made the NCAA Tournament. His second season, second in the BE West and again in the NCAA. Third year, third in the BE West, but did make the Sweet Sixteen in the NCAA. His 4th year, the team was 9-7 in the BE and went to the NIT. This past season, again middle of the pack and the team just showed no heart in the last couple weeks of the season. Losing to Rutgers in the BE Tournament and rolling over at home to start the NIT.
10. Tim Welsh, Providence — 7 seasons at Providence. He has 4 winning seasons and 3 losing. His record is 115-99 (.537), but in the BE it is 53-61 (.465). In both the NCAA and NIT Tournaments, Providence has one win. I wouldn’t exactly put him on the hot list.
11. John Thompson III, Georgetown — I severely underestimated him. He took a very thin team that looked weaker than the team that was hideous last year, and had them play great basketball most of the season. The lack of depth took its toll as the team visibly wore down by the end of the season. The coaching doesn’t seem a question, just getting talent and depth.
12. Norm Roberts, St. John’s — This is probably too high for a 1st year head coach who’s team finished 9-18 and second last in the Big East. But I really like what Norm Roberts has done in his first year. His squad was the thinnest and least talented in the Big East with all of the problems and scandals from the Mike Jarvis error. Still they finished out of the basement, which was a surprise. He has quickly mended fences with the area high schools, and despite the potential for NCAA sanctions has landed a very good recruiting class (including beating Pitt for a couple of guys). He spent 7 seasons before this apprenticing under Kansas Coach Bill Self.
13. Louis Orr, Seton Hall — Major tumble. He was the 2003 BE Coach of the Year, and even won a first round game against Arizona last season. This was supposed to be a rebuilding year, but this team just quit. You had numerous player suspensions. A coach who couldn’t get through to his own players. A complete mess of a season, and recruiting has not been very good.
14. Gary Waters, Rutgers — Backers of RU inevitably invoke the idea of a sleeping giant. If the best the giant can do is runner-up in the NIT, then there is a problem. Waters attracted interest from Ohio State over the previous summer, but the RU AD wouldn’t even let them talk. Now Waters is on the warm, if not hot seat. The team could only manage 2 conference wins. Bad team, no cohesion and less than impressive recruiting. The team has hired ace recruiter and the son of the RU baseball coach, Frank Hill, Jr. away from Villanova. Assuming the recruiting picks up, Waters will have even less excuses.
15. Robert McCullum, USF — Honestly, I don’t know if McCullum deserves this rank or not. I know nothing about the guy or the team. He had one season as a head coach at Western Michigan, where he went 20-11. He was an assistant to Lon Kruger at Florida and Illinois for a decade. In his 2 seasons at USF the team is 21-36. He did double their win total from his first year (7) to his second (14).
16. ????????, DePaul — No head coach at this time.

I’m a bit groggy this morning. So, it will stay simple until I can plug the I.V. with coffee into my arm.

Past: Rob Petitti waits to find out where he goes in the draft, and needs to keep the weight off.

“I’m going to keep my eyes off of it,” said Petitti, a native of Rumson, N.J., who grew up a few houses down from The Boss himself, Bruce Springsteen. “I’ll let my dad watch it for me. He’ll tell me when it’s time.”

Petitti did not work out at the NFL Combine due to turf toe, but made an impression during a collegiate career that saw him hold down a starting spot since his freshman season and earn All-Big East honors twice, including first-team the past two seasons.

Draft expert Mel Kiper Jr. rates Petitti as the No. 13 tackle in the draft, describing him as a player with “plenty of pop at the point of attack, but he’ll need to work on sustaining the block and finishing the play.”

NFL Draftscout.com rates Petitti as the 36th offensive tackle. The biggest concern about the former Pitt star stems from his fluctuation in weight. He ballooned to 365 pounds for the Senior Bowl before dropping 30 pounds to get to his current weight of 335-340.

