I think I’ve established that I prefer actual information as opposed to overly broad speculation based on limited information. Now having said that, this could descend to borderline fantasy by the time the post is finished.

I noted that Duquesne made what I thought was at least on its face, a halfway decent hire for head coach. That was going to be the extent of my thoughts. I couldn’t really say that I find Duquesne much of a concern. So, I didn’t bother passing along a contrary view from Greg Doyel at Spotsline.com on the the hire (Mar 29, second entry).

Here’s how bad the Duquesne job has become: The school is about to hire Ron Everhart of Northeastern. Understand two things about Everhart: One, he didn’t start winning at Northeastern until he hired an assistant coach from Miami named Frank Martin, at which point Martin began delivering players like Jose Juan Barea — at which point Northeastern began to win. Martin’s at Kansas State now. And, two, Everhart is in bed with one of the most hotly discussed prep school coaches in New England, Bill Barton of Notre Dame Prep, who is known among mid-majors for steering his players — even players committed elsewhere — to Northeastern. If Everhart was the best Duquesne could do, then Everhart was the best Duquesne could do.

Okay, so Everhart has a sort of connection to a Huggins assistant. Of course, as we learned this week, not just any Huggins assistant. Martin is tight with the AAU Coach Art Alvarez of the Miami Tropics which of course ties back to Arlington County Day School, Rex Morgan and of course J.O. Stright. The Huggins connection is not even hidden by Duquesne:

“I’ve known Ron for a long time. He’s a ‘basketball guy’ who has great respect for the game. He coaches the game with great passion. I think he’s one of the really good younger guys in the business.”

So when there was the formal introduction of Everhart, Stright was there and being quoted.

One of the people in the stands, J. O. Stright, will help Everhart recruit locally. Stright has strong ties to youth basketball in the area and plans to showcase a number of players next week at a local gym. “It’s mainly going to be for Ron,” Stright said. “The kids will be sophomores and juniors with some seniors who haven’t signed yet. Ninety percent will come from the J.O.T.S., and some will be prep school kids.

“Ron is my type of guy. I like the way he does things.”

He also said this.

Shaler’s J.O. Stright, the founder of the Pittsburgh JOTS Junior AAU team, welcomed Everhart. Stright, arguably the most influential person in Western Pennsylvania basketball, is certain Everhart will improve Duquesne’s ability to recruit.

“I don’t think Duquesne could have picked a better guy to rebuild the program,” Stright said. “I think (recruits) will consider Duquesne now. It’s obviously going to rejuvenate the program. It was dead. It was on its heels. But just being around Ronnie, you will see a big difference.”

So there are ties between the two with Huggins and Martin — at a minimum. You have to suspect they have at least some familiarity with each other and perhaps meeting in other settings. Who else can be added to the mix.

A tip-off to what Ron Everhart brings as the men’s basketball coach at Duquesne University came across loud and clear yesterday when he mentioned a number of people who helped him decide to take the job — Rick Pitino, Sonny Vaccaro, Bob Huggins and J.O. Stright, all shakers and movers in the business of college basketball.

Everhart knows how the game works when it comes to finding the players who can turn a losing program into a winner.

“I’m very fortunate to have their support and friendship,” Everhart said of Pitino, the coach at Louisville; Huggins, the new coach at Kansas State; Vaccaro, the godfather of high school all-star basketball games; and Stright, who has ties to the local youth basketball scene as an AAU coach and founder of the J.O.T.S.

We can cross off Pitino, one of Everhart’s assistants at Northeastern happened to be Richard Pitino — Rick’s kid. Of course they’d say nice things about each other.

Sonny Vaccaro, on the other hand, is hard to miss. Vaccaro’s been with Reebok for a few years after leaving Adidas. Vaccaro, a Western PA native, is tight with most AAU coaches and runs the ABCD Camp, set up various others and is widely credited with the AAU, summer programs for high school basketball players and so on — for better or worse.

Vaccaro, while still at Adidas, was a player in helping Howland to UCLA (shoe money for the salary). He also pushed hard for Pitt to hire Bobby Gonzalez from Manhattan — another one of his “up-and-coming coaches” at the time. Funny how Gonzalez’s star seemed to dim without Vaccaro’s backing.

This is all somewhere between a lot of coincidences and a deep dark conspiracy Pitt should be wary of.

Who knows.

