Do you realize that college basketball teams can start practicing next Friday?

Hard to believe. Pitt’s first exhibition game will be November 1 against Carnegie Tech.

Honestly, the whole month of September has been a blur. The last couple weeks we’ve seen gaggles of high school kids all dressed up for homecoming or fall formals. Totally threw us off to realize it was the end of September.

Preview magazines for college basketball are trickling onto the newstands and I haven’t had a chance to review them.

Give some credit to the Pitt football team for at least holding our interest. They may not be ready to be a top-25 or contending team, but they are a bowl team and they have lots of potential.

Back to B-ball.

A couple weeks ago, there was an article in the Trib. focusing on transfer Mike Cook.

“Who is Mike Cook?”

It promises to be a popular query among Pitt basketball fans when the Panthers open the season with a pair of home exhibition games in early November.

Cook is a transfer from East Carolina, where he led the Conference USA Pirates in scoring two years ago. He figures to blend in nicely with a veteran Pitt team that is being touted as a preseason favorite in the Big East Conference.

I’ve been very eager to see Cook in action since it was announced that he was transferring and sitting out all of last year. Cook spent the summer in Pittsburgh playing in the local college league and just further bonding with his teammates rather than go back to Philly for the summer and where the summer leagues are traditionally very competitive.

Well, the B-ball writer for CBS Sportsline decided to answer the question about Cook in his blog (Sept. 19 entry).

Allow me to supply the answer.

Cook is a 6-foot-4 guard from Philadelphia, one who played his first two years of college basketball at East Carolina for Bill Herrion. There, he was great, averaging 12.8 points per game — including 15 points per game as a sophomore — while reaching double-figures in 41 of 55 contests. And keep in mind, this was not the depleted version of Conference USA that now exists. Cook did this in the C-USA that featured Louisville, Cincinnati, Marquette, Memphis and Charlotte, the C-USA that put two schools in the Final Four in a three-year span (Marquette in 2003 and Louisville in 2005) and was one of the better basketball leagues in the country.

At Pittsburgh, Cook — who was featured in my list of top 10 transfers a few weeks ago — will be the dynamic backcourt scorer any Final Four hopeful needs. He’ll create off the dribble, get into the lane and toss runners at the rim. In the process, the opposing big man will be forced to help, which should lead to some easy stickbacks for Pitt senior Aaron Gray, the 7-foot center whose return to school was wise and makes the Panthers the Big East favorites.

Who is Mike Cook?

He’s a difference-maker, a key part to a puzzle that when put together should be great. He’s a name not many know right now, but a guy I’m sure Marquette’s Tom Crean and Louisville’s Rick Pitino (two coaches who have seen Cook up close from that old C-USA) aren’t wild about dealing with this season.

The list Parrish made had Cook at #7. Parrish is doing positional rankings this week (he gets to Centers on Friday). So far the only Pitt player listed is Sam Young at #20 among Small Forwards.

Luke Winn at SI.com blogs today about his “all-breakout team” (hat tip to Mike).

G: Ronald Ramon, Pitt, Junior LAST SEASON: 8.0 points, 2.2 assists in 24.9 minutes/game< BREAKOUT FORMULA: The Panthers operated under a low-efficiency arrangement last season. Their point guard and leader, Carl Krauser, took an overwhelming amount of the team’s shots — 391, compared to star center Aaron Gray‘s 323 and Ramon’s 175. The problem? Krauser was hardly the team’s most efficient player: He fired at a pedestrian 40.2 percent clip from the field and 36.8 from long distance.

The division of labor in Pitt’s backcourt will be more traditional this year: Levance Fields will handle the ball and distribute, and Ramon will likely fill some of the 15-points-per-game scoring void left by Krauser. Putting the ball in Ramon’s hands should pay off: With limited opportunities in ’05-06, he led the Big East in 3-point percentage at 50.8 during conference games. More importantly, Ramon’s personal efficiency rating of 124.6 was more than 19 points higher than either Krauser’s (104.5) or Gray’s (105.3). Those numbers mean that if one had given Krauser and Ramon 100 possessions each to score last season, Ramon would have produced 20.1 more points than his fellow Bronx product.

Thankfully, the meat of Pitt’s non-con really doesn’t start until December (yes, there are a couple good games in November as well).

Former Pitt CB Josh Lay worked out for the Steelers yesterday. The Steelers are undermanned at the CB position with only 1 CB on the practice squad and carrying only 4 the active roster. Backup Ricardo Colclough is questionable at best to play this weekend.
Lay was a 6th round pick of the New Orleans Saints but was cut in the beginning of September. He worked out later in the month with the Jacksonville Jaguars, but didn’t get signed.

Sadly, I’ve missed several in between. This one comes from CrossCyed.

