Charles Smith is, without any exaggeration, one of the best basketball players ever in Pitt history. His professional career was not what was expected as injuries and playing for the Clippers took its toll. Still, Smith was smart in how he planned his life, and he listened:

In 1987 Smith listened to his mother, Dorothy, who advised him not to leave Pittsburgh University in his junior year to take a tempting NBA contract. A year later Smith became Pitt’s first basketball or football All-American to graduate. He kept a B average, majoring in business and communications. And he got that lucrative NBA contract anyway.

Smith listened to John Thompson, his coach on the 1988 U.S. Olympic basketball team, when he advised him to spend his newly acquired wealth very carefully.

…

Seeing a market for a system that would digitize and store videotape, he formed a company called New Media Technology. The system he devised earned a patent from the U.S. government. NBC and ABC ranked among its clients. In 2000 NJBiz magazine named Smith among its “Top 40 under-40 New Jersey Entrepreneurs.”

Smith reportedly sold his patent a few years ago for $7 million. More recently, Smith joined the NBA Players Association as northeast region director, a job that has him advising players as they make the transition in and out of the league. He also represents some former NBA stars.

That’s all very good, but the reason for a story like this is that his Bridgeport, Connecticut foundation (his hometown) that bears his name is not making positive news.

Years of fiscal mismanagement have left the Charles D. Smith Foundation at least $1.2 million in debt and struggling to fulfill its mission to help disadvantaged children, a series of internal foundation documents show.The previously secret documents, provided to the Connecticut Post by the agency’s former interim director, allege that the charity, founded in 1989 by former NBA star Charles D. Smith Jr., is behind on federal taxes, misused federal funds and operated for two years without required liability insurance.

“They are essentially insolvent,” said Anthony Ball, the former interim director who suddenly resigned last week, claiming the organization is not doing enough to right its ship.

Smith disputed any contention that the charity is on the brink of collapse. He acknowledged serious problems have been discovered during the last few months, and stressed all of the issues are being addressed.

Unfortunately, foundations such as Smith’s, over time, are ripe for abuse and misuse if the principal does not have trustworthy and competent people operating it. Smith does not live in his old hometown any longer, so the direct oversight and controls necessary for personal foundations is just not there. Sadly, such abuses appear to be the primary reason for the problems.

The Post previously reported that city police are investigating allegations that former foundation executive director Deborah Sims and program manager Maria Valentin used foundation credit cards to fund lavish personal expenses, such as Caribbean cruises, spa treatments and personal cell phones. Both were fired in September after they walked off their jobs.

State Attorney General Richard Blumenthal is also investigating the organization. He said last week that he has “found some very problematic practices and omissions.”

“It’s really nothing short of a tragedy for a very worthwhile organization,” he said.

Hopefully this will be cleaned up and fixed. There are no allegations that Charles Smith did anything wrong other then not paying close enough attention to the doings of the people running his foundation.

I do have to look into the claims in the article that Smith was “Pitt’s first basketball or football All-American to graduate.” I have re-read that part a few times and I have to believe that was an error. Just on the football side, players like Ernie Borghetti, Mike Ditka, Marshall Goldberg and a host of others never actually graduated? If they meant to say African-Americans, that would still mean Dorsett, May, Green never graduated. I’m not sure about that. On the basketball side, there was Don Hennon and Billy Knight that come to mind.

UPDATE (10:15am): I just got an e-mail response from Michael Daly, the Managing Editor for the Connecticut Post. He agrees that the passage is an error. They will correct and will look into from where that bad info came.