Presently: Pitt defensive end Azzie Beagnyam may be academically ineligible for the upcoming season.

“Azzie’s status with the team for now and the immediate future is uncertain because he has a number of academic obligations to fulfill,” said Pitt sports information director E.J. Borghetti. Beagnyam, who was a starter heading into last season but missed most of the year with a broken ankle, was not permitted to participate in the Blue-Gold spring game because of his academic issues.

Future: In Joe Bendel’s Big East Insider on ESPN.com, the lead story is on QB Tyler Palko and

Offensive Coordinator Matt Cavanaugh developing their relationship.
That’s why Cavanaugh and Pittsburgh junior Tyler Palko were attached at the hip this spring, working endless hours to return the Panthers to glory.

Palko desperately wants a national championship — he pledged to win two upon signing with Pittsburgh — and Cavanaugh, the former offensive coordinator with the Baltimore Ravens who holds the same position with Dave Wannstedt’s Panthers, wants to get him there.

Palko, of course, doesn’t have the luxury of handing the ball to Tony Dorsett 25 times a game like Cavanaugh did, but he does possess the championship qualities that defined his offensive coordinator three decades earlier.

“At the end of the day, we both want to be winners — and that’s crucial,” said Cavanaugh, who ditched former coach Walt Harris’ West Coast offense for a power-running style. “I didn’t care about the personal accolades or anything else as long as we were winning. And Tyler has the same qualities. A difference between us is that I didn’t have the self-confidence Tyler has. He carries himself like a winner.”
…
Although Palko is thrilled to be working with Cavanaugh, it’s no secret he was angered and disappointed to see former coach Harris pack his bags for Stanford in the offseason. (Harris officially resigned after administrators made it clear he wasn’t wanted anymore).

Harris and Palko forged a relationship when the latter was in eighth grade, and, even though they didn’t always see eye to eye, there was a close bond. Palko voiced his displeasure when Harris’ future came into question last season, but refuses to dwell on it. He’s moved on.

“The change has been easy for me, because I’ve been around coaching for such a long time,” said Palko, the son of a highly successful Pittsburgh prep coach. “People come and go in this business. It’s not like I’ll ever forget about coach Harris, but I know this is a business. Coach and I will always have a relationship and no one can take that away from us. He’s been helpful in my career and he really got me to understand a lot of things I already thought I knew. He laid the foundation.

“But it’s a new time now and a new era. I’m excited about working with coach Cavanaugh and continuing my work to be the best.”

And what about that national championship?

“I know both of us are going to work as hard as we can to get there,” Palko said. “I don’t believe in all those other things like fate and that the stars are aligned right because he and I are working together, with coach being the last quarterback to win a championship here. You roll up your sleeves and you work hard and that’s how you become successful.”

I’m ready to break something. Had a really long, detailed post just about finished, went to tweak something and somehow 3/4ths of it disappeared into the ether.

In the meantime, I’ll content myself with looking at the video highlights and post-scrimmage interviews.

Dear Pitt Shop,

First of all, congratulations on being able to sell the new logo apparel before anyone else. I hope business is brisk and sales strong.

As an alumni and one who has spent hundreds of dollars on Pitt gear over the last 18 years (a good chunk at your store) , it is important to note how far you’ve come.

For years, you were practically non-existent. A small little hovel within the bookstore in the Quad. Barely any gear at all worth mentioning.

Then in the early 90s, Pitt decided you needed a place of your own (and the accompanying revenue). To do so, they kicked out a long-time tenant and alumni who operated the Pitt Store on Forbes Avenue. This created much consternation from the community and alumni who found the methods heavy-handed and unfair. You’ve had to patiently wait for the negative fallout from that action to recede. It took time before some alumni would even set foot in your store.

If that wasn’t enough, there was competition right down the street from an operation that literally operates out of the back of a truck. With their reduced overhead, they usually have slightly lower prices than you. Attempts to get rid of the competition by Pitt have failed and you bore the brunt of the ire for the school’s action.

