Either I am a steadily growing influence in the Pitt-centric community, or there is a very smart district manager at Borders doing what he can to try and make people aware. Any ways, I’m passing along the announcement I was e-mailed, mainly to feed my ego and the perception of relevance:

Borders hosts Sam Sciullo, author of Pitt: 100 Years of Pitt Basketball, along with special guest Pitt basketball legend Curtis Aiken.

Borders Books in Monroeville on Saturday, February 18, at 2pm
200 Mall Blvd Monroeville, PA 15146 412-374-9772
Pitt: 100 Years of Pitt Basketball is the definitive history of basketball at the University of Pittsburgh. From Charley Hyatt, Doc Carlson’s first All-American, through sure and steady point guard Brandin Knight, some of college basketball’s most influential players have worn blue and gold.

A University of Pittsburgh graduate, Sam Sciullo Jr. served seven years (1990-1997) as a member of Pitt’s sports information office. He was formerly the Sports Information Director at Robert Morris College and the Athletics Publications Director at Texas A&M University.

Curtis Aiken played for the Panthers from 1983-1987. His 1,200 career points ranks 21st on Pitt’s all-time scoring list. He is currently a local Pittsburgh businessman & serves as co-host of the Pitt men’s basketball post-game radio show.

The game at Marquette isn’t until 9pm that night.

An acknowledgment in Big 12 country that the Big East is the best b-ball conference.

Five Big East teams are ranked among the top 15 teams in the most recent Associated Press poll. Eight teams are ranked among the top 33 teams ranked in the most recent RPI released by the NCAA. The conference has been so competitive that Louisville, a Final Four team from last year that was ranked as high as No. 4 nationally in mid-December, will struggle to make the 12-team Big East tournament.

“I think we’ve established ourselves as the best conference in the country,” Notre Dame coach Mike Brey said. “We’ve established ourselves as the deepest group in the country — it’s not even close.”
…
The Big 12 could struggle to place many teams this season and could be in line for one of its worst seasons. Texas is a lock and should challenge for a No. 1 seed. Kansas and Oklahoma both have come on of late. But after that, every other team’s NCAA hopes appear dicey.

“The Big 12 has basically been Texas and the 11 dwarfs,” said Jerry Palm, who projects the tournament field on his Web site, CollegeRPI.com. “Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas will make it, but everybody other than Texas really is only one late slump away from not making the tournament.”

I kind of wondered why the WVU AD was so dismissive of the possibility of Beilein leaving. After-all Beilein is around $700,000/year with modest raises each season. Seemed even sillier with the resignation of Missouri Coach Quin Snyder. Then I found out about the buyout clause.

Seriously, most of the talk seems to be centered on West Virginia’s John Beilein, who has rescued the Mountaineers’ program and turned it into a national contender. The problem for Tigers fans is money. Beilein just signed a seven-year contract extension last year that started with a base salary of $700,000 this year. His buyout clause is reportedly $500,000 per season. That’s about a $3 million buyout.

Yow. That was smart. No school looking for a coach is going to be that willing to shell out $4 million in the first year — buyout plus what you would have to expect the salary offer range. Even worse for Missouri since they still have to pay Snyder something to settle his contract (at least $400,000 in base salary). Really, with that kind of buyout clause, no school will be able to consider Beilein until at a minimum after the 2007-08 season (only $2 million on the buyout).

This Big East Notebook story has a lazy reporter or just parrots the complaints from UConn Coach Jim Calhoun.

It’s not very often that Big East teams go on three-game road trips. UConn’s consecutive jaunts to Seton Hall, Villanova and West Virginia represent just the second time in its history it has played three straight league games on the road.

“This weekend might be like root canal,” UConn coach Jim Calhoun said.

Maybe that was true when there weren’t 16 teams, but not any longer. Look at the frickin’ schedules before making that claim. 6 other teams in the Big East had or have 3-game conference road trips this year: Georgetown, Marquette, Pitt, Rutgers, St. John’s and WVU.

Don’t they have fact-checkers and editors to catch this stuff?