Losing a game won’t be the end of the world. Georgetown lost to Old Dominion today. Kansas lost to Oral Roberts earlier this week. UNC had to come back from an 8 point deficit at halftime to beat Winthrop. Washington struggled for a bit against Sacremento St. Only a fool writes those teams off at this point — at least based on those games. Teams will make mistakes. They will look ahead. They will start reading their own clippings. They will just have the proverbial “bad game.”
Pitt had a bit of a struggle, down four at halftime to Oakland. It looked like they might have been heading for a surprising loss. Down by 10 with 8 minutes left in the first half. They closed to within 4 at halftime. By about 5 minutes into the second half they took the lead for good. Pitt ended up winning 66-55. They may have had some struggles with fatigue for the 3d game in 3 nights, but the same applied to Oakland. This was, however, the point of the tournament. Get the team prepped and primed for a game a day.
Aaron Gray played 34 minutes and had another double-double with 23 points (10-14) and 13 rebounds.

The guard play struggled in this game. Ramon was only 1-4 (5 points) and had 2 assists and 3 TOs. Fields had his first struggle of the season with 2-7 (5 points) shooting and 6 assists to 4 turnovers. The most TOs he’s had all season. Graves was 1-5 (3 points) but had 4 assists and only 1 TO.
Pitt had more turnovers (17) to assists (15) in this game. It may have been the first game this season where Pitt shot under 50% (23-47).

Still, another win. The defense was solid. Toughening up to hold Oakland to 6-25 shooting in the second half. That’s what they needed to do when the offense gets off to a bad start.

The depth on this Pitt basketball team is so impressive, and will make for some spirited debates throughout the season as to who should be seeing more minutes, who should see less and (hopefully) why.

Last night it was Tyrell Biggs stepping in to a primary role with a season high 24 minutes in which he scored 11 points (5-7) and grabbed 8 rebounds. He stepped up when Aaron Gray was first limited by early foul trouble and then a split lip requiring 7 stitches.

Levon Kendall moved to center, meaning more minutes for Biggs at power forward. Known for his defense and rebounding, Biggs shot 5 of 7 from the floor yesterday. He has scored a career-high 11 points twice in four games this year. Last season, his single-game high was eight points, as he played only eight minutes a game.

“When Tyrell shoots like that, we’re going to be tough to stop,” said Fields, who finished with five assists, five rebounds and no turnovers.

Biggs underwent a startling offseason transformation, losing about 20 pounds thanks to a conditioning routine and an improved diet. Reportedly a 300-pounder as a New Jersey high schooler two years ago, Biggs now has a chiseled 6-foot-8, 245-pound frame. But he insists his physical attributes are the same. Dixon disputes that.

“He’s quicker. He jumps better,” Dixon said. “It’s not even close. But he doesn’t think he lost any weight.”

Biggs is not selling it to anyone. His old HS coach last week saw the difference. Still, if he wants to claim that, fine. Keep playing this well, and no one will care.
UMass tried — and succeeded early — to get Gray in foul trouble. They learned a lesson about Pitt’s depth and versatility in scoring options. Not to mention, a still stout defense inside.

Massachusetts coach Travis Ford, whose 2-1 team is picked to finish second in the Atlantic 10, said having Gray sit out so much was his team’s goal. Late Friday night, the Minutemen put in three new plays designed to try to get Gray in foul trouble.

“When he went out, I said, ‘OK, ‘ ” Ford said. “And then it got worse.”

The Minutemen stayed in the game and led, 29-28, with 6:16 left in the first half before foul trouble caused Rashaun Freeman, Stephane Lasme and James Life to spend time on the bench. Pitt responded, running up a 46-37 halftime lead.

“We couldn’t score anymore,” Ford said. “We don’t have enough weapons. We didn’t take advantage of [Gray’s absence] because our guys got in foul trouble.”

It helped Pitt, too, that it continued to shoot well.

Here’s the thing about that kind of approach — trying to draw fouls on a player. Unless it’s well executed and well planned, the team trying it is also going to be called for more than a few. It’s just going to happen. You need depth to pull that off. Something UMass didn’t have.
Finally, a little recap story on how Jamie Dixon and Pitt ended up discovering Levon Kendall after 9/11.

Instead, Dixon went to a Nike All-Canada camp at Toronto, the only high-profile event within driving distance of Pittsburgh being held the weekend following the attacks. He didn’t take a day off recruiting because the nation was on high alert.

