It is Robert Morris, after all.

That means player puff pieces in the context of Pitt basketball.

Senior John DeGroat gets the “I’m just trying to help the team,” story.

Playing time didn’t come easy to DeGroat in the opener. He played only 13 minutes, scoring three points and grabbing four rebounds.

“Same thing as last year,” he said. “If I’m on the court, I’m on the court. If I’m not, I’m not. I’m still part of the team. I’ve got to support my teammates, no matter what. Everybody wants to be on the court, but I do take my (senior) role as a lead role.”

DeGroat was a scorer in high school at Monticello (N.Y.), where he averaged 24.3 points to go with 13.5 rebounds and 3.0 steals per game as a senior. He went on to play two seasons at Northeastern Colorado Junior College.

As a sophomore, he averaged 11.7 points and 6.9 rebounds, and shot 49.4 percent (128 for 259), including 44.4 (32 for 72) from 3-point range.

Now, in his second season at Pitt, DeGroat is hoping he can contribute.

“Everybody can keep improving. I’m improving every day,” he said. “One part of my game I can improve is I can rebound and defend more, but I’m getting better every day.”

DeGroat was not seen very often until nearly the end of the season when he got into a couple games during the random bench rotation time. This, despite expectations that he was going to be an immediate contributor at forward. It still remains to be seen what happens this year.

The other story is for Center Aaron Gray.

Gray is a double threat at center. He can score when called upon, but he also is among the best passers on the team. When St. Peter’s played zone against the Panthers, Gray found the open man and forced the Peacocks to play more man-to-man defense. And when they played man-to-man, Gray exercised his size advantage and went to the basket.

“We got them out of their zone because I got the ball in the high post and was making good passes,” Gray said. “It was opening up our offense. When they went man-to-man the guys were looking for me. I was trying to get to the hoop. I worked on my moves really hard during the offseason.”

Gray is looking to be more assertive this season. Because he is one of the team’s better passers, Gray sometimes fell into the habit of passing out of the low post last season instead of going to the basket.

In the offseason, Dixon and the coaching staff talked with him about taking more of the offense on his broad shoulders.

“One of the things I do in practice is pass too much out of the post,” Gray said. “The coaches said I need to be a big offensive contributor to this team because we have so many young guys who are working their way in.”

How Gray develops and progresses this season will be part of how well Pitt does. It’s the trend for the whole team. Development and progress.

There is no doubt that this will be an up and down season for Pitt. There just is no other way with the number of new, talented players plus the ones from last year who are getting a shot.

I think most fans understand that. What I, and most, want to see is some reasonably steady improvement over the course of the season. Last year the team didn’t change from start to finish. No improvements, no growth, nothing.

Final note, Carl Krauser is once more a candidate for the Naismith Award to go with his candidacy for the Wooden Award. Long-shots, I know, but who knows.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t at least take note of this.

First Pitt. Then Kansas. Now Syracuse.

Beating the big teams is getting to be old hat for Bucknell, which used its slowdown offense to rally past the 17th-ranked Orange 74-69 on Tuesday night.

“We never take the underdog role,” said Kevin Bettencourt, who led Bucknell with 20 points and keyed a late 13-2 run that decided the game. “We think we can win every game.”

And why not?

Last January, Bucknell handed 10th-ranked Pittsburgh its first loss of the season, also snapping the Panthers’ 48-game home winning streak against non-conference teams. Then in March they shocked the third-seeded Jayhawks 64-63 in the first round of the NCAA tournament.

On this night, it was the Orange’s turn. Bucknell (2-0) won for the first time in nine meetings with Syracuse (3-2) and sent the Orange to their second straight loss.

Bucknell returned most of the starters from last year. It still doesn’t remove the sting, but it is interesting considering how Syracuse absolutely destroyed Texas Tech a few days ago.

Looks like Pitt definitely won’t be the only up and down team in the Big East this year.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t at least take note of this.

First Pitt. Then Kansas. Now Syracuse.

