Mainly speculative stuff.

This story on the action at the Adidas Super 64 Tournament in Las Vegas has a note on a top player Pitt has only recently gotten involved in recruiting.

Julian Vaughn said he is drawing closer to making a decision. The Oak Hill bound big man said he could make his decision by late August, early September. Florida State, Pitt, Virginia, Virginia Tech and Kentucky are looking like players in his recruitment.

The early signing period for basketball is in November.

Closer to Pittsburgh, Moon Township’s Brian Walsh, a shooting guard has seen his stock rise in the camps this year.

Thanks to an impressive performance against some of the top players in the nation, Walsh himself is now considered one of the elite players in the Class of 2008. Walsh was selected to play in the underclassman all star game at the ABCD camp and came away ranked as the No. 16 shooting guard in the nation by Hoop Scoop.

“I really didn’t know what my potential was,” said Walsh, who will be entering his junior season for the Tigers, who move up to Quad-A this season. “It was crazy. I had a good camp and everything swung for me.”

But there were more benefits to his impressive performance. Less than 24 hours after his return, he was offered a scholarship from St. Joseph’s coach Phil Martelli. Within the week, he got offers from Akron, Duquesne, Penn State, Xavier and Memphis.
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Ackermann has also received inquiries from Pitt, Maryland and Clemson about Walsh. As a sophomore, Walsh was Moon’s leading scorer with 15 points per game.
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Aliquippa’s Jonathan Baldwin also received an invitation to the ABCD camp and came away ranked by Hoop Scoop as the 17th-ranked wing-forward. Baldwin has received inquiries from West Virginia, St. Joseph’s, Marquette and Tennessee.

Just something to watch.

Finally this tidbit from Mike DeCourcy.

Although not all the dates are firm yet, Pittsburgh has received enough interest from ESPN about arranging big games that the Panthers expect to play their most difficult nonleague schedule in years. Playing a lot at home, with only a few major challenges, is a formula that had worked since the program’s renaissance began early this decade. But the coaches believe this team wants the challenge of playing more tough games. One test that’s certain: a return visit to Big Ten contender Wisconsin.

I don’t think it has hurt that the fans themselves seem to be getting restless about all the patsies on the non-con. At least as far as getting people to pony up the money for those tickets and actually attend.

Honestly, I don’t care what the reason is. I’m just happy Pitt is making more efforts to schedule real opponents.

Yes, it’s a slow news day to start the week.

Those Home Depot/Team Colors paints (PDF Listings). They have them for Pitt.
I don’t know why it took nearly a month to end up on the Pitt site, but a press release about some players from the football team doing some community outreach stuff.

Members of the Pitt football team paired with 45 children from two local YMCAs to participate in the First Annual YMCA Football Clinic on Friday, July 7. In addition to teaching fundamental football skills, the clinic focused on teaching good decision-making with an emphasis on the importance of staying in school and developing teamwork skills.

“It is always a great feeling to come out and support younger kids,” said Derron Thomas. “The YMCA Football Clinic allowed us to show children the right way in life rather than finding trouble on the streets.”

In addition to Thomas, other participating Pitt football players included Joe DelSardo, Corey Davis, Doug Fulmer, Adam Gunn, LaRod Stephens-Howling and Cedric McGee. Each took time to talk with the children about the importance of teamwork not only on the playing field but also in everyday life. The participants also received instruction on football fundamentals, including blocking, tackling and route running. The clinic ended with a fun obstacle course that integrated all of these skills into one.

Don’t know if this on the Pitt propaganda show (seems like the kind of thing that would), but not all of us live in Pittsburgh to catch it.

I’ve harped on the fact that I feel the Big East is not acting with any foresight with regards to its television deals. I usually cite the Mountain West and now the Big 11 as conferences that are starting to look to the future. The issue isn’t simply about exposure. It’s about sustaining and growing the revenue streams and market to ensure the teams in the Big East do not lag, get forced to engage in deficit spending and other issues regarding the ever growing costs of being involved in top-level college athletics.

I noted earlier that the NFL Network will air and be the sponsor for the bowl game being held in Houston. That’s not all they get.

The NFL Network also received all media platform rights, including Internet, wireless, video-on-demand, satellite radio, and international TV rights for this bowl game.

That may seem like small potatoes for a minor bowl. So, who cares? But I’m thinking about what those rights mean in the football and basketball deals the Big East will be announcing. These are new, growing, emerging revenue streams that the Big East — and therefore the member schools — won’t be able to tap. Those will remain with ESPN/ABC and CBS (for some basketball).

That’s why professional teams are moving to their own networks as well as college conferences. Not just the revenue but distribution of the content. Future revenue that will only grow as more and more people don’t just use the TV. Additionally, by controlling the distribution of the games, the conference is not beholden or required to air the games when the network says so.

That means avoiding the Wednesday and Friday games to fill ESPN programming. Limiting the Thursday night games to keep them relatively special events. That was one of the major reasons the Mountain West went in a new direction. Being forced by Disney to play more and more games on weeknights began showing diminishing returns from the flip-side to network exposure — reduced live fan support/attendance. How many fans can keep coming to non-Saturday games? How does getting on national TV help, when the cameras show half-empty stadiums because people can’t make a Wednesday night game?

Again, this is about forward thinking.

The Big East seems to be allowing ESPN to control the where and when of airing games in a straight cash deal. While this is not as big a deal with basketball, it really makes a difference in football since that means they decide which games will get any TV — even if it’s just ESPN regional or to air in their gameplan package. The conference is dependent on the network to choose to provide TV coverage. For Pitt, that means going into the season, 3 games will not have any TV coverage whatsoever. Now while the Louisville game may ultimately be picked up, it seems unlikely the Toledo or The Citadel will.

I am well aware that the Big East schools are no where near the Big 11 in terms of size, popularity, alumni base, marketing strength, etc. — especially in terms of football — but the conference does need to do more to leverage the strength and interest that exists on the basketball side to plan ahead.