“There’s often times in recruiting when things fall through. You have to have back-up plans,” he said. “I knew a couple of kids who were going to be up there. I didn’t know anything about Levon.”

Three players in the Toronto tournament were being recruited by Pitt, but Dixon kept noticing Kendall, a power forward from Vancouver. He passed and shot well. He showed good defensive fundamentals. He even had intangibles, like interacting well with his teammates during downtime.

Because there were no flights — and virtually all the U.S. tournaments were postponed — Dixon stayed in Canada for another day. He saw Kendall play in four games in two days. He came back to Pittsburgh and told Howland about the experience.

Pitt ended up whiffing on the other 3 players in Canada including Denham Brown who went to UConn. That opened up the scholarship offer for Kendall.

Finally, ESPN decided the time for the Louisville-Pitt game. It will be a 3:30 pm ESPN telecast. That means plenty of time to tailgate and prepare for the final football game of the season.

It is still senior day. The last home game for Tyler Palko, H.B. Blades and others. Not to mention, likely the final game Darrelle Revis will play at Pitt.

So, let me get this straight. The defense gives up over 600 yards, and the problem for Pitt is that they can’t run the ball?

Pitt’s defense came up small against West Virginia Thursday, which isn’t surprising because the Panthers’ defense has struggled for years. And Pitt’s lack of a running game in big games — the Panthers had minus-1 yard rushing — is a familiar story as well.

Both areas were supposed to be addressed when Pitt coach Dave Wannstedt was hired, but this season has illustrated there isn’t any quick or easy fix to either problem. The Panthers are not yet good enough on either line to knock anybody off the ball.

Pitt was built to play finesse football and is struggling to learn how to play with power. That transition is never easy, nor does it happen overnight.

And because of Pitt’s inability to run the football or stop anyone … another familiar theme was on display Thursday: a great performance by a Pitt quarterback was wasted.

Pitt has had a five-year run of quarterbacking excellence, starting with Rod Rutherford (2002-03) and now with Tyler Palko (2004-present), and has little to show for it other than one major bowl, a few exciting moments and a lot of glitzy statistics.

So, um last week when Stephens-Howling ran for 150+ yards and the defense gave up 317 on the ground, the problem again was the running game.

Look, I freely admit my anti-Rhoads bias. I don’t think it’s a secret. You just can’t claim to me that the problem for Pitt this year rests equally on the running game and run defense.

Not much of an article and even less about the pathetic story of stopping the run. And all respect to Bruce (FireWalt), but to even consider absolving Paul Rhoads for his role in the run defense — and the recruiting — is beyond moronic. Last I checked, the assistants play something of a role. We credit Dave Walker for Collier, Aubrey Hill and Charlie Partridge for helping get kids from Floriday. Then Rhoads deserves more than a fair amount of blame. As I pointed out, after a couple years of shaping the defense and doing some recruiting, the run defense took a major hit. This is not something new, and not something you can blame only on Harris. As others have pointed out, despite the mid-range recruiting classes, Pitt was still out-recruiting teams like WVU and Rutgers. There’s more than a little to do with developing the talent on hand.

Rhoads was never about blitzing. Don’t pull revisionist crap. He was about playing the corners and safeties off to avoid giving up the big play. Rhoads and Wannstedt are admittedly similar styles of not blitzing and counting on the base line to get penetration. We’ve been screaming bloody murder about the poor tackling, poor fundamentals and poor schemes on the defense since 2003.

Oh, and for further salt in the wounds. Syracuse beat UConn 20-14. It wasn’t even that close. It was 20-7 before a late TD made it respectable.

Full day on AOL today. I’ll be live blogging all afternoon. I might even be doing a running live blog of the Mich-OSU game. I have  a post on how bad the run defense has gotten over time.

As everyone knows, Pitt rolled over Northeastern 78-52.

Pitt’s first real challenge of the young season is with UMass tonight at 5pm.

It’s been unofficial for over a week since the early signing period began, but Pitt made the press release official yesterday.