Beating the big teams is getting to be old hat for Bucknell, which used its slowdown offense to rally past the 17th-ranked Orange 74-69 on Tuesday night.

“We never take the underdog role,” said Kevin Bettencourt, who led Bucknell with 20 points and keyed a late 13-2 run that decided the game. “We think we can win every game.”

And why not?

Last January, Bucknell handed 10th-ranked Pittsburgh its first loss of the season, also snapping the Panthers’ 48-game home winning streak against non-conference teams. Then in March they shocked the third-seeded Jayhawks 64-63 in the first round of the NCAA tournament.

On this night, it was the Orange’s turn. Bucknell (2-0) won for the first time in nine meetings with Syracuse (3-2) and sent the Orange to their second straight loss.

Bucknell returned most of the starters from last year. It still doesn’t remove the sting, but it is interesting considering how Syracuse absolutely destroyed Texas Tech a few days ago.

Looks like Pitt definitely won’t be the only up and down team in the Big East this year.

The job of the scout team.

Simulating it at practice, however, has been a much different story because one of the Mountaineers’ greatest assets — and Wannstedt’s biggest fear — is their team speed. He said watching West Virginia on film and breaking down its plays is one thing — trying to get scout-team players and backups to provide the starters with an idea of how fast they are is another.

“They are as fast as anybody we’ve played at almost every position,” Wannstedt said. “Their running back, their cornerback makes as many big plays as anybody we got. They’ve got speed at receivers, they have speed on the defensive side of the ball, they’ve got speed everywhere.

“That ties in with Rich Rodriguez’s whole philosophy. The things they do on offense are predicated on making big plays, and they have the athletes and speed to do it. That makes it tough because you try to simulate that in practice and it’s very difficult but that’s the only way you can halfway get our guys prepared.”

To simulate the Mountaineers’ speed, Wannstedt has used a number of players at different positions on the scout team .

“We really emphasized to those [scout-team] guys in practice the speed thing,” Wannstedt said. “It is what we’re going to try and see at practice. We have some guys who are fast enough that I think we’ll get a good picture but we’ll have to be ready early.

“The first series or two is always important from the standpoint of setting a tempo and not going out there and being fooled by the pace of the game.”

Wannstedt said the Mountaineers’ talent is evident in the way they’ve been able to attack teams on offense and defense. They are very aggressive on both sides of the ball, and even if they make a mistake, they are able to compensate for it with their quickness.

Pitt has had trouble with team speed, well, for a couple of years. Nothing that can be changed right away.

What might work to slow WVU down a little may be some nasty weather.

“We’ll see how the game unfolds,” Wannstedt said. “We’ll see what the conditions are. They’re talking about bad weather, some snow, some wind, sleet, whatever. I think you have to be aware of that in advance and talk about it, which we have, and be ready to make some adjustments.”

Though, the nasty weather would appear to be hitting tomorrow and only into the AM in Morgantown. It means, their astroturf should be fine.

Still more shaking up and out. Painful, very painful to do this one.

1. Southern California — That game was why no one wants to play Fresno State
2. Texas — DNP
3. Louisiana State — Very good
4. Penn State — I’m jamming a pen into my leg after typing this
5. Ohio State — That is 2 years in a row now, that Tressel remembers to take the gloves off the offense after playing so conservatively cost them a couple games
6. Notre Dame — Surprisingly not as impressive against a very, very bad Syracuse team
7. Virginia Tech — Do they have one more choke job in them?
8. Auburn — Possibly playing the best football in the SEC
9. West Virginia — Songs banned in Morgantown this week include: “Under Pressure”, Queen with David Bowie and “Pressure Drop” as sung by many including The Maytals, The Clash and The Specials.
10. Oregon — Yeah, yeah, we know. No one respects the PAC 10
11. Miami — Damn hard to play football with both hands wrapped around own throat
12. Georgia –Great, you beat Kentucky
13. UCLA — DNP
14. TCU — DNP
15. Louisville — DNP
16. Fresno State — Not quite as impressive a loss as ND had to USC, but scary
17. Florida — DNP
18. Alabama — No offense left
19. Florida State — DNP
20. Wisconsin — DNP, running out of choices again
21. Michigan — Part of the reason they still stay in
22. South Carolina — Ditto
23. Georgia Tech — And for their next trick, they will get blown out by Georgia
24. Boston College — Typical BC
25. Iowa State — This is the team, the dart landed on

