The full poll is up and indvidual ballots can be viewed here. My ballot is here.

That means starting the review of the past season of Pitt football.

Between the time crunch of family visits, travel and just not being emotionally ready to discuss it, I’ve been putting this off.

To start, let’s see what has been written.

First things, first. Paul Zeise in last week’s Q&A let fly with a whopper of revisionist history in his introduction:

I’ve said it numerous times and I’ll say it again — Rich Rodriguez inherited a talented team in 2001 with a lot of returning starters and a lot of optimism, then went out in his first year and laid an egg to the tune of 3-8. He made some offseason adjustments in his approach and in some of the things he tried to do, he recruited well, and he continued teaching the things he believes in and the result has been a team that has improved steadily every year. And think about it — his first full recruiting class is his senior class this year, which shows how important it is to get off to a good start in recruiting. And he did so coming off a 3-8 season, so I don’t think the Panthers record this first year is much of a factor. Kids are smart enough to know that the transition year can sometimes be tough because of all the adjustments that have to be made.

[Emphasis added.]

I really like Zeise’s writing, but BS is BS. Since I like the writer, I’m chalking it up to a faulty recall or something non-deliberate.

Here’s the reality check. Going into the 2001 season, WVU was picked to finish no better than 5th in the Big East. The consensus was 6th, ahead of only Rutgers and Temple. WVU had been sliding in the talent, and no one was predicting a smooth time. Rodriguez slightly underachieved according to most of the predictions by finishing 7th (good old Rutgers taking the bottom rung). So, no more comparisons please to WVU and Rich Rodriguez in 2001. Expectations and talent were no where near the same.

As for the rest of Zeise’s opening remarks about the future:

I think the West Virginia model is a good one, as well, because it is clearly evident that Rodriguez has always looked for and recruited speed and last night it showed because it looked like they were about three steps faster at just about every position than the Panthers. Wannstedt’s philosophy has always been to stockpile speed and that’s what he’s attempting to do. And one thing I’ve been very impressed with about Wannstedt is this — when it comes to recruiting, he is a workaholic and he loves it more than anything else he does. One coach told me Wannstedt is the most competitive recruiter he’s ever been around. He’s all about text messaging, e-mailing, writing letters and getting out on the road to meet people. That’s the first step toward rebuilding a program and contrary to popular belief, this program needed some rebuilding when he arrived. That much is evident when you take a close look at the so-called talent that was left behind.

The second step is being able to coach and develop that talent. There are a lot of coaches who are great recruiters — and I’m fairly confident Wannstedt fits in that category — but getting players is only half the equation. I think there will be some offseason adjustments made by Wannstedt — he’s already said as much — now that he has a very good idea of what he is up against and what it is going to take to win.

Maybe I’m just feeling argumentative, but Pitt didn’t need “rebuilding.” The program may need reworking and some definite talent upgrades, but rebuilding is not what it is undergoing. That is a disservice to what Walt Harris did accomplish at Pitt from 1997 through 2004, and the players.

Coach Wannstedt has put together an outstanding first recruiting class, that will be considered a top-20 if not top-10 class by Signing Day in February. It has been the brightest thing, and let’s face it, the thing most fans have kept in the fore in an otherwise enthusiasm dampening debut season.

Q: What should fans look for from the Panthers for spring and heading into next season as far as position battles go?

Zeise: Boy I could write about five or six pages on this subject, but I won’t. I’ll try and keep it simple. The spring will be exciting, but not nearly as exciting as the fall when all the freshmen arrive. That’s when the real position battles will begin. That’s when we’ll have a good chance to see what the roster is all about. But I would expect some moves to be made in the spring with the arrival of the freshmen in mind. I think some of the moves you could anticipate are C.J. Davis to center, Shane Murray to safety, Rashad Jennings to fullback and a whole lot of shuffling along both lines. There will also be a battle between Conor Lee and David Abdul at kicker and some stiff competition at linebacker, safety and corner because of graduation. One thing that is good news for the Panthers is they aren’t losing a whole lot to graduation. Losing Lay, Cummings and Charles Spencer will hurt because they are talented, had great years and are at positions where the Panthers aren’t loaded — but other than those three in particular, the Panthers have younger, more talented guys to step into the holes that will be left behind. I think Lee and Abdul are both talented enough that the Panthers kicking game will be fine, but they need some freshmen to step in and step up at corner and tackle.
…
Q: Can someone explain why Pitt didn’t take the penalty and have third-and-13 or, if they were going to decline it, go for it on fourth-and-3?

