There is a patsy basketball game tonight to take some of the frustration away. The season opener against the Delaware State University Hornets. Coach Dixon’s 100th game as Pitt head coach.
You can even watch online, provided you have Internet Explorer 6.

One of the Hornets’ best player, Darrin Shine has been hobbled by a nasty ankle sprain for a while, but says he’s all better now.

Not that Pitt is taking DSU lightly. You can’t take the pre-season favorite to repeat as MEAC champ lightly. Seriously, they actually have some talent.

Senior Jahsha Bluntt, a 6-foot-6 shooting guard, is picked to win MEAC player of the year honors for the second consecutive season. He considered a shot at the NBA before changing his mind. And he might not even be the best player on his own team.

That honor could go to small forward Roy Bright, a 6-6 transfer from Big East rival Cincinnati. Bright played in all 33 games with the Bearcats as a freshman before being dismissed by then-coach Bob Huggins for having a concealed weapon.

Bright, one of the top recruits in the nation his senior year at Mount Zion (N.C.) Academy, shined at Garden City (Kan.) Community College last season. He turned down multiple major Division I offers to sign with Delaware State, based on a connection with a former high school assistant he knew.

Pitt expects, though, to do well tonight. Have to expect a juiced house.

Leftover from the Pitt-WMU game, a local NY paper gives some love to a couple of the local kids on Pitt’s roster, Tyrell Biggs and Keith Benjamin. It seems Biggs, much like Aaron Gray didn’t gain the freshman 15 so much as carry it from high school — so his svelte new figure was noticeable. Benjamin seems to be in a good place about coming off the bench. Or is at least saying the right things.

The 6-2 Benjamin must continue to play well to keep his spot in Pitt’s crowded backcourt mix. Six players saw action at guard against Western Michigan, although the competition is open following the graduation of starting point guard Carl Krauser.

“I definitely feel comfortable with my role coming off the bench,” said Benjamin, who averaged 15 minutes a game as a sophomore. “My goal every day is to work hard and bust into that starting lineup. If it never happens, I’ll just be satisfied with coming off the bench and bringing a spark to the team every time I come in.”

If there was one player I feared might not be happy with his minutes situation this season, it was Benjamin. He stands to have the hardest time to keep consistent minutes. I’m glad to read the postive attitude right now.

I noted for AOL that it might be in the best interests of the Big East and the SEC to downgrade Boise State in the coaches poll, so that they don’t get a BCS bid. Especially after UConn’s Randy Edsall all but admitted that sort of thing goes into considerations in voting.

An old WV columnist seems to think that the Big East has already taken advantage of having 4 BE Coaches voting and now needs to get the rest of the Coaches convinced.

Apparently if the truth is bludgeoned home enough times, you have to admit a coach may need to go. Ron Cook has had great affection for Defensive Coordinator Paul Rhoads over the years. By all accounts, Rhoads is a “good” guy and a solid interview. If you are looking for reasons why Rhoads has skated free over the years from the press asking real questions directly of Rhoads and his defense — this seems to be the simplest reason. He can’t have incriminating pictures of everyone.

Ron Cook appears as close as he is willing to come to admitting that Rhoads needs to go. I’m sorry, he doesn’t need to go. He’s the unfortunate victim of the failures of the defense.

How can someone not take the fall for that?

No, it won’t be coach Dave Wannstedt. It’s true, his first two seasons have been painfully disappointing. It’s also true his approval rating has plummeted faster than President Bush’s. But Wannstedt deserves more time. He deserves at least four seasons to show what he can do.

Defensive coordinator Paul Rhoads doesn’t have that time on his side.

His time appears to be all but up.

It would be unfair to put all of the blame for Pitt’s significant defensive shortcomings on Rhoads, in his seventh season as defensive coordinator.

Cook then proceeds to heap most of the blame on Coach Wannstedt — and there are some points that I’ll come back to in a moment — but eventually Cook has to concede to reality (sort of).

Go back even farther, to the ’03 and ’04 seasons, Harris’ final two seasons. Pitt has played 46 games since then. Its defense allowed individual backs or quarterbacks to rush for more than 100 yards 24 times, including six games of more than 200 yards. Four times, it gave up 100-yard rushing games to two players in the same game.

