The P-G busts out its basketball preview stuff. I’m going to start with the Pitt-centric stuff.

A quick focus piece on Freshman Sam Young as the potential key to Pitt making the NCAA.

In a recruiting class considered to be among the top 25 in the country, Sam Young is the top-rated player of the three incoming freshmen. He also is the most important element in the team’s success this season because he plays small forward, a position coach Jamie Dixon struggled to fill last season.

I really only see two positions absolutely set. Krauser at Point and Gray as Center. And even for Gray, I think Tyrell Biggs will push him for playing time. Everything else seems fluid.

Ray Fittipaldo lists his 3 keys for the season: 1. Spread it around; 2. Better defense; and

3. Coaching
Jamie Dixon was the toast of the town two years ago after leading Pitt to a 31-5 record and its third consecutive appearance in the Sweet 16. Last season he was booed as he addressed the Petersen Events Center crowd after a loss to Connecticut. The team was fractured, undisciplined at times and lacked the killer instinct of the three previous teams. The fact that last season’s team was just as talented or more talented put the target on Dixon’s back. He doesn’t have nearly the talent he enjoyed last season, but he does have three freshmen who are the long-term future of the program. How Dixon utilizes Sam Young, Tyrell Biggs and Levance Fields and meshes them with the core of older players will determine whether the Panthers will be contenders in the new Big East.

Now, what I’ll disagree with there, is the “talent.” There is more talent on this team right now, by all estimations than there has been since the best of the Evans era. What the team had the last couple years has been experience. In the past 4 years, there has been leadership by experienced players with other teammates with comparable experience to help. That is now gone. The other major factor was the toughness of the team. That is not yet known. Krauser is the only one known to be tough and the leader.

There needs to be more? Can Graves, Ramon or even Gray be a team leader. They have to be able to stay on the court. Each has a question about being able to stay on the court. Graves may not have the talent to be out there as much. Ramon needs to stay healthy, and Gray needs to stay out of foul trouble.

Fittipaldo picks Pitt to finish 8th in the Big East this season.

An article regarding whether the BE or the ACC is the better conference. Who cares right now?

I love this puffery article about the hiring of BE founder and first commish Dave Gavitt’s son Dan. Gavitt will oversee BE basketball operations.

Gavitt, son of Big East founder and former commissioner Dave Gavitt, spent the last six years as athletic director at Bryant University in Smithfield, R.I. He earned his MBA from Providence after attending Dartmouth and getting his bachelor’s degree in history. But he thinks the best preparation for this job was serving as an assistant coach on Rick Barnes’ staff at Providence.

“There’s a real fraternity in the coaching profession and in a minor way, I’m part of that,” he said. “The mentoring Rick gave me at a young age has been the biggest thing in my career. Being an AD, having that coaching background was critical. Now in this position, having been in the league is going to be a huge experience to have.”

Big East coaches are ecstatic to have someone devoted to their concerns. And there is a comfort level that comes with the Gavitt name.

“It’s really a stroke of genius by Mike,” UConn coach Jim Calhoun said. “To get Dan here, with the influences he has through his family tree and his upbringing with his dad, and then his on-the-job training at Bryant, it’s a great addition. I think Danny will do things to help coaches understand each other better, and I think basketball will be enhanced and highlighted beyond what we have now.”

Calhoun, apparently speaks for the entire BE coaching fraternity. Other than Boeheim and Providence College, does any other coach or school really care about the Gavitts and their ties to the Big East?

Bob Smizik writes that this Big East is eventually doomed. He’s written such before, as have I and I’m sure I’ll come back to it, so I’m not going to bother commenting on this particular recycling.

Instead, the Hartford Courant has some good stuff regarding the size of the BE.

Don’t expect other conference to follow the Big East’s lead. The 12-team model is favored by most BCS conferences and there are no signs of that changing.

Tranghese just agreed to a contract extension through the 2009-10 academic year. The 16 teams have agreed to stay together until that time, but their bond will always be tested. It’s been that way since 1979 because of the diverse interests and agenda of the schools in the Big East.

The first games haven’t been played and already there are rumors of negative recruiting within the conference. Coaches from the schools with I-A football programs are telling recruits there will be a split and the schools without football will be looking for new conferences.

All signs keep pointing to the split in 2010. The BE has no choice but to keep denying it, but it is so apparent. There’s an article talking about the failed WAC 16-team experiment, with some defense of it.

As commissioner of the 16-team Western Athletic Conference, Karl Benson watched Brigham Young play in the Cotton Bowl in 1996. And in 1998, he saw the Utah men advance to the NCAA Tournament final.