Then the football team started playing its games off-campus, killing your Saturday sales expectations. Most of the time there is just no way anyone is showing up at the store before or after the game.

Still, you have persevered and evolved. You added a catalog to help further sales. You even got the products online and have a direct link through the Pitt Athletic Department website.

It is your website that I wish to discuss. Let me put this as delicately as I can.

It’s an embarrassment.

Look at it. Look at the storefront photo. You attempt to frame the shot, but it cuts off on each side. Look at the layout. You can’t get a really good look at the items once you click them. There is no “larger view” link to really see the individual products.

This is all fixable and not that difficult. And it brings me to the main issue.

For god’s sake get your own host and system and get off of “Yahoo! stores.”

Are you telling me, the Pitt athletic department or the University can’t help set you up with your own domain name and space on their servers? Are you so cheap, you can’t get your own payment system rather than just use the standard one from Yahoo!?

I mean, you are the “official headquarters” for licensed Pitt merchandise according to your site. Start acting like it. You have no idea how annoying it is to see that little “Y!” appear in the address bar when I click to the Pitt Shop. What’s next? Set up a store on eBay?

Thanks for reading this.

Regards,
Chas Rich, CAS ’92

I’m filing this under: How did I miss it? A week before Pitt premeires the new logo and return to Pitt, Eric Moneypenny at Fox Sports.com was writing about football unis and who should go old school.

I know, the school’s colors are officially Gold and Dark Blue now, instead of Dijon Mustard and Royal Blue. And “Pitt” is frowned upon. Keep the colors. But embrace the “Pitt.” Wannstedt is selling the program’s proud history of Marino, Hugh Green, Dorsett, and National Championships to recruits and the fan base all that he wants, and he’ll probably do well in doing so. But the current uniforms aren’t Tony Dorsett, they’re Larry Fitzgerald. Really good, but not great.

Don’t break your arm patting yourself on the back too much. This had been rumored for a while.

Coach Wannstedt will be doing the local radio thing this week. A couple early AM appearances on Wednesday and then in studio with Mark Madden on Friday.

Greg Doyel at Sportsline.com discusses Juniors who will test the draft waters after next season. Not that, they will necessarily go pro, but that they will see where they are:

Aaron Gray, Pittsburgh: Without Chris Taft and Chevy Troutman, Gray — 7-feet, 275 pounds — will get as many minutes as he can handle next season. On a per-minute basis, Gray — who averaged 4.3 points and 2.8 rebounds — wasn’t much less productive than Taft (13.3 points, 7.5 rebounds) this past season. And the NBA loves guys who are 7-feet, 275 pounds.

Hey, if Chris Mihm could go #7, why not?

Planning to get drunk on the couch watch the draft this weekend? If you have ESPN-U, Coach Wannstedt will be on their college-NFL draft coverage.

Big East newcomers Bobby Petrino of Louisville and Pitt’s Dave Wannstedt are scheduled to appear on ESPNU’s college football-oriented NFL Draft coverage. New Marshall coach Mark Snyder’s old boss, Jim Tressel, will also be dropping by. Marc Bulger’s favorite target, Torry Holt, will become the first active NFL player to provide draft analysis on ESPN’s main set. …

I think the ESPNU show is supposed to talk about the upcoming season for the college teams in light of players lost to the draft (or in Pitt’s case the lack of many impact players lost to the draft).

And in completely unrelated, if you actually live in Pittsburgh, you might want to venture to Homestead this weekend to see what you can bid on from the Chiodo collection.

“It’s like an archeology dig in here, trying to separate the true antiques from everything else,” Tripp Kline says as he and his crew organize and identify thousands of hard hats, boots, rifles, guitars, train lanterns, model planes, boxing gloves, football helmets and bras that dangled from the building’s seldom-seen tin ceilings. And that’s not even starting to categorize the photos, beer signs and other mill-town memorabilia that covered just about every square millimeter of the saloon’s walls. This Sunday at noon, everything — including beer taps and a preserved rattlesnake in a jar — will go on the block in the parking lot next to the building.