Zeise: Well, Walt had the slide at UConn, this one was clearly a brain cramp by Dave Wannstedt. His explanation for declining the penalty then punting was that he was trying to play field position. Obviously that didn’t make a lot of sense from this standpoint — he could have accepted the penalty and had a third down play and then punted if the Panthers didn’t make it. What he did was essentially punt on third down and that is not a good thing. It made even less sense when you consider how poorly Adam Graessle has been punting the ball inside the 5. To me, there was no question that ball was destined to be a touchback which is why I thought you’d rather have the ball further back if you were going to punt it. To Wannstedt’s credit he admitted he made a mistake, he made the wrong call and if he had to do it all over again he’d have gone for it. It was clearly a bad decision but I have to be honest, I saw very few bad decisions this year which makes me believe the coaching staff has a good idea of what to do on game day. There were very few games where I questioned game management decisions — like when to go for it, when to punt, how to manage the clock — etc., etc.

He also writes about Recruit/Soft Commit RB Kevin Collier. As always, it’s a must read.

AD Jeff Long has no complaints at this point.

“We’re disappointed in this season, but we’re excited about the future,” Long said Thursday, minutes after the Panthers’ 45-13 loss against West Virginia.

As Long spoke, coach Dave Wannstedt walked into the room to begin his postgame interview. Long glanced over a reporter’s shoulder at Wannstedt and smiled.

“I couldn’t be more pleased with where we’re going and where Dave believes he’s going to take us,” Long said. “I think he believes, as I do, that he’s going to have the kind of program that (can recruit) the best players in the area. That’s the kind of guy we wanted when we brought him here to coach the team.”

Wannstedt’s first season at the helm of his alma mater’s program ended with its first losing mark since 1999. The Panthers (5-6, 4-3) were unable to defend their Big East title, and along the way suffered a few demoralizing losses.

What? You were expecting anything else?

The story also reveals that WR/Kick returner Terrell Allen wasn’t simply suspended for the WVU game, but kicked off the team for “chronic disciplinary problems.”

As for what happens in the off-season as far as adjustments regarding coaches. This is a fervent wish: fire Defensive Coordinator Paul Rhoads. I know Rhoads is very popular with the Pitt administration, but his defensive schemes are the classic smoke and mirror D.

Against below average to bad offenses the numbers look nice with interceptions and low productivity in the red zone. Against decent offenses, though, it gets absolutely torched. Because Rhoads is always more concerned about keeping the offense in front of the the defense it is never playing aggressive. It is soft and gets gashed. Not on the big play, but on chunks, gashes and drives. Rutgers, ND, Louisville and WVU. They all just moved at will on Pitt. Especially running the ball. Under Rhoads and the kids he has recruited, the run defense has become sub-par.

This year, Pitt allowed 4.3 yards/carry. Last year, 3.8 yards/carry. In 2003, 4.5 yards/carry. In 2002, 3.2 yards/carry. 2001, 2.9 yards/carry. 2000, 2.6 yards/carry (PDF). Anyone noticing a trend? Rhoads came to Pitt as DC in 2000.

Rhoads isn’t the only defensive coach who should be coming in for review. Curtis Bray has been the LB coach since 2003, and Charlie Partridge who was responsible for DEs and Special Teams. A big mitigator for both, though, are their roles in the recruiting class for 2005 (“page 2” indicates the lead recruiting coach).

This is not simply looking for scalps or someone to blame for this season. I’ve been down on Rhoads, his defensive schemes and his inability to teach players to tackle rather than hit since the 2003 season. He continually espouses a “bend but don’t break” defense and eschews blitzes. Despite having excellent corners, he rarely was willing to bring up the safeties to assist against the run — part of that fear against giving up the big play. I guess he feels a quick strike is more demoralizing than watching a team just march down the field steadily and easily.

That keeping the offense in front of the defense, along with a clear lack of speed up front is why the various permutations of the spread offense and good running games have killed Pitt. Or as was put this way (Insider Subs.):

Pittsburgh’s Defensive Front Seven
Pittsburgh’s run defense, which ranks 95th in the nation, lived up to its pathetic billing in last Thursday’s 48-13 loss to despised rival West Virginia. The Panthers have good size at defensive tackle with Thomas Smith (6-4, 300) and Phil Tillman (6-1, 315), but neither player does a good job of anchoring at the point of attack, which has forced standout MLB H.B. Blades to sift through entirely too much traffic on the second level when in run pursuit. Those problems were highlighted by coach Rich Rodriguez’s spread scheme, as QB Pat White and RB Steve Slaton combined for 399 of the Mountaineers 451 net rushing yards.

Blades barely played in the WVU game before going down with injury. He still had 121 tackles for the season. Tops by far in the Big East. The rest of the linebackers were just abused. There’s only so much you can blame on Smith’s injury.

I think Carl Krauser is dead on with this:

“When we come out there and we’re not focusing or not playing great outside defense and things like that, it causes teams to come out and hit open shots and great shots. That’s when we dig ourselves a hole and have to dig ourselves out. So what we have to do now is concentrate on the couple of days off that we have to practice and just really dig down and basically have a self check within ourselves as a team and come out here and give forth the effort for 40 minutes of defense.”

It’s easy to point to the poor 3-point shooting by Pitt to explain why St. Francis (NY) hung around — especially in the first half when Pitt was 1-9 and the Terriers were 5-11. Ronald Ramon appears to agree.