“What we did was so out of the box at that time, that it did create some momentum,” Benson said. “The WAC was looked at more favorably from the outside. We were experiencing tremendous success. Had we not pulled the plug, who knows where the WAC would be today?”

On May 26, 1998, Benson was awakened by a call from Colorado State president Al Yates. Air Force, BYU, Colorado State, New Mexico, San Diego State, UNLV, Utah and Wyoming decided to leave the WAC and form their own conference.

The first 16-team conference in college sports, organized in 1994, was gone. Yates told Benson there was no way to make the conference work. Departing schools cited the loss of traditional rivalries, rising travel costs and revenue problems as reasons for leaving. By July 1999, the Mountain West had begun operations.

Benson still thinks 16 is doable, and says the BE has a better shot because they aren’t spread out quite as far — killing the travel budgets. Still there will be grumbling about travel. Can’t be avoided. Too many places, too many teams.

The P-G busts out its basketball preview stuff. I’m going to start with the Pitt-centric stuff.

A quick focus piece on Freshman Sam Young as the potential key to Pitt making the NCAA.

In a recruiting class considered to be among the top 25 in the country, Sam Young is the top-rated player of the three incoming freshmen. He also is the most important element in the team’s success this season because he plays small forward, a position coach Jamie Dixon struggled to fill last season.

I really only see two positions absolutely set. Krauser at Point and Gray as Center. And even for Gray, I think Tyrell Biggs will push him for playing time. Everything else seems fluid.

Ray Fittipaldo lists his 3 keys for the season: 1. Spread it around; 2. Better defense; and

3. Coaching
Jamie Dixon was the toast of the town two years ago after leading Pitt to a 31-5 record and its third consecutive appearance in the Sweet 16. Last season he was booed as he addressed the Petersen Events Center crowd after a loss to Connecticut. The team was fractured, undisciplined at times and lacked the killer instinct of the three previous teams. The fact that last season’s team was just as talented or more talented put the target on Dixon’s back. He doesn’t have nearly the talent he enjoyed last season, but he does have three freshmen who are the long-term future of the program. How Dixon utilizes Sam Young, Tyrell Biggs and Levance Fields and meshes them with the core of older players will determine whether the Panthers will be contenders in the new Big East.

Now, what I’ll disagree with there, is the “talent.” There is more talent on this team right now, by all estimations than there has been since the best of the Evans era. What the team had the last couple years has been experience. In the past 4 years, there has been leadership by experienced players with other teammates with comparable experience to help. That is now gone. The other major factor was the toughness of the team. That is not yet known. Krauser is the only one known to be tough and the leader.

There needs to be more? Can Graves, Ramon or even Gray be a team leader. They have to be able to stay on the court. Each has a question about being able to stay on the court. Graves may not have the talent to be out there as much. Ramon needs to stay healthy, and Gray needs to stay out of foul trouble.

Fittipaldo picks Pitt to finish 8th in the Big East this season.

An article regarding whether the BE or the ACC is the better conference. Who cares right now?

I love this puffery article about the hiring of BE founder and first commish Dave Gavitt’s son Dan. Gavitt will oversee BE basketball operations.

Gavitt, son of Big East founder and former commissioner Dave Gavitt, spent the last six years as athletic director at Bryant University in Smithfield, R.I. He earned his MBA from Providence after attending Dartmouth and getting his bachelor’s degree in history. But he thinks the best preparation for this job was serving as an assistant coach on Rick Barnes’ staff at Providence.

“There’s a real fraternity in the coaching profession and in a minor way, I’m part of that,” he said. “The mentoring Rick gave me at a young age has been the biggest thing in my career. Being an AD, having that coaching background was critical. Now in this position, having been in the league is going to be a huge experience to have.”

Big East coaches are ecstatic to have someone devoted to their concerns. And there is a comfort level that comes with the Gavitt name.

“It’s really a stroke of genius by Mike,” UConn coach Jim Calhoun said. “To get Dan here, with the influences he has through his family tree and his upbringing with his dad, and then his on-the-job training at Bryant, it’s a great addition. I think Danny will do things to help coaches understand each other better, and I think basketball will be enhanced and highlighted beyond what we have now.”

Calhoun, apparently speaks for the entire BE coaching fraternity. Other than Boeheim and Providence College, does any other coach or school really care about the Gavitts and their ties to the Big East?

Bob Smizik writes that this Big East is eventually doomed. He’s written such before, as have I and I’m sure I’ll come back to it, so I’m not going to bother commenting on this particular recycling.

Instead, the Hartford Courant has some good stuff regarding the size of the BE.

Don’t expect other conference to follow the Big East’s lead. The 12-team model is favored by most BCS conferences and there are no signs of that changing.