“Every time we take something down,” Kline says, “we find two or three more things behind it. Yesterday we discovered an autographed photo of Joe (Chiodo) with Tony Dorsett during his playing days at Pitt, long before anyone knew he’d end up in the football hall of fame. There are so many layers.”

I have to imagine there might be some really old-school Pitt items there.

You know, I think I’ve forgotten to give Coach Jamie Dixon and his staff their due on the recruiting job they have done. This is 2 straight years of a strong recruiting class. DeGroat may not have stepped in there like expected and it took Benjamin a little more time (not to mention injuries), but the Pitt coaches have done an outstanding job. Pitt has made smart hires in the coaching and support staff to create access to the more fertile recruiting areas.

The additions of Levance Fields and Trevor Ferguson make this a very strong class. Ferguson was a bit of a surprise addition and being the first recruit Pitt has gotten out of Florida since I don’t even know.

But during his senior season at Oldsmar Christian Academy in Pinellas County, Fla., Ferguson averaged 26.0 points, 11.0 rebounds and 7.5 assists per game to lead the Eagles to the Florida Class A quarterfinals.

Larry Bache, Ferguson’s coach at Oldsmar Christian Academy, which finished the season ranked No. 2 in Class A and No. 9 overall in Florida’s high school rankings, called Ferguson “phenomenal.”

Ferguson, Bache said, has fully recovered from a freak accident two years ago in which he broke both of his wrists when he got entangled in the basket after dunking the ball and landed on his hands.

“If I’m the coach on the other team, the first question I’m asking is, ‘Who can guard him?'” Bache said. “He has speed, he can post you up and he can dunk. Your only prayer of stopping him is with a 6-6 two-guard who’s fast. He’s just an impossible matchup.”

Maybe a bit of hyperbole, but after watching Pitt get torched repeatedly by players who could go inside and out this season it’s nice to think the team might have one for itself.

These two additions, along with essentially the final grades on the recruits by scouting groups, put Pitt in or around the top-25 in recruiting classes.

Unless there is a late addition — Pitt has one scholarship remaining and the spring signing period ends in the middle of next month — Dixon’s second recruiting class is complete. According to recruiting services, Pitt’s class is among the top half in the Big East Conference and a few rank it as a top 25 class nationally.

Pitt’s class is ranked No. 13 by Hoopscooponline and No. 25 by Rivals.com. Three players are ranked among the top 100 in the country, according to Rivals. Young, a 6-foot-7, 215-pound forward from Hargrave Military Academy, is No. 71; Biggs, a 6-8, 260-pounder from Don Bosco Prep in New Jersey, is No. 78; and Fields, a 5-10, 196-pound guard from Xaverian High in Brooklyn, N.Y., is No. 88.

“Solid is the word that comes to mind,” [Jerry] Meyer[, Scout.com’s national recruiting analyst,] said of Pitt’s class. “They filled every position, except a true center. They added players that match their physical style of play with Biggs and Young. In Fields, they got a tough, gritty point guard in the mold of Krauser, only Fields is smaller than Krauser. And with Trevor Ferguson, they picked up a real good shooter, something that they’ve really needed there. I don’t think there’s any one player who makes this class. I just think it has five solid players.”

According to the sidebar on the article, Scout.com has Pitt out of the top-25 in their rankings. Interesting to take a look at the sidebar to get an idea of the variance and natural difficulty in ranking the classes. It’s always easier at the top. Louisville has only a small range difference of 1 to 5. Cinci and DePaul each make only one of the 3 lists. Marquette is anywhere from 13 to 23.

No matter, there are 8 teams for next year’s Big East that can make a case to have a top-25 recruiting class. The thing to watch is what the teams get out of the players.