On playing a more physical defense in the second half

“More team defense. We had to get more focused. At the beginning we were giving up shots, we weren’t talking on defense at all. In the second half we were talking more and the team defense was good.”

On clamping down on Christian Brown in the second half

“He’s a great player. We played against each other in high school. It was kind of like a pay back, if you want to put it like that. We played against each other for the city championship back in New York and they stole that from us. He’s a great player. We knew he was going to come here, take shots. First half he had wide open shots, like I said it was just about the team defense. Second half we had more help from the team.”

Brown had 16 points in the first half, but only 4 in the second half when Ramon locked down on him. The defense completely took Brown out of his game.

“[Pitt] defensively stepped it up and he got frustrated,” he said of Brown’s second half performance.

Ramon used his defense to help compensate on a night where he didn’t sink a 3 and his stat sheet would otherwise appear unimpressive. A very important thing, especially if Pitt is to reclaim a reputation as being a physical defensive minded team.

The players, though, who led the way for Pitt were Carl Krauser and Aaron Gray.

Gray converted 7 of 10 field-goal attempts and was 8 for 10 from the free-throw line in 30 minutes, as St. Francis was unable to contain him.

“Aaron looked more comfortable going up with his shot tonight,” Pitt coach Jamie Dixon said. “He had patience in the post, too. Teams are going to double-down a little more as this goes on. You’re talking about a guy who didn’t score a lot of points last year, and maybe they aren’t expecting it. But the progress he’s made from his senior year in high school to now has been steady, yet dramatic.”

Said Gray: “There’s definitely been improvement each year I’ve been here. Right now, I’m doing all right.”

The victory improved Pitt’s record against the Northeast Conference to 62-0. The Panthers are 3-0 against St. Francis in a brief series that was not started until 2000.

The outcome was never in doubt, although Pitt teased a home crowd of 7,263 by allowing St. Francis (2-2) to hang around until the Panthers turned up the heat in the second half and began clicking as Dixon continued his constant shuffling of the lineup.

I’m really impressed by Gray’s free throw shooting. He’s not as consistent from game-to-game, but he is now 20-29 (.690) in 4 games. Considering he can expect to get to the line more often this year as he gets more assertive, this is vital.

Krauser served as the catalyst in the second half to start Pitt on the run from which they blew the doors off of St. Francis.

But when things get a little tense, that’s when Carl Krauser takes over. Just as he did against Robert Morris a week ago, Krauser sparked a second-half surge and led Pitt to a 79-58 victory last night at the Petersen Events Center.

“Our guys feed off his energy,” Pitt coach Jamie Dixon said. “His leadership … it’s one thing to talk. It’s another thing to do it.”

Krauser had another off-shooting night, but he made his presence felt in other areas, most notably his hustle, defense and playmaking. Krauser, who had 18 points, was the impetus for Pitt’s 8-2 run at the beginning of the second half that ignited the runaway. On one play, Krauser stole the ball, had it bounce away, chased it down and, from his back, threw an over-the-head pass to Aaron Gray for a layup. Less than a minute later, Krauser made another steal, drove the lane and made an acrobatic layup that gave the Panthers a 43-34 lead with 16:33 remaining.

St. Francis never mounted a serious threat after that.

“He’s our leader on and off the court,” Gray said. “He’s one of the main reasons Pitt is looked at as such a physical and overpowering team. We’re going to get that from Carl every practice, every game.”

Krauser set a career-high with six steals. On the same night he became one of the top 20 scorers in school history, all anyone wanted to talk about after the game was his defense.

A concern of course, was the poor 3-point shooting. Take that out of the game, and Pitt was very efficient.

Listening to the game, makes it hard to draw my own conclusions about what players were doing. Hillgrove and Groat were very complimentary of Kendall’s hustle and defense. Kendall would appear to have had a solid night with 9 points, 4 assists and 4 rebounds, 1 steal and 0 turnovers.

Both Keith Benjamin and John DeGroat played solid games. Both would appear to be much more comfortable this season. Not looking to do everything and looking over their shoulder for fear of being pulled if they make a mistake.

As would be expected, some of the freshmen players were a little uneven. Tyrell Biggs would appear to still be struggling on defense, and was a little too eager to score. Sam Young and Levance Fields saw a little less time than before, but handled the ball well and didn’t press for shots.

Orson at EDSBS lists only “52 Reasons ESPN/ABC/Disney Sucks.” It could have easily gone on for quite some time.

Absolutely effing hilarious and painfully truthful. It has generated an amazingly long comment thread that gets angrier and angrier as it continues. The animosity built towards the Mouse network is impressive. Even more so, when you realize most of the list and comments were devoted primarily to the football stuff.

I really feel that way. After I got through 1-16, the rest were just there. Some moved up simply because there was no other team to comfortably put in front of them while others probably didn’t even deserve rankings. If I could have just left blank spaces for 17-19 I would have.

