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.