With the blowouts in football this afternoon, I was actually able to catch several Big East teams playing basketball. Villanova looks really good. Georgetown is upper-half. Cinci is lower-middle of the BE and Notre Dame looks destined for the NIT once again.
The Oakland Zoo may not be a fully student run operation any longer, at least it was started by students and does not have to worry about a name change in the event of a coaching change. Unlike Auburn’s Lebo’s Lunatics student cheering group.
As mentioned yesterday, Jeff Lebo and his father Dave were in Carlisle, PA last night for the christening of Lebo Court. Carlisle had to come back to win the actual game, and unsurprisingly the place was packed with “countless members of the extended family.” And if they were anything like the numerous “Lebos” I knew at the time in Lebanon, “extended” is just a polite euphemism for “no relation, other than a name, that failed miserably as an opening with girls in attempts to get laid.” But that could have just been my little corner of Central PA.
Anyhow, Game Notes from both Pitt and Auburn (PDF for both) are out. This is the first time Pitt and Auburn have ever faced each other in a major sport (and of course, that means football or men’s basketball). According to the Pitt game notes that leaves Kansas State, Texas Tech and Wake Forest as the only teams from the other 5 BCS conferences that Pitt has never faced in b-ball or football.
This is what Jeff Lebo had to say about going to face Pitt:
“We are going to a whole different arena and place now. We are going to play in a hostile environment. Pitt is a very big, physical team. They have a terrific player in Carl Krauser. They have had extra time to get ready for us. They are by far the best defensive team that we will have faced. They are a very physical team. Pittsburgh is always very physical. They are a team that over the last five years has almost averaged 25 wins a season. You are looking at a team here recently that has been really, really good and especially good at home. It will be good for Ronny to get back to Pennsylvania. He will have a lot of family coming to the game. It will be another tough test for us. This has been a tough stretch with three games this week, two of them on the road, and a lot of miles in-between. It will give them a little taste of what it is like in the SEC.”
“Ronny” is Senior Guard and Auburn’s leading scorer, Ronny LeMelle of Bishop McDevitt High in Harrisburg. He is expecting around 40 friends and family in attendance.
There was an article on Pitt’s struggles to shoot the 3. Specifically, Graves, Ramon and Krauser are shooting a combined 19-57 (.333) — and the team as a whole is shooting 33%. Naturally, Coach Dixon expressed no concern long-term over this. I’m a little more concerned. Last year, the team’s worst game in the non-con portion of the schedule — where the defense wasn’t as strong — was 35%. This has been the 3-point shooting % for each game so far in order played: 47.6, 37.5, 27.3, 20. That isn’t exactly an encouraging trend.