1. Southern California
2. Texas
3. Louisiana State
4. Penn State
5. Ohio State
6. Virginia Tech
7. Notre Dame
8. West Virginia
9. Auburn
10. Oregon
11. Georgia
12. Miami (Florida)
13. UCLA
14. TCU
15. Louisville
16. Florida
17. Wisconsin
18. Alabama
19. Michigan
20. Texas Tech
21. South Carolina
22. Boston College
23. Georgia Tech
24. Toledo
25. Oklahoma

IN: Oklahoma, Toledo, Texas Tech
Out: Iowa St., FSU, Fresno St.
Games Watched (whole or in part): Pitt-WVU, Colo-Neb, Ark-LSU, Tx-Tx A&M, UNC-VT, UVA-Miami, ND-Stanford, Fresno-Nev., FSU-Fla and Md-NCSt.

I watched a lot of college football this weekend. Oddly, that has put me in less of a mood to bother explaining each vote.

Pitt never trailed against St. Francis (NY), but they sure let the Terriers hang around for quite a while, before pulling away to a deceptively large final score 79-58. Pitt hoisted way too many and missed an overwhelming majority of 3s (4-20).

This was a case of a bigger, stronger team wearing down a smaller team — again.

Gray had a very good game with 22 points and 11 rebounds. His 3rd double-double in 4 games.

Krauser was part of the problem with 3s (1-7) and seems to have lost his free throw touch (1-4), but he still put in 18 points, 6 rebounds, 6 steals and 5 assists.

UPDATE: One mitigating factor: injuries. Listening to Coach Jamie Dixon afterwards with Hillgrove and Groat, Doyle Hudson was scratched because of an ankle injury and Antonio Graves went down very early in the game with an ankle injury — unknown how severe, but Coach Dixon didn’t seem overly concerned postgame.

Pitt never trailed against St. Francis (NY), but they sure let the Terriers hang around for quite a while, before pulling away to a deceptively large final score 79-58. Pitt hoisted way too many and missed an overwhelming majority of 3s (4-20).

This was a case of a bigger, stronger team wearing down a smaller team — again.

Gray had a very good game with 22 points and 11 rebounds. His 3rd double-double in 4 games.

Krauser was part of the problem with 3s (1-7) and seems to have lost his free throw touch (1-4), but he still put in 18 points, 6 rebounds, 6 steals and 5 assists.

UPDATE: One mitigating factor: injuries. Listening to Coach Jamie Dixon afterwards with Hillgrove and Groat, Doyle Hudson was scratched because of an ankle injury and Antonio Graves went down very early in the game with an ankle injury — unknown how severe, but Coach Dixon didn’t seem overly concerned postgame.

Big East B-ball Blog has the aggregate power rankings for the conference this week. Pitt was placed #6. Here’s how I voted.

1. UConn — Easiest rank. High quality wins in Maui.
2. Villanova — Also cruising
3. Louisville — Most teams are accused of playing nobody in the non-con, Louisville started its season so late in almost played nobody literally this first week
4. Pitt — Okay, admittedly a bit of homerism but they have won all the cupcakes in front of them
5. Cinci — Won all their games including a less than cupcake game against Murray St.
6. Georgetown — Can’t lose to Vandy at home
7. Providence — Get the wins now, because they will only become harder later
8. Syracuse — Inconsistency right now. If McNamara is off, the team is going to struggle
9. St. John’s — Beating on the NY Metro teams
10. Marquette — I think I may have been a little unfair to the Warriors, Gold, Golden Eagles. That Winthrop loss, though…
11. ND — NC State isn’t that good, and that was essentially a home game. No offense outside of the guards
12. WVU — Lose 3 straight, regardless of the foes and you slide.
13. USF — I repeat, USF will not be the worst team in the BE despite the lack of depth
14. Rutgers — Blown out by Illinois is not a shame, but squeaking by Delaware St. and Kent St. by a combined 10 points is.
15. DePaul — Not a particularly impressive team
16. Seton Hall — It will be hard for them to get out of the cellar

This is completely imperfect right now. I rushed my voting a bit. That 8am Monday voting deadline makes things a little compressed.

Big East B-ball Blog has the aggregate power rankings for the conference this week. Pitt was placed #6. Here’s how I voted.