OUT: Oklahoma, UTEP, Northwestern,
IN: Iowa State, BC, Georgia Tech
Games seen whole or in part: OSU-Mich, PSU-MSU, Syr-ND, Aub-Ala, BGSU-Miami (OH)

Pitt has a commit from Jovani Chappel out of Ohio (hat tip to Neil). Chappel had taken a visit to Pitt during the UConn game. The visit and his comfort with Coach Wannstedt and the staff led him to change his mind on a previously soft verbal to Purdue.

According to the e-mail from Chris Dokish of Pittsburgh Sports Report,

An excellent student with a 3.6 GPA, Chappel is planning to graduate in December and enroll at Pitt in January. It is a new strategy used by more and more players so they can participate in spring practice, and thus have a much better chance to start as a true freshman.

I’m not sure of how the rules work, but I think he also doesn’t count against Pitt’s recruiting class limit for 2006. Instead he would count in the class of 2005. I’ll have to check on that.

In this latest version of the Big East, there is no doubt that the Keg of Nails Backyard Brawl is the big rivalry game.

Take a close look at the revamped Big East and you’ll see one glaring void in the conference: The absence of a handful of intense and storied rivalry games. But there is one, and no one has to explain to Pittsburgh coach Dave Wannstedt or Rich Rodriguez, his counterpart at West Virginia, what Thursday night’s “Backyard Brawl” in Morgantown means.

Wannstedt was a three-year starter at tackle for the Panthers from 1971-73. Rodriguez was a defensive back for the Mountaineers from 1981-84.

It’s the first time since 1965 that a Pittsburgh graduate is coaching his alma mater and a West Virginia guy is at the helm for the Mountaineers in the game.

Though the Hoopie head coach is trying to downplay the head coaches as former players angle a bit.

“I remember walking around campus and the ‘Beat Pitt’ shirts — or things more colorful than ‘Beat Pitt,’ ” Rodriguez said. “But, being honest with you, I don’t think it’s any different if I wasn’t an alumni. I think too much has been made of this. Maybe the fact I experienced it as a player makes good copy.”

Rivalry games, though, mean that fans have strong memories of games attended for good — 1997, triple-OT win in Morgantown — and bad — the shellacking the following year at 3 Rivers. So do the players memories of the games they were in.

Former Pitt quarterback Rod Rutherford stopped by Monday to see some of his former teammates and to spin tales about recent Backyard Brawl games against rival West Virginia.

Pitt coach Dave Wannstedt wondered if, 20 years from now, Rutherford will be telling the same stories.

“Everyone’s got a Backyard Brawl story, and they get better as the years go on,” Wannstedt said.

Like the one Pitt quarterback Tyler Palko can tell about last year’s 16-13 Pitt victory over No. 21 West Virginia, a Thanksgiving night game televised nationally. The Mountaineers lead 10-0 and 13-9 only to lose on Palko’s 2-yard scoring run with just over five minutes remaining, putting Pitt into the BCS bowl berth that West Virginia seemed to have secured.

Wannstedt, a Pitt player from 1970-73, can tell stories himself about the Pitt-West Virginia series — now, with Penn State gone, the only remaining rivalry on Pitt’s schedule that has been played every season since World War II.

Wannstedt, as a freshman linebacker, was around for one of Pitt’s most improbable victories in the series, a 36-35 decision in 1970 in which Pitt trailed 35-8 at Pitt Stadium.

I just don’t see the comparisons to NFL playoff games.

West Virginia Coach Rodriguez agrees that these are the games the players remember.