UConn, Cinci, Louisville and Syracuse have the coaches with the longest and strongest track records of getting their talent to perform (in Cinci’s case there is something of a caveat limiting to the regular season). I don’t add Marquette because Crean just doesn’t have the years to be placed there, but he’s fast earning the reputation to get discussed.

DePaul just lost their head coach to Virginia so they are a question mark.

Notre Dame and Mike Brey have shown real signs of underachieving with talent in the 4-5 years. Pitt and Dixon are incomplete since it is still too early to tell.

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.

I’m not ready, yet, but there are some vague prognostications about the bloated Big East.

April is known for its attrition — both planned and unplanned — but in the Big East it has been ridiculous. Here’s an alphabetical look at the upheaval:
…
Pittsburgh

Early departures: Center Chris Taft is gone for good to the NBA, and point guard Carl Krauser might not be far behind.

Graduating contributors: Without Chevy Troutman, the Panthers will lose their top three scorers if Krauser stays in the draft. Mark McCarroll is replaceable.

Staff turnover: None.

Immediate outlook: If you’ve got stock in Pitt basketball, now’s the time to sell.

Coach Jamie Dixon is going to be in a tough situation. Realistically, there should be less pressure on Dixon and Pitt in 2005-06 with the losses of Troutman and Taft (and maybe Krauser), and none of the returning players really inspiring confidence that they can pick up the slack. At the same time, there is a fairly talented incoming recruiting class with reasonably high expectations.

This will really be considered Dixon’s team. Even if Krauser returns — considering how much he wanted Dixon to get the job — it will no longer be considered Dixon coaching Howland’s players. For good and bad.

Now as for the future, a couple of those 2005 recruits were playing in some HS all-star games last night.

Levance Fields who turned his whole HS team’s season around, had a nice game in a defensive struggle in the Jordan Classic.

Levance Fields spoke this week about the pressure of playing on the Garden floor and of being the only player from the city in last night’s Jordan Classic All-Star game.

But he admitted that it wasn’t all that bad.

“I know that even if I go 0-for-12 and play terribly, I’ll still be going to Pitt,” said the Xaverian star, who scored 18 in his Gray team’s 127-126 win over the White squad that was sealed when Emanuel Mayben missed a pair of free throws with three seconds left in front of an announced crowd of 6436. “So I’m set regardless.”

Fields hasn’t signed his letter of intent yet, but is expected to do so in the next couple of weeks.

The article also notes that there is one other potential Pitt signee from the NYC area, Saiquon Stone. Stone, a 6′ 5″ shooting guard, is not as highly ranked as Fields and others in the Pitt recruiting class, but was ranked #10 in Rivals top-10 in NY. More intriguing is this snippet quote from his AAU coach, “Saiquon is my best defensive player. He gets into the best offensive player on the other team and locks down on him. He’s a defensive gem.” He apparently has interest of teams ranging from Villanova, Oklahoma and Notre Dame to Marist and Fairfield.

Fields also gets some hometown love in the NY Times for the aggressive way he played.

In exhibitions like the Jordan Classic, hustle and defense are as unfamiliar as the two-handed set shot, but Fields threw his body around as if a title was at stake. “Just to be selected to this game is special,” he said.

Out in the Windy City, the NY kids once more proved where the better ball is played.

New York used a 21-5 second-half run to coast to victory.

Only two of the 11 players on New York’s roster have committed to major-conference schools.

“We underestimated them,” Acker said. “A lot of us were talking about what schools they were going to — but they were a really good team.”

Chicago’s roster consisted of 10 players headed to top Division I schools, including Robeson’s Jeremy Pargo, a Gonzaga recruit who led Chicago with 15 points.

“We didn’t even look at Chicago’s roster,” Team New York coach Bob Cimmino said. “If they were surprised by how good we were, then so be it.”

NY won 102-84. Funny thing about the Chicago paper’s coverage of the game there, they didn’t even mention who was the MVP.