1. UConn — Easiest rank. High quality wins in Maui.
2. Villanova — Also cruising
3. Louisville — Most teams are accused of playing nobody in the non-con, Louisville started its season so late in almost played nobody literally this first week
4. Pitt — Okay, admittedly a bit of homerism but they have won all the cupcakes in front of them
5. Cinci — Won all their games including a less than cupcake game against Murray St.
6. Georgetown — Can’t lose to Vandy at home
7. Providence — Get the wins now, because they will only become harder later
8. Syracuse — Inconsistency right now. If McNamara is off, the team is going to struggle
9. St. John’s — Beating on the NY Metro teams
10. Marquette — I think I may have been a little unfair to the Warriors, Gold, Golden Eagles. That Winthrop loss, though…
11. ND — NC State isn’t that good, and that was essentially a home game. No offense outside of the guards
12. WVU — Lose 3 straight, regardless of the foes and you slide.
13. USF — I repeat, USF will not be the worst team in the BE despite the lack of depth
14. Rutgers — Blown out by Illinois is not a shame, but squeaking by Delaware St. and Kent St. by a combined 10 points is.
15. DePaul — Not a particularly impressive team
16. Seton Hall — It will be hard for them to get out of the cellar

This is completely imperfect right now. I rushed my voting a bit. That 8am Monday voting deadline makes things a little compressed.

I admit to rooting for Stanford and Walt Harris on Saturday night. This despite all logic telling me how bad it would be for the Big East if ND lost.

If ND had lost, they would have been going to the Gator Bowl and all of the Big East teams would have been bumped down a bowl — resulting in less money and attention for the conference and the teams. ND in the BCS was actually good for the conference.

Then there is the fact that ND is going to a BCS bowl over a higher ranked Oregon team according to the BCS standings (PDF). You now have media hacks (except in PAC 10 land) now very happy to point out that it is okay for ND to go because the other BCS games are all about ratings and money. Not about the best teams playing (not to mention what could happen if there are any upsets in the SEC, ACC or Big 12 Championships).

It undercuts arguments that the BE is undeserving of receiving a BCS bowl bid because it leaves more “deserving” teams out of the payout. Suddenly that isn’t an issue when it is about the Irish. Well, some did, but it points out their own hypocrisies as much as the system in place.

In the first year of a new BE stripped of the 2 best teams formerly of the conference (both of which are in the top 10 of the BCS standings and the third is ranked in the top 25), the BE still placed a team in the top 12 (WVU is #11). Not the worst outcome for the BE in its new alignment.

Tonight Pitt plays St. Francis (NY). If you take a look at the game notes (PDF), you would see that one of the storylines is that Associate Head Coach Barry Rohrssen played his college ball and got his first college coaching gig there. Naturally one of the papers does an article on it. Usual stuff, he roots for his alma mater every other day, etcetera.

In case you were curious, the nickname of the school is the Terriers and they play in the same conference as Robert Morris.

There’s a piece focusing on Levon Kendall’s start to the season. He’s not shooting particularly well, but is the second leading rebounder on the team and is happy to be playing at the power forward position. Coach Dixon is not publicly concerned about his offense, stressing that he is playing solid defense.

“Our biggest thing with him was that he got rebounds,” Dixon said. “He got nine and eight in the last two games. Those are good numbers in 26 and 20 minutes. I think with him and Sam [Young] we’ll have very good production out of that spot. We’re not getting as many points as we would normally get, but I think we will. We’re talking about guys who haven’t played a lot of minutes before.”

Kendall and Young, a talented but unpolished freshman, are sharing the power forward position. Together, they are averaging 11.3 points and 10.6 rebounds per game, which is below the production that Troutman provided last season. Troutman averaged 15 points and eight rebounds per game.

“Chevy didn’t put those numbers up until his senior year,” Dixon said. “We’re talking about a junior and a freshman. I think we’re going to get good numbers out of those guys. And different types of things, things maybe we didn’t get last year. I feel really good about that spot.”

Right now, Kendall has averaged about 24 minutes per game. Young will see more minutes as his defense improves and he becomes more consistent on offense.

Tonight Pitt plays St. Francis (NY). If you take a look at the game notes (PDF), you would see that one of the storylines is that Associate Head Coach Barry Rohrssen played his college ball and got his first college coaching gig there. Naturally one of the papers does an article on it. Usual stuff, he roots for his alma mater every other day, etcetera.

In case you were curious, the nickname of the school is the Terriers and they play in the same conference as Robert Morris.

There’s a piece focusing on Levon Kendall’s start to the season. He’s not shooting particularly well, but is the second leading rebounder on the team and is happy to be playing at the power forward position. Coach Dixon is not publicly concerned about his offense, stressing that he is playing solid defense.

“Our biggest thing with him was that he got rebounds,” Dixon said. “He got nine and eight in the last two games. Those are good numbers in 26 and 20 minutes. I think with him and Sam [Young] we’ll have very good production out of that spot. We’re not getting as many points as we would normally get, but I think we will. We’re talking about guys who haven’t played a lot of minutes before.”

Kendall and Young, a talented but unpolished freshman, are sharing the power forward position. Together, they are averaging 11.3 points and 10.6 rebounds per game, which is below the production that Troutman provided last season. Troutman averaged 15 points and eight rebounds per game.

“Chevy didn’t put those numbers up until his senior year,” Dixon said. “We’re talking about a junior and a freshman. I think we’re going to get good numbers out of those guys. And different types of things, things maybe we didn’t get last year. I feel really good about that spot.”

