Dave Cox was officially announced as Pitt basketball’s new Director of Operations.

“David will be a tremendous role model for our student-athletes,” Dixon said. “He has an outstanding administrative and basketball background and is an individual who will benefit our program in many facets. He is a former NCAA Division I player who is familiar with the kind of student-athletes that we have and will continue to have representing the University of Pittsburgh.”

Cox arrives at Pitt after serving seven years as an Assistant Principal at his alma mater St. John’s Preparatory High School in Washington, D.C. His many duties at St. John’s Prep from 1999-2006 included oversight of the school’s athletic department, supervision of all extracurricular activities and serving as school disciplinarian. Prior to his tenure at St. John’s, Cox also coached at Archbishop Carroll High School in Washington D.C. from 1996-99. One of his former players was ex-Georgetown star Ruben Boumjte-Boumjte.

He served seven years as an assistant coach with the Washington D.C. Assault AAU program where he helped guide the team to the 2004 Under-16 national championship. In assisting D.C. Assault head coach Curtis Malone, several of his players earned college scholarships including Tre Kelley (South Carolina), Chris McCray (Maryland), James White (Florida, Cincinnati), Tony Bethel (Georgetown, N.C. State) and Amari Israel (Notre Dame).

The bio also notes that he did indeed play at William & Mary. Rice also holds a Masters in Education. This also means that at this point, Cox cannot go out to the tournaments and shoe camps. He is now restricted, per NCAA regulations, to phone calls (and text messaging) and a 30 mile limit.

Kind of slipped on getting back to this, so I’ll do a quick and easy one. In case you need a refresher, here’s the explanation, and what I said about Lindy’s.

CBS Sportsline college previews should have some potential to improve you would think with the purchase of CSTV by CBS. More resources, writers and information. Not the case this year. The only thing it has over last year’s version is that they didn’t load it full of ads for CBS’s fall TV shows. Instead, they were heavily promoting their fantasy league manager stuff. Yippee.

They include H.B. Blades on their All-American Squad as a 2nd teamer at LB (p. 32).

This mag’s structure for conferences and teams is a little difference. First they do each conference summary page, then they list all 119 1-A teams in their ranked order.

For the Big East page (p.38), they put the projected order as WVU, L-ville, Rutgers, Pitt, USF, UConn, Cinci and ‘Cuse. The all-conference squad includes Derek Kinder at WR as the only offensive player from Pitt. The defense has Blades, LB; Darrelle Revis, DB; and Chris McKillop, DL. Blades is also picked as the conference Defensive MVP.

CBS Sportsline pegs Pitt as the 47th best team overall (p. 49). They seem to like Pitt to possibly improve this season more than preseason expectations.

The Pitt preview page (p. 97) is essentially a recap of the activity from the spring game. Not a lot of useful information. Essentially, the defense looks good for this season while the offense is a big question mark.

File under “small world”: On Thursday night, I was down at the Ingenuity Fest (you may have heard the ads on Pittsburgh radio. Hey, if Kennywood is advertising in Cleveland why not an event in Cleveland?). I was helping out at a booth with some other area bloggers. We were actually sharing the booth with a group called Voices and Choices that works on regional economic development. At the end of the evening, one of the V&C guys asked me about my Pitt hat. Turns out he was from Mt. Lebanon, and was a big Pitt fan (he went to Wooster). His name was Greg Keidan. The last name sounded familiar, and with good reason. His father is long time Pittsburgh reporter/sportswriter/radio host Bruce Keidan. Just one of those things.

Is Duquesne and new coach Ron Everhart pushing the envelope too far? Andy Katz at ESPN (Insider subs.) has the story on a Siena player who wants to transfer, Kojo Mensah.