Tyrell Biggs became the third Pitt basketball recruit in as many years to be named most outstanding player for the New York team at the Windy City Classic all-star game in Chicago.

Biggs, a 6-foot-8 forward from Don Bosco (N.J.) Prep, who has signed a binding letter of intent to attend Pitt next season, follows NBA draft-bound Chris Taft, the 6-10 center who was named most outstanding player for New York in 2003, and current guard Ronald Ramon, who won the award in 2004.

Biggs scored 12 points and grabbed eight rebounds Saturday for the New York team.

And to give Pitt fans hope, Biggs did his work inside.

…Tyrell Biggs, added 12 points and eight rebounds. The Don Bosco Prep (N.J.) product, headed to Pittsburgh, also was solid defensively.
…
Chicago led 43-39 at the half thanks to some streaky outside shooting. It hit 8 of 16 3-pointers and went up by as many as nine. Jeremy Pargo, the brother of Chicago Bulls guard Jannero Pargo, led Chicago with 15 points including three 3-pointers.

In the second half New York took away the outside by essentially ignoring the interior. Lowe, McDermott and Austin all played superb perimeter defense while the burly Biggs took control of the paint.

There’s the double edged sword for Dixon. He’s got a young team, for sure next year. But there is a lot of talent coming in to the program. Because of underachieving this year, he won’t have as much time as might be considered fair to show that he is getting them going the right way.

Wow.

I think the Pitt Athletic Department has every right to come into their offices tomorrow feeling really good.

With Heinz Field unavailable while new grass is being grown, Wannstedt moved Pittsburgh’s scrimmage to suburban Gateway High School and was greeted by an overflow crowd of 8,007. It was a bigger turnout than those during Walt Harris’ eight seasons as coach, when the 2001 spring game was held sans crowd at the school’s practice complex.

“We had a lot more fans, obviously, than we had room,” said Wannstedt, the former Bears and Dolphins coach who is still adjusting to his first college head coaching job. “It’s a nice problem to have when you don’t have enough room.”

Some fans couldn’t get close enough to the stadium to park and went home, while others braved a miles-long traffic jam to arrive nearly an hour after the scrimmage started.

Sure this wasn’t a Steelers’ training camp workout and not a Pitt scrimmage?

Sure, Nebraska had some 60,000+ last year, and Florida packed in some 50,000+ this year, but for Pitt this was huge. I think it’s safe to say, that but for the lack of space and traffic problems it would have broken 10,000 for a spring practice. A scrimmage in the days leading up, was being severely downplayed as far as action.

There is an energy, buzz, heavy interest that I have severely underestimated about the team and Wannstedt taking over.

I don’t think I am the only one a little surprised by the level of interest.

As for the on-the-field action of the scrimmage, Coach Wannstedt was happy. Stats, for what they are worth, are here (PDF). The offensive line looked really good. The moves and competition seem to be working. The issue for the o-line is the lack of depth. The drop-off after the starters is the concern. Injuries will be a major thing to watch.

While the scrimmage may have started off with a flea-flicker, the star on offense was RB Rashad Jennings. Kirkley and Murphy both sat out the scrimmage with minor injuries. Jennings appears to be passing Brandon Mason on the depth chart. The starter job will still be up in the air come training camp because of the other freshmen RBs, including Conredge Collins. Still, it’s nice to have some hope for the running game right now.

Want to see Pitt’s point guard of the future, Levance Fields?

He’ll be on playing in the inaugural Jordan Classic at MSG tonight at 8pm. The game is going to be aired on ESPN-U. So if you have satellite or certain cable outlets, you can watch. Otherwise, it will be aired on ESPN2 tomorrow from 4-5:30 pm.

Mike Davis, another Pitt recruit (kind of) will be playing the “regional” undercard game. According to some reports, Davis is likely heading to prep school for a year. I don’t think anyone is broadcasting this game.

Here’s an article on Fields from the NY Daily News.