Tranghese just agreed to a contract extension through the 2009-10 academic year. The 16 teams have agreed to stay together until that time, but their bond will always be tested. It’s been that way since 1979 because of the diverse interests and agenda of the schools in the Big East.

The first games haven’t been played and already there are rumors of negative recruiting within the conference. Coaches from the schools with I-A football programs are telling recruits there will be a split and the schools without football will be looking for new conferences.

All signs keep pointing to the split in 2010. The BE has no choice but to keep denying it, but it is so apparent. There’s an article talking about the failed WAC 16-team experiment, with some defense of it.

As commissioner of the 16-team Western Athletic Conference, Karl Benson watched Brigham Young play in the Cotton Bowl in 1996. And in 1998, he saw the Utah men advance to the NCAA Tournament final.

“What we did was so out of the box at that time, that it did create some momentum,” Benson said. “The WAC was looked at more favorably from the outside. We were experiencing tremendous success. Had we not pulled the plug, who knows where the WAC would be today?”

On May 26, 1998, Benson was awakened by a call from Colorado State president Al Yates. Air Force, BYU, Colorado State, New Mexico, San Diego State, UNLV, Utah and Wyoming decided to leave the WAC and form their own conference.

The first 16-team conference in college sports, organized in 1994, was gone. Yates told Benson there was no way to make the conference work. Departing schools cited the loss of traditional rivalries, rising travel costs and revenue problems as reasons for leaving. By July 1999, the Mountain West had begun operations.

Benson still thinks 16 is doable, and says the BE has a better shot because they aren’t spread out quite as far — killing the travel budgets. Still there will be grumbling about travel. Can’t be avoided. Too many places, too many teams.

There is a puff piece on Tyler Palko and the season he has had this year in a Connecticut paper.

I realize the papers there are still adjusting to covering more than just basketball, but is it too much to ask that they know what the hell they are talking about? Just a little?

But they can still qualify for a bowl, thanks to Palko’s adjustment to the West Coast Offense, a system totally different from the run-and-shoot, downfield-passing game he had been accustomed to.

“Run-and-shoot?” That’s frickin’ insultingly stupid. Look, I am not claiming to be the most knowledgeable guy talking about schemes, styles of play and such. Still, I know and understand what the system used to be and what it is now trying to be. There are books out there that can help with this.

That might explain why the stories from Connecticut are all puff pieces. There is another one on redshirt freshman offensive tackle William Beatty.

No surprise that Pitt is preparing for both UConn QBs.

Over on Pitt, there is a piece about the up-and-down performance of the special teams.

The Panthers can boast the two longest kickoff returns and the longest punt return in the Big East this season. Adam Graessle is the top punter and Josh Cummings is the most accurate field-goal kicker in the conference.

And yet, the Panthers have allowed blocked punts in back-to-back games. A field goal attempt that could have upended Nebraska was knocked down. A fumbled kickoff return and a high snap for a safety were costly against Louisville.

“It’s definitely been a little bit of a roller-coaster ride,” wideout Derek Kinder said. “One play, we’re get it back on the onside kick. Another play, we’ll give up a big punt return. We haven’t had a game in which we put all the phases together.

“There are some bad fundamentals. Sometimes, we have mental breakdowns. We focus on it in practice a lot. It’s just that, sometimes, in a game, we’ll have lapses.”

An interesting comment from Graessle about his punting.

“Our goal is to get the ball off in 2.15 (seconds),” he said. “I’ve pretty much stayed under that the whole season. I could probably get the ball off faster in some situations, though.

“I’m actually faster than I was last year. It might look slower because I’m taking smaller steps or something, I don’t know. But it’s not slower.”

Otherwise, he says his mechanics aren’t a problem. And of course, it’s a must-win game.

Last home game, and a very kind piece lauding the Senior class. The piece manages to name each one of the seniors and recognize their contributions from Safety Tez Morris starting 44 of 47 games in his career to the essentially unknowns like linebackers Doug Roseberry and Keith Malley who play mainly on special teams.

The senior class — at least the fifth-year seniors — has been around for some of the highest of highs and lowest of lows in recent Pitt history. Their first season, in 2001, the Panthers began 1-5 and were on the brink of a losing season before they rebounded to win their final five games and earn a berth in the Tangerine Bowl.

In 2003, the Panthers began the season ranked in the top 15 but were upset by Toledo early and went on to have a disappointing season for a lot of reasons. But the team rebounded last year and had a surprising season, as Pitt won the Big East Conference championship and earned a berth in the BCS.

One thing that Horne and the rest of the seniors are well aware of is the fact that the Panthers have not missed a bowl game in the past four seasons and keeping that streak alive is a high priority.

“We certainly don’t want to be the class that had that streak broken,” Horne said.

Hopefully they won’t.