1. We’re about halfway through the season at this point. Have you gotten a gauge on your team’s chances this year to make noise in conference play, or is the team still a total freaking mystery?

I am amazed at how many fans of so many other teams this year are completely unsure about what their team can do. And I too am one of them. I don’t think Pitt will win the Big East, but I’m not convinced that they can’t end up knocking off Louisville or WVU at this point. Those are the last two games of the season and they are home games so there is a realistic chance still. Of course, Pitt could end up as low as 6th if they don’t take care of other games in the conference. Suddenly Syracuse is looking like a much tougher game this weekend as they have improved plus it’s at the Carrier Dome where Pitt has had minimal success.

I don’t flippin’ know. I want to say they will beat ‘Cuse, Rutgers and USF, but …

2. Many of the bigger conferences such as the Big 12 and the Big 10 use a rotating schedule to determine conference games each year. What are your feelings on the current system used in your conference? Does a rotating schedule work? Has your team always caught a break?

Obviously, the Big East doesn’t have the rotating schedule issue. Arguably, though, the way the home-away BE schedule has worked for Pitt is advantageous this year. If — based on the top-25 rankings — you look at the top 3 teams in the BE: Rutgers, Louisville and WVU all come to Pitt for home games and the road games are to Cinci, ‘Cuse, USF and UConn. The only reason I hedge, is that Pitt has not played much of the conference slate yet, so they haven’t shown they will take advantage of it.

3. In an effort to get to know more about college football, both nationally and regionally, what have you done to expand your college football horizons? Have you caught yourself watching games from other conferences, or taking an interest in games that show up on ESPNU or Fox Sports?

I’m stuck in Ohio. So whether I want to or not, I have to see what the Big 11 is doing every week. The ACC has my attention thanks to the Fanhouse stuff. So I’m already trying to absorb action from 3 BCS conferences every week. That doesn’t even include the SEC stuff on CBS that I click to. The wife hates this time of year.

4. What would you change about the current exposure your team gets, either on the radio, television, print, or on the internet?

It’s not bias or anything like that. It’s seeing Pitt and the whole Big East used increasingly as programming filler for ESPN’s weekknight lineup. The Wednesday and Friday night games. Being stuck in the role previously occupied by the Mountain West before they had enough and left the WWLS.

Don’t even get me started on the continuing future of this arrangement, not to mention turning over all of the internet video rights to ESPN in the next contract as well. Insuring that the games won’t be seen that way unless you are on a broadband service that agrees to carry ESPN360, or your willing to pay the same amount for the online gameplan that you would to see it clearer and better on TV.

5. During last Saturday’s game against I-AA Northern Iowa, Iowa State trailed 21-7 at the half. The Cyclone Marching Band played a variety of songs from animated shows, including selections from South Park titled “Blame Canada” and “What Would Brian Boitano Do?” Needless to say, the Cyclones outscored the Panthers 21-6 in the second half. If you had to pick one song for your favorite team to rally to, what would it be? Because we all know what they did for the 2005 White Sox, Journey and “Don’t Stop Believing” are not to be considered.>

Hmmm. I’m pathetically out of date at this point in music. It’s just sad, really. I think if it was the band doing the song, I think “Left of the Dial” by the Replacements would be a good call (I mean it when I said I’m out of date). Really, this is one that calls for debate and discussion by those who know.

Looks like the Carrier Dome will be packed for game or at least near capacity. The Syracuse AD is projecting over 40,000 for the game (which is also Homecoming). Just to note, that was Matt Glaude — who does Orange 44 and is a fellow participant in the NCAA CFB Fanhouse — and I are answering each others questions about our teams the rest of the week. I asked him a little about the crowd projections yesterday.

While the ‘Cuse’s best WR and deep threat Taj Smith is out for the season with a broken clavicle, Rice Moss and his “slightly” separated shoulder are expected to play.

Syracuse’s Joe Fields has adjusted quite well to moving to Free Safety from QB and is now enjoying the game again.

“I haven’t had this much fun since middle school,” Fields said. “Not even high school.”

…

As the season approaches the midway point and the Orange (3-2) approaches its most important game, Fields is becoming more than competitive; he’s becoming a playmaker. Two games ago he sacked Miami of Ohio quarterback Mike Kokal on the first play, setting the tone for a 34-14 Orange victory. Saturday, he made his first career interception in the fourth quarter of a double-overtime victory over Wyoming, then nearly made a second one that would have sealed the verdict in regulation.

Despite having 25 sacks, there is some concern about the lack of speed from the Syracuse linebackers when they are in pass defense (hence, I imagine why they blitz a lot). Hopefully Pitt will be able to exploit that with the tight ends and some screens to the backs.