No other confirmation that Dave Cox was hired as Pitt’s Director of Basketball Operations right now. Here’s not a lot of info on the guy right now. He was a coach on the AAU team DC Assault’s Blue (17 year-olds).

On that squad includes Anthony McClain. He’s a 4-star recruit on Rivals.com. 65th best player overall and 4th best Center. Scout.com also considers the 7-footer a 4-star recruit, but maybe the 27th best overall and 3rd best Center. Other players on this AAU team of interest include Mike Davis, who is getting interest from Illinois, Tennessee, USF and VT. Jamar Samuels has interest from Duquesne, NC St., Syracuse, Clemson, DePaul and Providence. Darnell Dotson, a small forward is not considered a high prospect at this time.

St. John’s Prep., which the story says was where he was an administrator, features Chris Wright. Wright is a 6’1″ 5-star point guard recruit. His offers include ‘Nova, G-town, Maryland, Georgia Tech and Wake Forest. Scout.com lists him as the 17th best prospect (just behind Herb Pope) and 5th best PG. Rivals.com has him at #21 and also the 5th best PG.

Now, while he may have a relationship with Wright, I have to note that David Cox is not listed as being one of the coaches.

As for what else I can tell you about David Cox. He apparently attended St. John’s Prep and was a pretty good basketball player (listed in the honorable mention). Unconfirmed at this time, but the time frame fits, a David Cox played college basketball at William & Mary from 1992-1995, and it would seem by his place in their records to have been a good point guard and 3-point shooter for them.

This is a stunner (big Hat Tip to Scott) .

i95Ballerz.com would like to give a big up to former St. John’s College Preparatory High School administrator and D.C. Assault coach, David Cox. The seven year St. John’s and Assault professional shared during a recent phone interview, he is presently poised to accept the Director of Basketball Operations position at the University of Pittsburgh.

At Pitt, Cox relayed his upcoming duties as “I’ll be the fourth assistant coach” working for that program’s head coach, Jamie Dixon, while also functioning as “a liaison between the administration and the basketball office”. The position contains several restrictions not imposed upon other assistants, as during practices he “can’t supply input”, and can only “go out on the road and recruit” within a 30 mile radius of Pit’’s campus.

The long expected rumor was that Brandin Knight would be taking that job come August. Looks like Knight might be taking one more run at pro basketball. More later.

I’ve been debating about doing a live blog of the NBA draft tomorrow. I know I’ll end up watching. I always do. Sure it’s not nearly as entertaining with ESPN making it into a drone fest of seriousness, as it was when TNT did it almost with a tounge-in-cheek approach. And yes, I know the live blogging of the draft has probably been done to death.

But like I said, I know I’ll be watching it. I’ll be curious to see which player(s) will take a Chris Taft-like tumble or even fall out of the draft. Will Carl Krauser get picked in the 2nd round? Isn’t it stunning to see Patrick O’Bryant parlay that one game against Pitt into a lottery draft pick? And why did it take until the day before the draft for someone to finally write — even in a complimentary way — about that fact?

Quick thought as to why the NBA draft under ESPN sucks so bad. The obvious answer is that they treat it like the NFL draft and just don’t have any sense of humor with it. But that isn’t quite right, because there is something somewhat humorous in the NFL draft. And here’s the difference. The NFL draft takes forever and a day. There’s interminable periods between picks. People are on the set all day, and frankly, they get punch-drunk after a while. Heck, it doesn’t even take too long for the slight goofiness to kick in, when it takes over an hour to get through the first 4 picks.

In the NBA draft, though, it moves too quickly. There’s no chance for the people working the draft to start slipping and having any fun. The whole thing is over in just a few hours. There’s no chance to really get off-script. Or at least the producers won’t let them. It also doesn’t help that the ESPN personalities are generally wooden. The only wild card is the local crowd. That is the best chance for some fireworks. That they will overwhelm the mics with booing of whatever the Knicks do (and they don’t pick until #20) or a Vescey-esque chant directed towards Steven A. Smith.