Right now, Kendall has averaged about 24 minutes per game. Young will see more minutes as his defense improves and he becomes more consistent on offense.

Keith Benjamin was the most productive player for Pitt in the win against Maine. He had 10 points (4-5) and 4 assists in only 17 minutes. He gets the lead piece in a story as much about the Pitt players being moved into different positions.

Pitt sophomore Keith Benjamin was recruited to Pitt to be the replacement for Julius Page at shooting guard. Benjamin was the same type of player as Page, who was athletic, could score and play tough defense.

But 15 months into his college career, the man who was supposed to blossom into Pitt’s next great shooting guard is playing a new position. Benjamin is sharing minutes at small forward with John DeGroat and Antonio Graves. And Benjamin, 6 feet 2, 190 pounds, admits the transition has not been easy.

“There’s been an adjustment mentally, physically, everything,” Benjamin said. “Sometimes I go home mad, saying, ‘I’m a shooter, man. I’m a scorer.’ Then I come back to the gym every day and I realize this is what I have to do for my team. Coach [Jaime] Dixon sees a lot in me playing the three [position], so I’m just trying to put my best effort out there.”

Benjamin is one of several players who are playing out of position as Dixon attempts to find roles for his top players. Graves was the starter at shooting guard for most of last season, but is playing a lot of small forward this season. Sam Young, recruited to be the small forward, is playing power forward. And Tyrell Biggs, recruited as a power forward, is playing center.

The position changes were made because Dixon has a bevy of talented guards but not a backup at center.

Benjamin had a series of nagging injuries last year that aided in keeping him buried on the bench last season.

Coach Dixon appears to be minimizing the position switch issue because in the present system, “there’s not a lot of difference between the shooting guard and the small forward.”

Offensively, I can’t disagree. I worry more about on the defensive side, where as the competition and talent improves there will be bigger, stronger, faster players that can take it inside a lot easier.

Obviously the player facing the most scrutiny this season will be Carl Krauser. There’s been a lot of arguing as to whether Krauser coming back this season was a good or bad thing. Not for helping the team win, but helping the young players develop. I’ve been back and forth on this. Others have gone the opposite way.

With that in mind, this should be a rebuilding year for the Panthers. Let the talented group of young guards that have played — Ronald Ramon, Antonio Graves and Keith Benjamin — gel with freshman standout Levance Fields for a year, and while Aaron Gray and Levon Kendall mature for another year, the sky could be the limit for the 2006-07 Panthers.

However, with Krauser here this season, that rebuilding won’t happen to the extent that it should.

I’ll be the first to tell you I’m a Krauser fan. Krauser is the best athlete to interview and is always a treat to be around. And if I’m not covering the games, I’ll be jumping up and down in the Zoo making the “X” over my head when he hits a three. But I just don’t think Dixon and the Pitt program should be thankful that Krauser is back this year.

It’s not Krauser’s fault, but it just seems obvious that while he might help the team this year more than the younger guards would, this fifth year might be detrimental to Pitt in the long run.

It will be interesting as the season plays out if Krauser’s playing time gets cut and Dixon begins thinking about the future of his program. That will depend on how Krauser and the young Panthers do in the tough Big East.

I don’t think Dixon would have had the luxury of many fans being willing to write this season off as a rebuilding year without Krauser. There seems to be the early stages of a hardening of opinion regarding Dixon. Even with a legitimate rebuilding year, there would have been a lot of blame placed on Dixon. How Krauser, the team and the future is handled is more about Dixon than anything else.

After Krauser, the player under the most scrutiny is Aaron Gray. Gray was like a back-up QB last year. Very popular, but not called upon to do too much. Now he’s the starter and people are quick to rip him for not playing forceful enough. This is his first year as a starter. He barely got on the floor as a freshman. His sophomore year saw him rarely reach 10 minutes in a game. He could come in and not worry about foul troubles. Now he is starting and will be expected to be in there 25-35 minutes a game. It’s an adjustment.

“Playing against these (non-conference) teams, it’s definitely great that we don’t play against (the likes of) UConn and Syracuse right away,” Gray said. “It gives our team a chance to tune-up the things we need to. It gives a chance for guys to get a lot more comfortable.”

Gray, who is second on the team to Krauser in scoring (12.3 ppg.) and leads in rebounding (10.3 rpg.), shot 6-for-10 against Maine. But, as he has done in every game so far, he misfired on several shots near the basket.

It doesn’t seem to concern him, though.

“Every night, I just come out and try to play as hard as I can,” he said. “I’m not really a numbers guy. The only number I look at right now is three, because we’re 3-0 as a team.”

Those missed open shots seemed to generate the most complaints. Centers, almost without exception, are projects. They come to college after easily dominating in high school entirely based on size. They take time to learn about footwork and positioning. College brings greater balance by virtue of speed, leaping ability and more size. Gray’s development through the season is being heavily scrutinized.