Ray Fittipaldo gives his last Q&A for the year. Questions about Dixon’s contract stuff, J.O. Stright comes up, recruiting types of players, Aaron Gray and better use of Sam Young.

Q: Although Pitt had a great season, I have one question: Do the coaches ever recruit bigger guards or more athletic small forwards? It seems like they have guards who play small forward.

Fittipaldo: I’m sure they recruit athletic forwards, but they don’t land many, Chris. Small forward has been the one position holding Pitt back in recent seasons. Ever since Jaron Brown left the program, Pitt has been searching for answers at small forward. Dixon tried Yuri Demetris and Mark McCarroll there two seasons ago. He tried John DeGroat, Keith Benjamin and Antonio Graves there this season. Demetris, Benjamin and Graves were guards who tried to play small forward. McCarroll was a power forward playing out of position. DeGroat was a small forward, but he just didn’t pan out. Maybe this Smith from Hargrave is the answer to their problems. I know he is highly coveted by the staff.

It may be just me, but if the coaches could sell Benjamin on it, I think he could come close to doing what Jaron Brown did on defense. Benjamin is fast enough and looks like he could be strong enough to be a shut-down one-on-one defender. The problem is, Benjamin is much more in love with scoring and the offense. Not sure if he could make the mental adjustment.

Spring Practices are underway for everyone. That means ridiculously early previews are starting to be released. One such site, NationalChamps.net has its early 2006 preview available — but you have to pay ($8.95 for the college football junkies that are truly desperate). In there they list their pre-season All-American team and include Darrelle Revis on the 1st team and H.B. Blades on 3d team.

Additional time waster, NationalChamps.net also hosts the very interesting Helmet Project, where they are compiling graphics of all past helmets worn by football teams. The groupings are divided by conferences in college football including the Big East.

Sam Clancy recently moved back to Pittsburgh to finally complete his college education. He is also interested in helping the football team.

Sam Clancy, a former basketball standout at Pitt and an NFL defensive end, watched Thursday’s practice from the sideline. There are no vacancies on coach Dave Wannstedt’s staff, and NCAA rules prohibit him from doing any hands-on unpaid coaching. But Clancy hopes to be a positive presence around the players.

“I’d like to help out any way I can,” Clancy said. “I’m looking forward to being around the young kids. This is where you mold them for the next level. This will be a challenge for me, because I’ve only been around professional athletes.” Clancy coached for six years in the NFL for Oakland and New Orleans and five seasons for the Barcelona Dragons in NFL Europe.

Earlier this week I noted a couple Clint Session stories. Here’s another.

Session will open this season as the Panthers’ starting strong-side linebacker.

“He’s got to stay healthy,” coach Dave Wannstedt said. “He knows his position. He knows his responsibility. So, I expect good results.”

Last season, Pitt’s defense was soft against opposing running backs. The Panthers gave up only 185.2 rushing yards per game — the only team that didn’t crack 100 yards against them was Ohio.

“It definitely gets me a little fired up,” Session said. “Being a linebacker, the main thing we want to do is stop the run.

“It’s embarrassing when a guy runs on you, even if it’s 2 or 3 yards. When you can’t stop the run, the other team’s pretty much got you in its hands, and it can do whatever it wants with you.”

The article repeats the earlier stuff: coming back from injury, losing weight, working in Florida to get faster, and the 3d person quote.

Ending with a human interest story. A Carlisle teen with Spina Bifida got an autographed football from Coach Dave Wannstedt. The kid has been in and out of Children’s Hospital for surgeries, meeting players and becoming a fan.

The focus is on Fullback Conredge Collins. Part of why Collins came to Pitt was for the opportunity to play tailback — as a fullback he was considered one of the top recruits in the country — but he seems to be coming around to playing fullback.

At 5-foot-11 and 225 pounds, slimmer than the 245 he weighed after returning from Christmas break, Collins is a bulldozer and much more-suited to the role than senior Tim Murphy was last season.

Collins was recruited as a tailback and really wanted to play that position at this level.

“We just have to convince (Collins) that there’s activity at the position other than just throwing your big body at somebody to block him,” Pitt offensive coordinator Matt Cavanaugh said. “But he’s adapted to it pretty well. He’s still working at it, but he’s on track.”

Stephens-Howling and Collins appear to give Pitt a solid one-two punch.

“I think we work well together,” Stephens-Howling said. “He’s a good runner, and he’s getting better as a blocker. I like running behind him.”