Those five student-athletes include power forward DeJuan Blair (Pittsburgh, Pa./Schenley H.S.), center Cassin Diggs (Williamsport, Pa./Cloud County C.C.), small forward Darnell Dodson (Greenbelt, Md./Eleanor Roosevelt H.S.), center Gary McGhee (Anderson, Ind./Highland Senior H.S.) and guard Bradley Wanamaker (Philadelphia, Pa./Roman Catholic H.S.). The NCAA Division I fall signing period ran from Wednesday, Nov. 8 to Wednesday, Nov. 15.

The class, comprising four top-150 recruits and one top-25 junior college player, has been ranked No. 4 nationally by Hoopscoop.com and No. 17 nationally by Collegehoops.net. In August, 2007, Blair, Dodson, McGhee and Wanamaker will enroll as freshmen while Diggs will enroll as a junior.

The press release has short bios on each of them.

Hoopscoop.com has its rankings on subscription basis. I don’t see where the CollegeHoops.net has the 2006-07 rankings.

Coach Dixon downplayed the whole ranking thing — at least publicly.

The highest-rated player is Blair, the Schenley High School star who is No. 46 according to Scout.com. The only other consensus top 100 recruit is Wanamaker, from Roman Catholic High in Philadelphia. He is No. 91 player according to Scout. Diggs, from Cloud County Community College in Concordia, Kans., is rated a top-25 junior-college player.

“I care little about [the rankings],” Dixon said. “Our guys always seem to be ranked higher after [their senior] season. No one was recruiting Sam [Young] when we were. Then, he had a good senior year, and everyone was ranking him.

“There are different things you look at. You have to look at character, grades, if they come from winning programs, all those different things. I’m excited about them. They’re great kids, good people. They had good coaches. I like all five of them.”

Well sort of downplaying it.

“We’ve never had a class ranked this high,” Dixon said. “If they are ever right, I hope this is the year.”

The Panthers are traditionally down the list when the annual recruiting class rankings are released. In the past five years, for instance, Pitt has finished 152nd, 23rd, 51st, 34th and 130th in the national HoopScoop rankings.

Even the Class of 2005, which included Tyrell Biggs, Levance Fields and Sam Young, was ranked 23rd, one spot behind Middle Tennessee State.

This year, Pitt is 11th in the rankings. Two other scouting services also have Pitt among the top-20 recruiting classes in the nation.

“By far, this will be our best class,” Dixon said. “These are great kids who were heavily recruited. Everybody wanted them, and we wanted them.”

While on the subject of recruiting, a good piece on Jeannette’s Terrelle Pryor and his growing options.

Terrelle Pryor was talking to a guidance counselor at Jeannette High School recently when Pryor told him what happened the previous day.

“He told me he got a scholarship offer from the University of Nebraska for football — and the University of Connecticut for basketball,” said Rick Klimchock. “I told him I’ve had some good days in my life, but I don’t know if I ever had a day like that.”

But such days are becoming common for Pryor.

He still envisions playing both sports, but few really believe he will be able to do both at a high level. Eventually he will have to choose.

So, um, does anyone mind if I just talk about some basketball for a little. The whole second half from last night’s Backyard Brawl really is not something I’m prepared to discuss quite yet.

There is a tournament that started a couple hours ago. UMass and Northeastern are playing right now and Pitt takes on Oakland at 5 pm tonight. There are two expected easy games for Pitt and two reasonable challenges.

“This was a great opportunity for us,” Pitt coach Jamie Dixon said. “When they came at us with UMass and Florida State … Who else is getting two games like that? The quality of teams in this tournament compared to other tournaments is pretty good.”

Dixon likes to play host to tournaments because they are exempt and have the advantage of keeping players in school and on campus.

As much as anything else, this is a very early rev-up for playing games on successive days.

“Three games in three days,” senior center Aaron Gray said. “This should be a pretty good test for us.”

The event will help prepare the Panthers for the rigors of the Big East Tournament, where it takes three-games-in-three days — at least — to win it all.