“I tell our players that the rivalry game is one they’ll remember the most after they’ve graduated,” he said. “They’ll recall all of them 5, 10, 15 or 20 years hence.”

When he was a student-athlete in the early 1980s, the head coach recalled, there was more talk about the rivalry games on campus and less media hype.

“At that time, we were not in the Big East,” he said. “There were no talk shows or the Internet. So it was a little bit different.

“There are so many experts now, and they can tell you what you could or should have done. Everything is under more scrutiny now.”

Ah yes, the lament of media saturation.

Apparently losing to Pitt by around 21 points every year for the last 24 years is taking a toll on the psyche of Robert Morris.

The Pitt trip is a money-maker for Robert Morris. A short bus ride. No overnight stay involved. Perhaps another $40,000 in the bank to help fund RMU athletics.

But there are indications Robert Morris is restructuring its budget so that the Pitt game won’t be financially necessary any longer. Or the trip to play Iowa Dec. 22, for that matter.

“I’m not exactly saying we have to do it to fund our team,” RMU athletic director Craig Coleman said of the Pitt game. “It helps. It’s helpful to have that revenue. But there’s a limit. I wouldn’t say to Mark, ‘Let’s go out and play five or six of these games because that will bring in more revenue.’

“I don’t want to do anything that will be harmful to his program and his kids’ morale. I think you can make a case that a couple of those games a year is probably a good thing to do for reasons other than the revenue. Many more than that, I think, is probably a mistake.”

Last season, the Colonials played four “buy” games — for which they received money — against Ohio State, Virginia, Pitt and Northwestern. They lost all four by a total of 113 points.

Don’t believe it. RMU will keep playing this one. Guaranteed money and no travel expenses make this game too financially valuable to give up.

The Colonials are healthier for this game than their opening loss to St. Bonaventure.

Pitt is planning to go about as deep in rotating players as they did on in the previous game. Expect 10 or 11 players to see time.

Apparently losing to Pitt by around 21 points every year for the last 24 years is taking a toll on the psyche of Robert Morris.

The Pitt trip is a money-maker for Robert Morris. A short bus ride. No overnight stay involved. Perhaps another $40,000 in the bank to help fund RMU athletics.

But there are indications Robert Morris is restructuring its budget so that the Pitt game won’t be financially necessary any longer. Or the trip to play Iowa Dec. 22, for that matter.

“I’m not exactly saying we have to do it to fund our team,” RMU athletic director Craig Coleman said of the Pitt game. “It helps. It’s helpful to have that revenue. But there’s a limit. I wouldn’t say to Mark, ‘Let’s go out and play five or six of these games because that will bring in more revenue.’

“I don’t want to do anything that will be harmful to his program and his kids’ morale. I think you can make a case that a couple of those games a year is probably a good thing to do for reasons other than the revenue. Many more than that, I think, is probably a mistake.”

Last season, the Colonials played four “buy” games — for which they received money — against Ohio State, Virginia, Pitt and Northwestern. They lost all four by a total of 113 points.

Don’t believe it. RMU will keep playing this one. Guaranteed money and no travel expenses make this game too financially valuable to give up.

The Colonials are healthier for this game than their opening loss to St. Bonaventure.

Pitt is planning to go about as deep in rotating players as they did on in the previous game. Expect 10 or 11 players to see time.

It seems just about every year, when the Steelers and Browns are scheduled to play, there is some stupid/stock feature on Youngstown, Ohio as the dividing city between the 2 teams. It isn’t that it is a lie. I lived there, and it is fairly evenly divided — though, between the continued suckitude of the Browns and their absence in the 90s, it has tilted further to the Steelers. The problem is the story has been done to death. It’s a boring predictable piece.

So, naturally with the Backyard Brawl there was an attempt this past weekend to find a similar place between Pittsburgh and Morgantown.

ON THE ROAD BETWEEN LABORATORY AND LONE PINE — Among the modest, split-level houses and the occasional church or home business, U.S. Route 19 wends to and fro underneath Interstate 79, where the next exit south is the road to Prosperity, of all things.