At least his hometown area is happy to see him starting.

Ex-Lehigh Valley standouts are playing well.
…
Aaron Gray, the 7-foot center from Emmaus, is starting for the first time at Pittsburgh and has played like the beast he’ll definitely need to be once the Big East season begins. In three games, he’s averaged 12.0 points and 10.3 rebounds, and has attempted more free throws (19) than any other Panther.

He had a career-high 13 rebounds, plus 15 points and four blocks in Pitt’s 62-49 win over Maine Saturday night.

Hey, if all of Scranton can become a Syracuse bastion because of McNamara, maybe Gray can help out on the Eastern part of Pennsylvania.

Keith Benjamin was the most productive player for Pitt in the win against Maine. He had 10 points (4-5) and 4 assists in only 17 minutes. He gets the lead piece in a story as much about the Pitt players being moved into different positions.

Pitt sophomore Keith Benjamin was recruited to Pitt to be the replacement for Julius Page at shooting guard. Benjamin was the same type of player as Page, who was athletic, could score and play tough defense.

But 15 months into his college career, the man who was supposed to blossom into Pitt’s next great shooting guard is playing a new position. Benjamin is sharing minutes at small forward with John DeGroat and Antonio Graves. And Benjamin, 6 feet 2, 190 pounds, admits the transition has not been easy.

“There’s been an adjustment mentally, physically, everything,” Benjamin said. “Sometimes I go home mad, saying, ‘I’m a shooter, man. I’m a scorer.’ Then I come back to the gym every day and I realize this is what I have to do for my team. Coach [Jaime] Dixon sees a lot in me playing the three [position], so I’m just trying to put my best effort out there.”

Benjamin is one of several players who are playing out of position as Dixon attempts to find roles for his top players. Graves was the starter at shooting guard for most of last season, but is playing a lot of small forward this season. Sam Young, recruited to be the small forward, is playing power forward. And Tyrell Biggs, recruited as a power forward, is playing center.

The position changes were made because Dixon has a bevy of talented guards but not a backup at center.

Benjamin had a series of nagging injuries last year that aided in keeping him buried on the bench last season.

Coach Dixon appears to be minimizing the position switch issue because in the present system, “there’s not a lot of difference between the shooting guard and the small forward.”

Offensively, I can’t disagree. I worry more about on the defensive side, where as the competition and talent improves there will be bigger, stronger, faster players that can take it inside a lot easier.

Obviously the player facing the most scrutiny this season will be Carl Krauser. There’s been a lot of arguing as to whether Krauser coming back this season was a good or bad thing. Not for helping the team win, but helping the young players develop. I’ve been back and forth on this. Others have gone the opposite way.

With that in mind, this should be a rebuilding year for the Panthers. Let the talented group of young guards that have played — Ronald Ramon, Antonio Graves and Keith Benjamin — gel with freshman standout Levance Fields for a year, and while Aaron Gray and Levon Kendall mature for another year, the sky could be the limit for the 2006-07 Panthers.

However, with Krauser here this season, that rebuilding won’t happen to the extent that it should.

I’ll be the first to tell you I’m a Krauser fan. Krauser is the best athlete to interview and is always a treat to be around. And if I’m not covering the games, I’ll be jumping up and down in the Zoo making the “X” over my head when he hits a three. But I just don’t think Dixon and the Pitt program should be thankful that Krauser is back this year.

It’s not Krauser’s fault, but it just seems obvious that while he might help the team this year more than the younger guards would, this fifth year might be detrimental to Pitt in the long run.

It will be interesting as the season plays out if Krauser’s playing time gets cut and Dixon begins thinking about the future of his program. That will depend on how Krauser and the young Panthers do in the tough Big East.

I don’t think Dixon would have had the luxury of many fans being willing to write this season off as a rebuilding year without Krauser. There seems to be the early stages of a hardening of opinion regarding Dixon. Even with a legitimate rebuilding year, there would have been a lot of blame placed on Dixon. How Krauser, the team and the future is handled is more about Dixon than anything else.

After Krauser, the player under the most scrutiny is Aaron Gray. Gray was like a back-up QB last year. Very popular, but not called upon to do too much. Now he’s the starter and people are quick to rip him for not playing forceful enough. This is his first year as a starter. He barely got on the floor as a freshman. His sophomore year saw him rarely reach 10 minutes in a game. He could come in and not worry about foul troubles. Now he is starting and will be expected to be in there 25-35 minutes a game. It’s an adjustment.

“Playing against these (non-conference) teams, it’s definitely great that we don’t play against (the likes of) UConn and Syracuse right away,” Gray said. “It gives our team a chance to tune-up the things we need to. It gives a chance for guys to get a lot more comfortable.”

Gray, who is second on the team to Krauser in scoring (12.3 ppg.) and leads in rebounding (10.3 rpg.), shot 6-for-10 against Maine. But, as he has done in every game so far, he misfired on several shots near the basket.