Along with his running, pass-catching and blocking duties, Collins has been like a third tight end and gone in motion at times this spring.

Since John Pelusi might have to redshirt because of offseason knee surgery, Pitt is down to two tight ends until freshman recruit Nate Byham comes in this summer.

Playing time was a big reason he agreed to the shift.

Now that he’s the starter, he’s trying to figure out what his role his, but he’s sure he’ll be a big part of the offense. He said the key for him is that he is only a sophomore, yet he already has earned a starting job. Now, it’s time to prove himself.

“I knew that after this past season, there’d be a lot of openings in the backfield, and that’s one of the reasons I came here,” said Collins, who is from Miami and is the son of former New England Patriots running back Tony Collins.

“Being the big back, the power back, I know I’ll get in a lot of one-back situations and get to catch the ball out of the backfield or run the short-yardage plays. So, it is up to me to get it done now.”

Other notes from the article observe that Connor Lee and David Abdul are still battling for the starting job. Cavanaugh noted that various offensive assistant coaches already want to have Dorin Dickerson play a bit at other positions.

“The only coach who hasn’t yet asked for him is [offensive line coach] Paul Dunn, and it won’t be long before he does,” Cavanaugh said.

Ominous note that Center Chris Vangas hurt his knee — the extent not yet known. He was in a battle for the starting spot.

QB Tyler Palko is still pissed about last season and using it to motivate.

“You have that sick feeling of 5-6, and I really hope that the guys on this team feel the same way,” Palko said about Pitt’s record last season. “I want to make sure we never have that feeling again. You don’t want to send your seniors out like that, and I feel bad that we did.”

There’s no guarantee the Panthers can secure a winning record next season, but the chances are better just because it’s their second year in Dave Wannstedt’s system.

“We’ve had a lot less mental mistakes than we had last year at this time, and I think they’re starting to understand,” offensive coordinator Matt Cavanaugh said. “A lot of the terminology is identical, with just a few changes, but there’s better communication overall.”

Palko has noticed a big difference as well.

“It’s going to be easier, because the system isn’t as new,” Palko said.

Cavanaugh was disappointed with his own work last year.

“I’m disappointed that we were 5-6 last year. I take blame for a couple of those losses; I think I called some poor games and didn’t give our players a chance to execute some plays. So, I’ve got no comfort level. I expect us to be a lot more sound in every area. I’ve got a lot of improvement to make.”

Pitt held its seventh spring practice yesterday. Cavanaugh is encouraged that the players on offense are making fewer mental mistakes than a year ago at this time. “We’re coming out of the huddle with a better idea of what we’re supposed to be doing,” he said.

“There’s still a lot of things, fundamentally, that we’ve got to work on, but I think they’re grasping the schemes better. We want them coming out of the huddle confident in what they’re doing. If we can get them to that point, then we can correct all the fundamental things.”

You would hate to see the results if the offense took a step back. Actually, we have seen that. They are called Syracuse.

As I wrote yesterday, Seton Hall won’t make a decision until after the Final Four. It does, however, really appear that it is down to Pitt Associate Head Coach Barry Rohrssen or Manhattan Head Coach Bobby Gonzalez.

Seton Hall athletic director Joe Quinlan has narrowed the field for the vacant basketball head coaching job to Pittsburgh assistant Barry Rohrssen and Manhattan coach Bobby Gonzalez, according to a person familiar with the school’s coaching search.

The individual, who requested anonymity in order to maintain the university’s desire to keep aspects of the search private, said Quinlan may interview one or two more candidates but Rohrssen or Gonzalez will likely become the school’s next coach.

One report yesterday, said that Rohrssen had absolutely killed in his interview.

Quinlan had already met with Barry Rohrssen on Tuesday, and sources told the Daily News that Quinlan was impressed with the Pittsburgh assistant.

“It’s (Rohrssen’s) job to lose,” the source said.

There could be lots of coaching turnover on the basketball staff. Assistant Joe Lombardi is eyeing a head gig.

Meanwhile, Pitt assistant Joe Lombardi has expressed interest in the vacant head coaching position at Indiana (Pa.), where he served as an assistant from 1984-87.

Lombardi, a Sharon native, has spent the past three seasons at Pitt. He also is a former assistant at Ohio, Youngstown State, St. Francis (Pa.), La Salle and St. Bonaventure, where he served as associate head coach for more than half of his tenure.

The potential turnover of two coaches could have an affect on Pitt’s chances of landing Tyler Smith.