Here, tucked inside this stretch of highways past and present, is the middle ground of local college-football fandom this week. It is precisely halfway to the site of old Pitt Stadium and halfway to the grounds of new Mountaineer Field. It is the center between the Oakland neighborhood of Pittsburgh and the Evansdale campus in Morgantown, W.Va.

“We’re equidistant,” chimed in Critter from behind his beer at the Pancake Inn, just off I-79 Exit 30 in the Pancake Township also known as the east-Washington suburb of Laboratory.

Problem was, the majority of the area was pro-Pitt. The story still published. It took up plenty of space for no apparent reason, except that the reporter had come up with the story and spent the time researching and writing it, and the editors had decided to run it.

The days of major bulletin board material for one side is generally nonexistent these days. Mostly gone are the days when you can find someone talk about WVU players as “Western Pennsylvania garbage.” (read the article just to find out how much effort had to go into getting that material in the days before widespread dissemination)

Now, the best there anyone can do are H.B. Blades comments.

“They consider us the city boys,” Blades said. “They think we’re arrogant.”

Then, came the bulletin-board material, as Blades responded to the obvious follow-up: If the Panthers are the city boys, what are the Mountaineers?

“They’re the country boys,” he said, laughing. “They’re out in the middle of nowhere. There’s nothing in Morgantown, really.”

The Hoopies aren’t even biting on that. They got burned too much last year.

The only other thing that came out this week was during Coach Wannstedt’s press conference in relation to recruiting.

“West Virginia comes up here and recruits Pennsylvania,” Wannstedt said at his weekly news conference. “We know that. They always have. I think they have 16 players from Pennsylvania. But in my opinion, we don’t have much competition here [in Western Pennsylvania] — Penn State, every once in a while, Notre Dame or someone, but there shouldn’t be and there won’t be much other competition.

“The best players are going to come to Pitt.”

WVU actually has 23 players from PA (14 from Western PA), but it is also true that none of those 14 received scholarship offers from Pitt.

Okay, apparently Johnny Majors is still good for taking potshots at his former assistant.

On Monday at the Little Rock Touchdown Club, Majors said he still has fond memories of Tennessee – but he drew a laugh from the crowd full of Arkansas fans when a took a small dig at Fulmer.

“I don’t pull against those players up there,” Majors said. “But I don’t have any regard for Judas Brutus, who’s coaching up there.”

Heh.

No phrase fills me with more dread in relation to a Paul Rhoads’ defense then “facing the spread offense.” What further fills me with dread is the fact that there is a belief that Pitt is better ready for it. Spread offenses, no matter what variation, are predicated on speed and athleticism. The defense has to be able to move and respond quickly.

“The challenge we have as defensive coaches is to understand the differences and figure out how to defend them. Certainly what West Virginia does, and the pace with which they do it, presents a lot of challenges for us.”

The Panthers have struggled against the spread in the past, but have had more success recently. Against South Florida this season , the Panthers were dominant in a 31-17 win. At the end of the 2004 season, the Panthers had a similar effort against South Florida and held the Mountaineers to only 13 points the week before.

Rhoads said the difference in his defense’s play against the spread recently is not one definable thing, but a combination of things. Clearly the coaching staff has a better idea of how to attack it now that its popularity has grown so much. And the players have had a chance to play against it more and are able to recognize plays quicker.

No mention of what happened against Utah’s spread offense.

The difference between the spread offenses that Pitt was able to stop last year and this year versus times when they couldn’t — one dimension.

Last year WVU had suspended/kicked-off their top WR Chris Henry. The passing game was severely limited making them more like an option team. Against South Florida the past two times, the Bulls have had no passing game. Below average WRs also made them much more one-dimensional and easier to defend.

While this WVU team is very run oriented — both RB Slaton and QB White — they have been very efficient when they do pass. Add in a more dominant offensive line than USF, and this could be very scary when the defense is out there.