So, yeah, I’m probably going to do it for at least the first round and maybe the second. Right now, my biggest issue for the draft is deciding on Scotch, Bourbon or Beer to accompany it.

And I’m somewhat amused.

As you can expect when a NASCAR driver is involved in non-NASCAR model, she will be taller than him (look at the picture).

The four-time NASCAR champion plans to marry Belgian model and actress Ingrid Vandebosch.

The two started dating in 2004 and appeared together in the movie Taxi, in which Vandebosch played a bank robber and Gordon made an uncredited cameo appearance at her invitation.

…

Vandebosch has also dated actor Bruce Willis and former Baltimore Oriole Brady Anderson.

And yet, she is only 5’7″.

Her “acting career” is a total of two movies. The aforementioned Taxi (don’t tell me you’ve already forgotten that classic Fallon-Latifah team-up) where she played “Third Robber” (as a supposed Brazilian no less).

Her other acting credit was in the underrated flick (straight to DVD?) Going Greek for her understated role as “Beautiful Girl” in 2001. There is not even an entry for her on the Celebrity Nude Data Base, telling you all you need to know about the quality of that movie.

Really, a European engaged to a NASCAR driver? Isn’t that embarrassing for her to her friends and relatives back in Belgium. Not even a Formula 1 driver.

I’m not saying high glossy covers and lots of photos are bad. I’m just suggesting that it can be a bit of a warning as to the overall content. Okay, done with the commentary as to the overall product offering.

Lindy’s is one of the earliest publications to come out, and produces its team previews by hiring local beat writers. Paul Zeise of the Post-Gazette provides the Pitt write-up — presumably a freelance gig. I don’t think this is a bad thing. They actually know the team, its strengths and weaknesses and might be more accurate with information. On the other hand, there’s little value in reading a summary of stuff you’ve already read from him before.

One of the things Lindy’s has in this year’s preview is an “All-American Team for the Past 25 Years” (p. 11). They place one first-teamer and a second-teamer from Pitt. Offensive lineman, Jimbo Covert (1982) on the 1st team and WR Larry Fitzgerald on the 2nd team. As previously noted, Lindy’s has a couple Pitt players on its All-American Squad for 2006. Darrelle Revis, 1st Team DB and H.B. Blades, 2nd Team LB (p. 33).

Lindy’s does the individual position ranking and so you see them placing Tyler Palko as the 15th best QB (p. 34); Darrelle Revis is the 2nd best DB in the country (p. 42); Adam Graessle is considered the 9th best Punter (p. 44); and H.B. Blades is listed as the 2nd best LB in the country (p. 41).

Each of the lists is accompanied by a profile article on one player. The Linebacker list has a story on Blades (written by Zeise). As you would expect, there’s a bit of talk regarding his bloodlines. Lindy’s also partners with NFLDraftScout.com for some content to list the top draftable players. They list Blades at #17 (p. 61). Right now, the site lists Blades as the best ILB for the 2007 draft.

They also provide their opinion on leading candidates for the various CFB awards. They put Revis at #9 on the list for the Bronko Nagurski award (p. 62).

Lindy’s does a “complete” ranking from 1-119, and places Pitt at #51 and 4th best in the Big East (p. 26). On the Big East preview pages (pp. 148-9), the predicted finish is WVU, L’ville, Rut, Pitt, USF, UConn, Cinci and ‘Cuse. Blades is picked as the BE Pre-Season Defensive Player of the Year.

On the All-Big East squad, Revis and Blades are 1st team defense. John Simonitis and Mike McGlynn (OLs) make the 2nd team offense. Adam Graessle is 2nd team Punter. Showing the need for a fact checker or something, Tez Morris is also included on the second team. He, um, graduated. Here’s a hint. The Pitt roster page, isn’t updated until sometime in July. Add a year.

As for the Pitt preview page (p. 153), well as I said it’s Zeise, so you should have something of an idea. He sees the team as going anywhere from 5-7 to 7-5 and he focuses on the line play. He thinks the offensive line should be better but the defensive line is the big problem.