“Everything we’re doing,” Gray said, “is to get prepared for March.”

The UMass game tomorrow also adds the intrigue of Dante Milligan, a one-time Pitt player who transferred when he realized how much talent was ahead of him and his chances of getting playing time early weren’t there.

I’m in Pittsburgh. Just popping on for a few minutes.

You can find the rest of my postings at AOL here, and some from WVU perspective.

Brian Grummell who does the invaluable College Football Resource, will be doing his usual Thursday night liveblogging of the game for AOL Fanhouse. You can find it starting here.

I’m hitting the road to Pittsburgh fairly early. Don’t worry, I’ll get an open thread up for the game.
Hilarious Q&A with Paul Zeise. Not that he was particularly good. It’s just that the questions overwhelmingly were blasting at embattled DC Paul Rhoads. Zeise was stuck in the awkward position of not exactly defending Rhoads — remember Zeise still has 2 (perhaps somehow 3) more games of going to practices, interviewing and covering the team this year — but trying to offer any explanation as to why the defense sucks so badly beyond “Rhoads sucks.”

Q: The one constant through Walt Harris and now is Paul Rhoads — and that has meant horrible defense and bad tackling. Why did Dave Wannstedt keep Paul Rhoads around and how much longer do we have to endure this?

ZEISE: I’m not a big fan of holdover coaches to begin with just because I think if you are going in a new direction, go in a new direction. I think that sometimes a fresh start and new approach all around is a good thing. I don’t know what happened, I don’t think Paul Rhoads — who had great defenses his first three seasons — all of the sudden got dumb. I just can’t believe that. But this is a business and the bottom line is production. And this is going on four years now where the defense can’t make a stop, can’t make a critical stop and can’t seem to get off the field in any crucial situation against a good team.

Last week the defense allowed the Huskies to go 98 yards and then 77 yards with the game on the line. Against South Florida, they couldn’t stop the Bulls when the Panthers finally seemed to get their offense going and the Ray Rice run in the Rutgers game speaks for itself.

Dave Wannstedt can still get somewhat of a pass because these, for the most part, aren’t his players but Rhoads has been a big part of the recruiting for this team since he arrived in 2000. I can understand the frustration fans have had with the defense but all I can say is I don’t think Paul Rhoads is a bad coach; in fact, I think he’s a good coach and I’m not sure that getting rid of him will solve the problem.

He finally comes to a point I’ve been making for a while. Rhoads has been an integral part of recruiting the players on Pitt’s defense. Everyone blasts Walt Harris for his recruiting and not caring about the defense. That also meant that Rhoads had a relatively free hand in creating, recruiting and evaluating the defense. Rhoads’ first couple years were with defensive players he didn’t recruit. Go figure, they played better.

Remarkable coincidence that in 2003 when the defense was clearly with all his players and schemes, the performance began its serious collapse. No getting rid of Rhoads won’t solve the problem for next year. But it’s a damn good first step.

On the subject of Coach Dave Wannstedt. He’s not going anywhere. My prediction. Regardless, he gets 5 years with Pitt before he could be jettisoned. He is still too much of a favorite and popular figure with monied alumni, the athletic department and the school administration. He is also a Pitt alum. That almost always will buy you an extra year. It’s the tradeoff when you hire an alum as coach. Pulling the trigger on a firing becomes that much harder.

I’m not calling for Wannstedt to be gone. A couple reasons. He’s here for 3 more years, minimum. I’m not going to make myself miserable and full of bile for all of that time — I’ve been doing enough of that with Rhoads — by calling for his head.

Also, at least a part of me still has hope. Hope that with a new DC who might actually offer some new ideas, better teaching and coaching things can improve. That somehow Coach Wannstedt might figure out that he has to have a bit more flexibility in his schemes. Plus there is still the talent that is being built. Whether it is used well and/or developed remains to be seen, but there is no denying that there are more talented players in the pipeline for Pitt.