It doesn’t seem to concern him, though.

“Every night, I just come out and try to play as hard as I can,” he said. “I’m not really a numbers guy. The only number I look at right now is three, because we’re 3-0 as a team.”

Those missed open shots seemed to generate the most complaints. Centers, almost without exception, are projects. They come to college after easily dominating in high school entirely based on size. They take time to learn about footwork and positioning. College brings greater balance by virtue of speed, leaping ability and more size. Gray’s development through the season is being heavily scrutinized.

At least his hometown area is happy to see him starting.

Ex-Lehigh Valley standouts are playing well.
…
Aaron Gray, the 7-foot center from Emmaus, is starting for the first time at Pittsburgh and has played like the beast he’ll definitely need to be once the Big East season begins. In three games, he’s averaged 12.0 points and 10.3 rebounds, and has attempted more free throws (19) than any other Panther.

He had a career-high 13 rebounds, plus 15 points and four blocks in Pitt’s 62-49 win over Maine Saturday night.

Hey, if all of Scranton can become a Syracuse bastion because of McNamara, maybe Gray can help out on the Eastern part of Pennsylvania.

The problem with visiting family over the holiday weekend is that there just so many times you can say, “screw you guys, I’m going to be on the computer listening to the game.” My time ran out last night, so I didn’t get to tune in to the Maine-Pitt game. Judging by what I am reading, that turned out to be a good thing.

The game was less than perfect.

After three games, Pitt remains undefeated, but not all is rosy with these young Panthers. For the second consecutive game they allowed an inferior opponent to hang around for much longer than they should have.

On Wednesday, Robert Morris was within one point of Pitt early in the second half before the Panthers pulled away for a 27-point victory. Last night, Maine made it much more interesting, keeping the contest to single digits for most of the second half after Pitt had built a 20-point lead in the first half.

“A lot of guys are trying to get comfortable and used to the rotation that coach is using right now,” senior guard Carl Krauser said. “But we can’t allow a team like that to hang around. Our defense was there. We just made some bad decisions and we weren’t knocking down shots.”

Maine played a soft-zone against Pitt. Allowing outside shots but clogging the passing lanes and making it hard to go inside. That forced Pitt to settle for jumpers. As has been the case, previously, that is not Pitt’s game. Krauser, Fields and Ramon combined to shoot 5-25 including 3-15 on 3s.

As usual, Coach Jamie Dixon went into positive-spin coachspeak.

Opening remarks:

“Maine played very well, they’re a good team, a good program. They do a very good job and have guys that can score. I thought we did a good job on Turner, I thought Carl (Krauser) did a very good job, as did Antonio. We did well, we did some good things, especially defensively. We had a couple breakdowns, that will happen but I thought we did pretty well defensively. Ball pressure was good. I thought we passed the ball very well. We have 18 assists on our 22 baskets, which shows we had very good passing and open looks. I think we could have shot the ball better, I think that was something we didn’t do as well tonight. I think that allowed Maine to stay around.”

On Pitt’s guards shooting 5-25 from the floor:

“We took good shots, had good looks.”

On his playing rotation:

“We had good production out of guys and good things out of everybody. We could have played better but we did a lot of good things. This was not our best shooting night and still we came away with a 13 point win.”

I want to believe that Dixon knows statements like, “I think we could have shot the ball better,” just invites eye-rolling and frustration from fans but is determined to protect his players. At times, though, I think he just doesn’t think. There was no need to add a modifier like “think” to the statement. The team shot under 40% and didn’t put this team away. Clearly Pitt did not shoot well and it allowed Maine to stay in the game.

Pitt did win this game early, by playing a tough defense that not only kept Maine from shooting much above 21% in the first half but also allowed Pitt to take 7 more shots than them.

Gray had a solid game.

“We didn’t have a lot of energy at some points in the game,” Pitt center Aaron Gray said. “We missed a lot of wide-open looks.”
…
The 7-foot Gray led three Pitt scorers in double figures by posting his second double-double of the season and of his career. Gray scored 15 points to go with career-highs of 13 rebounds and four blocks. Antonio Graves added 12 points and Keith Benjamin tied his career-high with 10 for the Panthers.

Pitt coach Jamie Dixon continued to show support for his players, even in the aftermath of this latest adventure. He insisted that Gray is steadily getting comfortable.

“He’s playing well,” Dixon said. “It’s funny — 15 points and 13 rebounds — he would tell you that he would have felt he could have knocked down a few more shots. Overall, I thought we took good shots.”

Gray’s going to take a lot of criticism because at 7′ he is expected to be very dominant inside, but he isn’t near the expectations right now.

A big reason Pitt won is that the Pitt bench provided half their scoring, while Maine got next to nothing (6 points).

Keith Benjamin had a solid game, with 10 points off 4-5 shooting, 4 assists, 1 steal and 2 rebounds.

Final addition, the NY Times had a piece on the bloated Big East. Not that interesting.