The outcome may never be in doubt, but the game could be tougher than expected against the Robert Morris Colonials.

Coach Mark Schmidt’s Colonials are 4-0 and return an experienced team for the game against Pitt.

“I’m glad that Robert Morris is so good this year,” Dixon said. “They’re 4-0, and we’re familiar with their guys, and it’s great to see Mark doing so well and to see them playing so well this early in the season.

“They have two road wins, and I don’t think anybody in the country has two road wins at this point in the year, so to do that is very impressive. And when you look at their guys, it’s amazing how much they’ve improved.”

Pitt has beaten RMU all 25 previous times. The players are more familiar with one another than ever thanks to playing in the Pittsburgh summer league this past season.

The Colonials are led by Senior Forward A.J. Jackson, who has been the NEC player of the week for the second straight week. The two road wins came at Marshall and Maine.

The game is going to be shown locally on FSN-Pittsburgh, ESPN Regional and FullCourt subscription tomorrow at 7:30. Game Notes (PDF).

So give CBS Sportsline’s Gary Parrish credit. After calling this game a challenge for Pitt, he didn’t mind coming back and addressing what Pitt did to FSU.

Worst game of the weekend: Florida State was supposed to give Pittsburgh its first test. If that’s true, then Jamie Dixon’s team had a cheat sheet, because the Panthers thoroughly dominated the Seminoles, and that much of the damage came from the perimeter is an indication that Pitt is balanced enough to win games in multiple ways. The final was 88-66, but that score is misleading. This beating was much worse than that.

Andy Katz seems a little bothered by Ohio State getting to #1 in the Coaches (hat tip to Steve).

It’s not worth getting too worked up about the polls, since they don’t matter in college hoops like they do in football. But since they exist, they should at least make sense. Putting Ohio State No. 1 this week doesn’t.

Jay Bilas is a bit annoyed at the polls on Pitt’s behalf (Insider subs.).

2. Pitt Should be No. 1
Because college basketball has a tournament, the debate over which team is No. 1 is largely irrelevant. All the No. 1 ranking gives you is bragging rights and a nice reward with top billing on SportsCenter highlights and news coverage. Otherwise, it means bupkes.

Notwithstanding the overall lack of true meaning, I think that Pitt should be No. 1, even though I don’t think the Panthers are the best team in the nation. Pitt and UCLA have not yet lost games and should have risen in the polls over Florida, North Carolina and Kansas because of it. The polls are a snapshot only, and the current photo shows the top contenders with bloody noses while Pitt and UCLA are still clean and unmarked.

Remember, Pitt has been in this position before and lost to St. John’s, then lost in the NCAA Tournament to Bradley. The Panthers, however, look like a team that will be a tougher out this season. The reason? Pitt scores the ball much more easily than in prior years. While Pitt advanced to the Sweet 16 when still grinding it out on the offensive end, it is much easier to play when you can score some easy baskets. So far this season, Pitt is doing that.

A little more love and support for Pitt than in the past. Takes some getting used to.

Safe to say the local media was figuring on doing some more stories about Pitt getting a #1 ranking for the first time in b-ball history. Since that didn’t happen, they had to scramble with other angles.

“What I really like about them is they’ve taken to what we’ve tried to talk to them about each game, what we’ve tried to emphasize, and I think we’ve carried that over from game to game really consistently,” Dixon said. “They understand that it’s not good enough where we’re at right now. That’s the most gratifying thing about this group.”

A No. 1-ranking wouldn’t have altered that mindset — especially in November.

I think Coach Jamie Dixon is just angling to have the Jim Rome Show call to schedule another interview. It’s the only reason to bring up UCSB. Nothing gets you on his show faster then a UCSB shout-out.

Dixon gave credit yesterday to former UC Santa Barbara coach Jerry Pimm, who had Howland and Dixon as his assistants in the early 1990s.

“You can look at our practice plans,” Dixon said. “It’s the same practice plans Jerry Pimm was drawing up at UC Santa Barbara. That’s where we get our defensive fundamentals and philosophies. That’s what carried over.”

The players didn’t deny watching the polls, but they weren’t particularly bothered.

“I definitely thought about it,” sophomore guard Levance Fields said. “But we’re fine with where we’re at. We think we’re playing excellent. If it would have happened, of course we would have been happy. It’s good to be ranked that high, but it doesn’t really mean anything. As long as we’re getting better throughout the season, I’d rather do that than be No. 1.”

Saying exactly the right things.

“We don’t worry about the rankings,” Ramon said. “But how could we be disappointed to be No. 2? We just have to go out and keep winning games. As a team, you always want to do good for your school and your city.

“We feel that we’re a team that can go out and play well against anybody. And if we do what we can do, we can compete with any team.”

And of course, the other angle is the fact that UCLA jumped Pitt for #1 in the AP Poll. There’s that little connection between the coaches and Pitt.

UCLA coach Ben Howland called Pitt coach Jamie Dixon and, naturally, the topic of which team would be No. 1 in the AP college basketball poll came up.

“He said, ‘Hey, you guys are going to be No. 1, and I said, ‘No, you guys are going to be No. 1.’ It just went back and forth like that,” Dixon said Monday. “We joked about it and that was it.”

Turns out Dixon was right.

UCLA, coached by Dixon’s best friend and former boss, jumped from No. 5 last week to No. 1 after the Bruins won the Maui Invitational and last week’s 1-2 teams, Florida and North Carolina, were beaten. UCLA had not been top-ranked since the final poll before the Bruins won their 11th and most recent NCAA title in 1995.

Dixon was so concerned he went to the Pittsburgh Zoo with his kids.

Levon Kendall gets a little feature piece in USA Today. As is usual with any Kendall story, the focus was on his off-court stuff.

For Kendall, it was as ordinary as getting a laptop computer for school. It didn’t have to be grand; a secondhand piano fit the old, rundown house his parents bought at a tax sale a few years ago. Kendall initially wanted the piano for occasional visits by his father, Simon Kendall, a well-known keyboardist in Canada.

The elder Kendall has been a fixture in varied genres, from the psychedelic 1960s to modern blues. It’s no surprise his son, a 6-foot-10 starting forward for Pitt’s third-ranked basketball team, taught himself to play in the last few years.

“I started taking up the piano and realized I was pretty inspired by my dad,” says Levon Kendall, who grew up in Vancouver and was named for American rock musician Levon Helm. “It’s hard to let the talent go to waste. I must have some of that musician gene in me somewhere. I couldn’t have a better resource or teacher available.

For the youngsters in the readership, Levon Helm was the drummer for The Band.

Kendall was spotted at the Louisville-Pitt football game. He was wearing a white warm-up jacket with “CUBA” across the front. It was surmised that he probably traded for it during international competition. His hair, as usual, was perfectly immobilized