The Iowa State rumors won’t go away. Though no timetable is set in Ames. Rhoads does, afterall, have ties to the program.

Rhoads, defensive coordinator at Pittsburgh, was McCarney’s secondary coach between 1995 and ’99. He is an Ankeny native.

ISU has to at least interview him. Let that charm work its magic.

As Rex pointed out, the ESPN.com column from Joe Starkey on Wannstedt was a good one.

Twenty-one games into his tenure, Wannstedt is 11-10 overall, 9-10 against Division I-A competition. He has yet to score a significant victory. None of the four Division I-A teams that Pitt beat last season (Cincinnati, Syracuse, South Florida, UConn) finished with a winning record, and none of the five it has beaten this season (Central Florida, Cincinnati, Syracuse, Toledo, Virginia) has a winning record.

The “significant” win theme seems to be the meme of the week.

The fan base wasn’t exactly crushed when Harris resigned under pressure and left for Stanford. Wannstedt, a former Pitt player and a graduate assistant on Johnny Majors’ 1976 national championship team, took over amid great excitement and enjoyed an extended honeymoon period despite going 5-6 last year. His first full recruiting class was widely praised, and the Panthers beat up on weak opponents to win six of their first seven games this season.

Then came a 20-10 home loss to Rutgers, one in which some familiar problems resurfaced. Pitt couldn’t protect its quarterback, couldn’t run the ball and couldn’t stop the run at key times, allowing Rutgers to rush for 268 yards.

That was followed by an ugly 22-12 loss at South Florida — Pitt rushed for only 55 yards — and the disaster against UConn, which had been 0-3 in the Big East and started six freshmen on offense.

Pitt led 31-17 early in the fourth quarter but was bludgeoned for drives of 98 and 77 yards, sending the game into overtime — and Pitt fans into a frenzy.

Much of the fury has been directed at defensive coordinator Paul Rhoads, for obvious reasons, but Wannstedt and offensive coordinator Matt Cavanaugh also were blasted for sitting on the ball in the fourth quarter.

The obvious reasons with Rhoads is that the defense has sucked again versus decent to good opponents. Given my animosity to Rhoads, it should be no surprise that I don’t think he really addressed why fans want Rhoads gone

I’ll add another thing, the stubborness of Coach Wannstedt to even consider making changes on the approach on defense (“I’ve been doing this for 30 years.”), even as he then says they were trying different things. After last season and going into this season, we read and heard from Coach Wannstedt about how he and the whole team had to and did take a hard look at things. What needed to be done and all stuff like that.

The offense improved as it was tweaked to throw downfield a bit more to utilize the skill of Palko and the receiving corp, there’s even been improvement from the running game, as the O-line while inconsistent has definitely improved. Pitt has done things on offense to play up the strengths and not let the weaknesses kill them in most games.
The defensive players, we readm all slimmed down, got faster, worked harder. Yet, the defensive schemes and strategy still didn’t change. The approach remained the same. So, apparently that was the one area where the hard look was excepted.

Whether he wants to or not, Coach Wannstedt has to deal with some issues. He has to face the reality that some adjustments to the way he plays defense need to be made. I honestly believe Pitt will give him 5 years — he was the choice of so many in power — but he’s only got another couple years before he completely loses the fans.

Well, not my fault, they only put it on the net yesterday.

I’m stunned, everytime I see a list of top impact transfers for this season and Mike Cook omitted. Seth Davis at SI.com at least got it.

Mike Cook | 6’4″ | jr. | G-F | PITT
Began at East Carolina and did the unusual: moved to a higher-profile program. Will make a difference once he learns to play Big East D.

He seems to be playing rather good D right now, but there is a wait and see on that aspect until at least Saturday.

Sports Illustrated college B-ball preview puts Pitt at #10. Behind G-town (#7) and Wisconsin (#9). Washington is listed at #14. The team preview is rather stock, focused on Gray.

Maybe Delaware State will win the MEAC. Maybe they are a good team. They learned, though, the difference between being a top team in the MEAC versus being a top team in the Big East.