Here’s the background: Mensah, who is the Saints’ top returning scorer after averaging 16.6 points as a sophomore, let the team know in June that he wanted to transfer. The timing of that request irritated Siena, since it was after the spring signing period. In addition, his desire to possibly join friend Shawn James, who himself recently transferred from Northeastern to Duquesne to follow his coach, Ron Everhart, apparently has rubbed the Saints the wrong way, too.

The Saints won’t call out Duquesne for tampering, but there is a clear hint that they don’t want Mensah going there. Under NCAA rules, Siena has the right to release a player with conditions, meaning there are select schools to which Siena won’t give a full release. A full release allows a player to receive athletic aid. A release that singles out a school, such as Duquesne, would mean the player would have to pay for his own scholarship.

Where does this mess stand as of Thursday? In a quagmire, as neither side even agrees on the facts of the case.

“It is my understanding that Kojo didn’t submit any dates for an appeal and hasn’t submitted a list of schools to get a release,” D’Argenio said.

Meanwhile, Mensah’s lawyer, Michael Rosenblatt of New York City, said Mensah did give a list, one that included Duquesne, Providence, UMass and St. John’s.

“They want a blanket release with no conditions,” D’Argenio said.

At least there’s agreement on what Mensah wants — a release with no strings attached.

Rosenblatt said, “Why can’t he play at Duquesne? Why can’t he play with Shawn? There is nothing illegal about wanting to play with a friend.”

“I have my suspicions,” D’Argenio replied about the possibility of tampering. “I want to go over this on a school-by-school basis. The ones I have a problem with, I won’t release him [to]. I won’t release him to any conference school and a few others.

“Generally, that’s how it is done.”

When asked specifically about Duquesne, D’Argenio said, “[Mensah said] he wanted to go to a higher program, be on TV more and improve his NBA chances. I have no problem with a young man thinking that way, but we have all of those laid out here at Siena. He can appeal or give us a list of schools [he wants releases for]. Based on what he said to me, I would expect a list of schools from the ACC and Big East. The last three or four times we played Duquesne, we beat them.” (Siena actually is 2-0 since 2000.)

…

Meanwhile, Everhart wanted no part of this controversy when approached during last week’s Reebok ABCD Camp in New Jersey. He did say the Dukes don’t have a scholarship available for next season. If that’s true, this whole debate could be moot.

Nonetheless, no one will come out of this as a winner. Most coaches agree with Siena’s stance on the conditional release.

I’ll bet he wanted no part of it. Eyebrows were already raised with some earlier moves, and this wouldn’t help.

Meanwhile, the JUCO player Duquesne released from his commitment after the change in coaches signed with Cinci.

Finally this comment from Bruce Feldman (Insider subs.) with regards to the Auburn academic scandal.

I do believe this kind of thing does go on at many schools. OK, maybe not the part where one professor rats out another, but two years ago a reporter I know found that almost half of a top 10 football program had taken a course called Intro to Yiddish.

I have to say it. Oy.

The Big East is making an effort to provide some content this year on the site.

This media day headquarters page will be a one-stop shop for fans to get all of their preseason BIG EAST football coverage. Each year, the conference announces the results of its preseason media poll in conjunction with media day. That poll and release will be just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the football coverage that will be provided on this site.

Fans can check out team rosters, schedules and previews prior to media day, and can find much more on July 18:

* Video of interviews with BIG EAST Commissioner Michael Tranghese, head coaches and players
* Release of the 2006 football media guide in .pdf format for easy viewing and printing
* A photo gallery from the two-day event, including the golf outing, clambake and media day
* A page devoted to quotes from Tranghese, members of the media, players and coaches
* Features on players and coaches and their thoughts on several topics regarding BIG EAST football

The Media Day Headquarters, does have the team rosters and previews available. So, you can finally take a look at Pitt’s 2006 roster (since the Pitt website is still on 2005). The Pitt preview is mostly standard media guide stuff, but it gives the rough sketch of the depth chart going into training camp next month.

No word as to whether Coach Wannstedt will show up this year with a jacket and socks.