You know the good thing about the Thursday night football for the basketball team is there is no excuse not to go see Pitt play its first exhibition game on Saturday night. Pitt gets to beat down upon Slippery Rock at 7:30. Might be worth checking out, especially since the other exhibition game vs. St. Peters overlaps the following Saturday with the UConn football game.

Correction: Mistake on my part, skimmed the article too quickly. St. Peter’s is on Nov. 19 and is the regular season opener. The other exhibition game is against IUP, but it is on Sunday, Nov. 13. The article made the mistake there, and I didn’t double check the schedule.

As this story regarding the Blue-Gray scrimmage indicates, Freshman Sam Young was the one catching everyone’s attention.

The excitement from the fans’ standpoint started early in the scrimmage when Young took a long feed and finished with an acrobatic dunk. If that wasn’t exciting enough, he did it a second time. Not even two minutes later, he stepped out and drained a three.

“He’s going to play inside and out,” Dixon said about Young’s versatility. “He has the ability to do that.”

Young is also catching the eye of his teammates.

“He’s more of an official slasher,” Krauser said. “He’s kind of like Desmond Mason of the Milwaukee Bucks. Sam is a great player and a great addition to the team.” Young finished with a game-high 18 points and eight rebounds.

Levon Kendall and Aaron Gray are presumed be Pitt’s starting front court — at least to start the season. Kendall will likely have to fight off plenty of challengers, while Gray will have to fight against picking up too many fouls too quickly in games.