Coach Wannstedt had his press conference today.

On defending WVU’s offensive scheme:

They’re very explosive. They’ve got explosive players, number one. They’ve got guys that can run. And they put a lot of pressure on the defense. But you also need to credit their defense and their special teams. I think if you ask any coach `What are the most important factors in winning a football game?’ everybody’s going to talk about turnovers. Well the other thing that you should talk about, at least I do, is running the football and stopping the run. If you can’t do those two things, you really are going to struggle in my opinion. They’re leading our conference in both of those categories. Their defense does a very good job of playing the field position thing. They haven’t had to move the ball the length of the field a whole lot. They’ve played on a short field. They’ve caused some turnovers. They’ve played real good defense, and I think that has contributed to the success they’ve had on offense.

On WVU’s 3-5-3 defense:

The thing that makes it tough is you don’t see it every week. It’s kind of like playing a wishbone team on offense. We used to play the wishbone teams when we were at Oklahoma State and Miami. We always felt like that was their biggest advantage, besides having real good players. It was an offense that you had to try to simulate with your scout team players and work through defending some things that you normally would not. In the NFL it would probably be the run and shoot in the old days. It was different. That’s really how I kind of look at their defense. It’s not that they’re doing anything that we haven’t seen before or don’t have answers for. That’s not the issue. They’re not doing anything different than anybody else.

Coach Wannstedt was about as close to the vest in what he said in the press conference as I’ve read this year. The only tidbits were that LaRod Stephens-Howling will likely be doing some kick returning and that they have worked on some other things on defense. Otherwise, he says they are ready to play today.

As far as other things regarding the Backyard Brawl, the game notes are available (PDF). The depth chart doesn’t show anything significant.

At not getting to attend Pitt.

Yesterday I noted that one WVU player from Pittsburgh, Vaughn Rivers, seemed to be doing the most talking about being bitter Pitt didn’t recruit him. I wondered about his teammate they referred to, Eric Wicks, why he wasn’t complaining. Looks like I just needed to be a little patient. Today it’s Wick’s turn.

In his mind, Eric Wicks has a couple of scores to settle Thanksgiving night.

For one, there’s that personal thing with quarterback Tyler Palko being 3-0 in head-to-head competition.

In 1999, Palko steered West Allegheny past Wicks’ Perry Traditional Academy in the PIAA Class AAA semifinals, 31-14. In 2001, he did the same thing to Wicks’ then-undefeated mates, 28-14. Then, last Thanksgiving, with Wicks and West Virginia needing a victory to cinch the Big East title and a BCS berth, Palko willed Pitt to a 16-13 victory, completing four third-down passes in the drive before bulling the final 2 yards for the winning touchdown.

“He can talk all about those games,” Wicks said. “I’m trying to get him back in this game.”

Secondly, and most important to Wicks, there’s that Pitt 0, West Virginia 1 tally. That’s how many scholarships each school had available in 2003 for a certain defensive back from Beltzhoover and Perry.

“I wanted to go [to Pitt], but I didn’t really get recruited as far as them offering me a scholarship,” the junior strong safety said in advance of the Backyard Brawl between the 13th-ranked Mountaineers (8-1, 5-0) and Pitt (5-5, 4-2). “So I got a little grudge. A hard edge. It’ll help me play better.”

This has to have been a fun week for WVU fans. Keep reading all week long about how your team’s players wanted to go to Pitt, and had to settle on being a Mountaineer.

Well, Hoopies can take solace in the fact that their Center, Dan Mozes, seems to know not to express any grudge against Pitt for not recruiting him — and he’s the only one that I regret Pitt not pursuing given what an excellent offensive lineman he has been.

Although Mozes said his Washington neighborhood is split between West Virginia and Pitt fans, he tries to keep the “Backyard Brawl” in perspective.

“Naw, you never hate any team,” he said. “We still have another team (South Florida) to play after Pitt. But you can’t like any of your opponents, no matter who you play.”

He’s wrong. You can hate teams.