Every basketball conference has a preseason player of the year, and they are not created equally.

There are those who come from the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference, like Delaware State’s Jahsha Bluntt. And there are those who come from the Big East, like Pittsburgh center Aaron Gray, who might as well come from a different planet compared with the MEAC.

The difference Tuesday night was staggering as the fourth-ranked Panthers did whatever they wanted in a 67-50 victory over the Hornets at the Petersen Events Center.

“We’re not used to players like that in our league,” Bluntt said.

…
“No one in our league is that big and talented,” DSU coach Greg Jackson said. “I think the game was an indication of how good Pitt is. They caused us a lot of matchup problems.”

The answers weren’t easy to find.

During DSU’s first timeout – when the game was barely under way – the time was nearly completely spent with Jackson taking advice from assistants Keith Walker and Mike Bernard.

“All you can do is play principled defense,” Fleetwood said.

The Hornets, known for their ball control, still let Pitt’s guards get into transition. But Pitt was ready for DSU’s slow-down approach and didn’t get flustered like some Hornets opponents have in the past.

Levance Fields is having an easy time getting the ball in to Gray right now. A good start with that, since last year the team struggled to get the ball inside if Krauser wasn’t in the game.
Pitt also played a solid D, keeping DSU from doing much — though some simply thought the team had a bad night shooting. Good defense will do that.

Still, some love for DSU, they are playing a brutal schedule that technically will only get better, but they are like nomads at the moment.

The game was the first of 14 consecutive road games to start the season. Delaware State plays North Carolina State, Wisconsin, Purdue, Marquette, Michigan and Baylor, among others, before playing in front of their home fans.

Coach Dixon liked playing a team that was going to give Pitt a different style to face.

Dixon knew Delaware State would challenge his team and purposely scheduled the Hornets to get his team exposed to a different style of play that it might encounter in the NCAA tournament.

“That was something we looked at,” Dixon said afterward. “We were well aware of how good they were. We knew they were going to play that way. They were very deliberate and ran the shot clock down from 35 seconds almost every possession. I think they will win their league. We did a pretty good job. Not perfect, but pretty good.”

Four Pitt players scored in double figures. Senior center Aaron Gray led the way with 17 points and eight rebounds. Junior small forward Mike Cook had 13 and Levon Kendall and Antonio Graves each had 10.

Levance Fields and Ronald Ramon are thriving in the backcourt at the moment. Fields is involving everyone in the game and Ramon is shooting very well coming off the bench.

Fields, who started his second game in a row, had eight assists — against only two turnovers — and five rebounds. Ramon continued his outside accuracy, coming off the bench to make 3 of 4 shots from 3-point range. He finished with nine points and three assists.

“We’re fortunate to have two very good point guards,” coach Jamie Dixon said. “We have two very good players that would be starting on most teams. I don’t know if anybody has any better point guards than we have. They are very good.”

The only bad news for Pitt basketball is that Freshman Gilbert Brown is going to have an MRI on his ankle today. Brown has had a miserable fall with Mono and a recurring ankle issue. He was supposed to be the one freshman with the talent, ability and toughness to have a shot at cracking Pitt’s deep rotation. Now, he is more likely to be redshirted at this point.

Omar provided a good first-hand report of the game, noting that the team seems exceptionally close this season.

The box score has lots of goodness. 20 assists on 24 baskets, only 8 turnovers, free throw shooting was a decent 14-19. (If Gray can get his FT shooting to 70% this year, I’ll be thrilled.) Lots of minutes distributed. Coach Dixon is definitely not burning out any players early in the season.

To quote Bull Durham, “Million dollar arm and a 10 cent brain.”

He may be an elite talent, but Herb Pope is a danger to any team that is already good. When Jim Calhoun, Bob Huggins and John Calipari are backing off a kid you know there are issues.

That Pitt may or may not have still been involved with Pope was a very disturbing thing. Thankfully that is in the past as Pope has gone to New Mexico State with Reggie Theus (hat tip MoE).