I’ll excerpt a bit, because arguably there’s a bit of reading between the lines for team news, but just read the whole piece.

Two weeks later, the shock, the stunning nightmare and loss, still seemed apparent in Jamie Dixon’s 40-year-old eyes, going beyond the fact that he had just taken a red-eye flight back here from California. He had gone to see a recruit. He stopped to see his parents as well.

“We still can hardly believe it,” Dixon said. “She never had any symptoms of heart problems. And we don’t have a history in our family, either. There was no reason to suspect anything — anything.”

On Friday, Dixon was in the auxiliary gym at the Petersen Events Center, the home court of the Panthers, in individual workouts, which are sanctioned by the National Collegiate Athletic Association. They last 40 minutes, three times a week, until the end of the academic year. Dixon was working with eight of his returning players from this season.

Pittsburgh was supposed to be in a rebuilding year but had a strong season. It went 25-8, reached the Big East tournament final and advanced to the second round of the N.C.A.A. tournament, losing to Bradley.

Levon Kendall, Aaron Gray and Antonio Graves, who all played often during the season, were among those practicing.

“Hands ready,” Dixon called as he prowled the sideline in a black warm-up jacket and pants. “Come on, we got to be more active this year.” And: “Penetrate. You had the opening!” And: “Step through” the screen. “Very nice. Very nice.”

Hard for Pitt partisans not to take note that Aaron Gray is still taking part in individual workouts.

Right now, it seems Coach Dixon is trying to keep busy with work. I hope it helps.

WVU didn’t want it, but they were in the big minority.

Big East university presidents voted, 13-3, in November to stop enrolling athletes who do not meet the NCAA’s initial eligibility standards. There are no exceptions, which is a major change from the Big East guidelines a year ago.

West Virginia voted against it, while Pitt cast a “yes” vote for the rule, which has been under discussion for more than a year.

“I think this sends a strong statement about where we stand when it comes to the importance of academics in this conference,” Pitt athletic director Jeff Long said. “We support that. We feel it was a very good move at a great time — when we’re coming together as a 16-team conference, the largest in the country.”

The Big East became the fourth Bowl Championship Series league to stop enrolling non-qualifiers, joining the Pacific-10, the Big 12 and the Atlantic Coast Conference.

The Big Ten has no league-wide rule keeping non-qualifiers out. However, if a football team, such as Penn State, accepts a non-qualifier, that player doesn’t receive a scholarship even though he counts against the Nittany Lions’ scholarship limits of 85 total and 25 annually.

The Southeastern Conference allows for a limited number of exceptions spread across all teams at an institution.

There is a sidebar to the article setting out the basics of the standards. The article doesn’t say who the other two schools voting against it, but if I had to hazard a guess I’d bet on Louisville and South Florida, almost by process of elimination.

Cinci is trying to clean up its image. All the private schools would sign-off on it. That would leave Rutgers, UConn, Louisville and USF.

This comes on the heels of the amusing and dumb story of a WVU student actually going to spy on Marshall’s spring practices. Let’s give some credit to Hoopie fans for being upfront about how incredibly stupid this is. It’s Marshall. I realize it’s their in-state rival, and they got stunned by them (again) in basketball this past season, but the fact that any student or even the possibility that a coach even considered the possibility of finding anything useful from spying on spring practice is beyond laughable.

Personally, I suspect the kid goes to WVU’s J-school and was given some bad advice from a questionable source.

Blogger was down all morning up until a couple minutes ago. No blogspot blog had anything out today. WHole system, apparently.

Received the new laptop computer on Thursday. On Sunday the hard drive failed. FedEx is picking it up tomorrow for the company to replace it. So it goes.

So, road game to UCF this fall. On ESPN. And Pitt put at an additional competitive disadvantage.

Schedule-makers at both schools had agreed to adjust an Oct. 14 game to Thursday or Friday to accommodate TV but only on the condition that both schools had the same number of days off before the game. One problem: A miscommunication between Conference USA and the Big East, both of which coordinate their schedules after TV partners weigh in, has left Pitt in a competitive disadvantage.

The Golden Knights have an Oct. 4 (Wednesday night) game at Marshall, then have eight days off before playing Pitt. The Panthers play a noon home game against Syracuse on Oct. 7; that gives them just five days off.

The two-day difference did not escape Pittsburgh’s attention for long. Within a couple of weeks of UCF’s Feb. 9 announcement, Pitt Athletic Director Jeff Long fired off a letter to UCF expressing his frustration for a breach of trust.

UCF officials acknowledge Long’s point, saying Knights Coach George O’Leary never would have agreed to the game if he knew of the disparity.

Unfortunately for Pittsburgh, its disappointment probably won’t carry the day because ESPN is involved. If the Panthers take a hard line and say they won’t come to Orlando unless some changes are made, well, then they might not come at all. The Big East, C-USA and ESPN then would have to find a game for UCF.

I’m not sure which is worse. The fact that UCF is going to get over, because Pitt would also have to find another game for that day, which is possible since it would be a roadie. (Probably be able to work out a nice return game in a couple years from a decent school. Hmmm…. But I digress.) Not to mention that Pitt would lose an appearance on ESPN.

Or the fact that Pitt does need to have some concern over the competitive disadvantage to the University of Central Florida.

Not good.