Assuming I can dig out of the snow, I am very excited to go to the game tomorrow. This will be my first trip to the Pete. Walked and driven past it many times since it opened, but will be my first time inside (Pat, you did get those tickets from your brother-in-law, right?). For some reason, trips to the ‘Burgh for basketball games have just fallen through or simply not materialized. The added bonus is going with my dad — while the wife, kid and my mom go to a museum or something. Should be fun.

The game notes for both Pitt and Penn State (PDFs) are available. This will be the 145th meeting of the two schools. As in football it is Penn State’s longest running series, and Pitt’s second longest after WVU.

Pitt has won the last 4 meetings and is looking to go 7-0 on the season. Penn State, on the otherhand, is 3-2 coming off a come-from-behind victory over University of Missouri-Kansas City, 75-71. Penn State has made it a habit of getting off to slow starts this season.

Starting slow is a trend for the Lions recently, trailing by 19 at halftime of the Clemson game, 15 at halftime of A&M game and 15-0 after 10 minutes on Wednesday. These slow starts are often accompanied by turnover binges, something Penn State Ed DeChellis said the Lions couldn’t afford vs. a quality opponent like Pitt.

“We gotta go in there ready to take care of the basketball and play well early,” DeChellis said Wednesday. “If you let a team like Pitt get up 12, 15-0 like this tonight, that’s a little bit different story. If they smell blood, they’ll come after you.”

Pitt only beat 1-4 Duquesne by 11 points, but did hand Auburn a 37-point drubbing on Dec. 3. DeChellis said the Panthers will play 40 minutes of man-to-man defense and play aggressively — a stark contrast to the zone defense UMKC presented, allowing the Lions to get shots off and stage a comeback win.

Clemson and Texas A&M also played especially aggressive defense, so it will be a test to see how the Lions adjust, and if they can avoid getting down early.

This is a Penn State team picked — once again — for last in the Big 11. They set modest goals for this season:

[Sophomore guard, Mike] Walker said the Lions can still, for the most part, achieve their goal of going undefeated at home against non-conference competition. Though they have already dropped one to Clemson, he said they need to stay focused.

So how can they meet that goal if they already lost a game at home in the non-con? Must be the new math. Ah, the value of a Penn State education.

It’s here. My ballot — which earned me a tie for the top spot as “Mr. Stubborn” for not doing much to change the bottom portion of my ballot from the previous week (other than dropping Oklahoma and adding FSU) can be found here. All individual ballots are reviewable by going here.

Far be it from me to give much sympathy to the media, but voting in this poll every week is tough. There is a load to process and you simply can’t help the biases. Just one more reason to have some form of playoffs.

Yet another recruit verbals to Pitt. Defensive Tackle Jared Martin from Davie, Florida gave his verbal to Pitt today. Martin appears to be something of a project and/or had his stock rising during the season based on his play. I say that because of the rankings given by Rivals.com and Scout.com. They list him as a 3- and 2-star prospect, resepectively. He chose Pitt over Arizona St., Minnesota and Colorado (like that was going to happen now). Martin visited Pitt back on opening weekend against ND. He had taken a visit to Minnesota this past weekend. Apparently cold weather wasn’t too much of a concern for him.

Pitt locked him up this week with a visit to his home according to the e-mail from Pittsburgh Sports Report:

Pitt coaches Dave Wannstedt and Charlie Partridge visited with Martin at his home this week, and that apparently sealed the deal for the talented lineman. Pitt had been recruiting Martin since the spring and first offered him a scholarship in July.

Martin has a solid frame and upper body strength that appears to be Division 1-ready. He bench presses 400 pounds and squats over 500. At 6’1″ he is a bit undersized on the defensive line, but he has explosiveness off the ball and has been described as a bull-rush defensive tackle. Colleges have also been impressed with his lateral movement and leverage. He fills a position of need for the Panthers and is expected to challenge for early playing time, as Pitt graduates both starting interior lineman from this past season. Martin is the fourth defensive tackle to commit to Pitt this year, joining Jason Pinkston, John Malecki and Shane Corson.

I’m continually amazed at the work being done by Coach Wannstedt with regards to recruiting.

Here’s a stone-cold lock prediction. At some point during the season, the title of this post will be used as the headline to some story about Pitt’s freshmen players. Trust me. No editor over the age of40 is capable of resisting using that cliched headline thinking of how sly they are to slip in some “Who” reference.

At SI.com, Grant Wahl includes Pitt as one of the schools with an intriguing freshman class so far this season. The Big East seems to have a lot of teams playing freshmen for significant minutes — Syracuse, Louisville and Marquette.

An article on how Pitt’s young players did well in their first “road” test. Kind of hard to take seriously. It does note, that Chevon Troutman has been in town. Not sure if there will be a sighting at the Saturday game.

In an article that can only be described as brutally mistreating numbers to make the theory work there is this piece declaring that moving Krauser to shooting guard and splitting the point guard duties between Ronald Ramon and Levance Fields to be a success. Now, I happen to think the move is a good one, but primarily as a way to get the best players on the court at the same time. The piece, though, tortures the numbers, makes bad comparisons and leaves some big gaps.

Pitt’s standing in two statistical categories tells the tale. Last season, Pitt was 11th of 12 teams in the Big East in turnover margin and tied for eighth in assist/turnover ratio. The Panthers committed 14.4 turnovers per game while their opponents committed just 12.9 per game (-1.55). They had 439 assists and 419 turnovers (+1.05).

So far this season, the Panthers are near the top of the league in both statistical categories. They are third in turnover margin (+5.00) and second in assist/turnover ratio with 90 assists and 64 turnovers (+1.41).

Where to start. First of all, the numbers are wrong the data sets used don’t even include the Duquesne game, so the numbers are only based on 5 games. Sheer laziness to not add those numbers in (not to mention failing to note that in the article). Not that comparing 6 games instead of 5 to 29 is a significant improvement, but it immediately lowered Pitt’s standing a notch or two in the conference rankings — a component used to base the argument.

Pitt’s turnover margin is now listed at +3.50, 5th in the conference — a 2 spot drop. The assist/turnover dropped to 4th in the conference with 107/80 (+1.34).

As for some actual comparisons, the 2004-05 numbers are correct for turnovers committed and allowed. Notice, however, that the actual numbers of turnovers/game this season aren’t mentioned. That’s because part of the premise: that Pitt is taking better care of the ball; is questionable to this point. Pitt is averaging 13.3 turnovers/game so far. Even with the bad skewing of the numbers, that is only 1.1 turnover less per game than last year. The big rise is more that the defense (and the overall quality of the opponents) is different. Pitt’s opponents have had 16.8 turnovers/game to this point. That is where the big swing in turnover margin is being generated.

Near the end of the article, he finally and briefly notes that the numbers through the first 6 games of last season also reflect improvements. Note that he used 6 games and in his early comparisons he was just using the 5 games played this season.

You know the really sad thing. The argument could have been made far more effectively just by comparing the first 6 games from last year to this year. Seriously

per game averages —- Assts. —- TO —— A/TO — TO Margin

2004-05, 6 games — 19 (114) — 15.5 (93) — +1.22 — +0.5 (96 TO for opp.)
2005-06, 6 games — 17.8 (107) — 13.3 (80) — +1.34 — +3.50 (101 TO for opp.)

Last year, Pitt had some sloppy, early play as the numbers show. This year, despite the youth and inexperience Pitt is taking much better care of the ball — better than 2 fewer TOs/game. A chunk of it also has to do with more 3 guard line-ups and a little lessening of the emphasis to go inside. Those comparisons, though, do a much better job of making the point.

I hate bad stats.