How can that all be personnel problems?

How can there not be schematic issues that Wannstedt needs to take a hard look at?

How can Rhoads survive?

How could any coach in his situation?

I guess he really wanted to stick with the “how” theme, but the final 2 questions shouldn’t be “How can” and “How could” but “Why should?”

Imagine that, the howling ignorant masses of fans on message boards and this blog might have been right.

As usual, there is also the ignoring of any responsibility that the DC bears in recruiting the personnel over the years — I mean, unless its a star like Revis.

Cook ends his column noting that Wannstedt has time, but sadly enough, it seems Rhoads does not.

As for what Cook said about Wannstedt, there is no doubt Wannstedt was highly defensive about his defensive approach and strategy. That Wannstedt needs to do more adapting to the players he has and the offenses the team faces is not a new complaint. It’s something, frustratingly enough, I don’t think Wannstedt is willing to do.

Utter crap time here. Lee claims to be too busy to help draft this one. Bull. Even he’s trying to avoid trying to figure this mess out.

Rank	Team	Delta
1	Ohio State	—
2	Michigan	—
3	Southern Cal	6
4	Arkansas	6
5	Rutgers	7
6	Florida	1
7	Notre Dame	6
8	West Virginia	—
9	LSU	2
10	Louisville	7
11	California	5
12	Texas	8
13	Boise State	2
14	Wake Forest	3
15	Wisconsin	1
16	Oklahoma	2
17	Auburn	10
18	Boston College	2
19	Maryland	2
20	Georgia Tech	1
21	Nebraska	1
22	Tennessee	8
23	Kansas State	3
24	Tulsa	1
25	Virginia Tech	1

Just looking at it, tells me I have to make changes. Cal slides further. Maybe flip ND and WVU. Maybe. Flip Oklahoma and Wisconsin, perhaps.

Help!

Despite what I think we all consider to be a disasterous football weekend, Pitt has a new verbal.

“I just called Coach (Dave) Wannstedt and committed to Pitt,” stated rugged middle linebacker Max Gruder (6-foot-2 inches, 220pounds) from Charlotte Country Day High School in Charlotte, NC. “Pitt was the school I wanted to go to all along. I told every school recruiting me that Pitt would be my choice if they offered.”

…

Gruder has received scholarship offers from Western Michigan and Rice. North Carolina State and Illinois have recently contacted him about his senior film and hope to schedule official visits.

“I have had a number of college players and I can tell you that Max is as good as any of them,” stated Charlotte Country Day High School Head Football Coach Bob Witman. “You just don’t see too many players with Max’s size that can move that fast. Max is a really big player, but his main asset is his speed. He runs sideline to sideline and he can run anyone down.”

Gruder is listed as a 1 to 0-star recruit according to the recruiting sites.  He was all-state last year been selected for the NC team in the NC-SC Shrine Bowl All-star game. Also, he was selected to another all-state all-star team.

His asset and why Pitt recruited him, seems to be his speed. We all know Pitt needs speed. Of course, it also hinges on Pitt teaching and developing his talent. Erp.

Even before the game was officially over, Coach Jamie Dixon couldn’t help but turn his thoughts to what was coming after the end of the game.

“The emotions for me became greater today as the game ended and the ceremony began,” Jamie Dixon said. “We had lots of friends and family here and I think my biggest concern was how my parents would react. They have been through so much but they were looking forward to this. They wanted to come back here and that was great. And my mom just seems to be doing a little bit better and that’s great, too.”

The Pitt players knew how much the day meant and weren’t going to make any mistakes.

“We definitely wanted to win this game for Coach Dixon,” said junior guard Ronald Ramon, who came off the bench to score 16 points. “We know the tough time he went through at the end of last year.”

Maggie was honored with banners being raised, Patriot League Championship rings being distributed and words from Coach Dixon and Maggie’s former players. One more chance to say goodbye.

I have no clue what the actual numbers are for Pitt’s All-Access subscriptions are. The prices still seem a bit high. It also doesn’t help that it doesn’t work in Mozilla or Mac or even Internet Explorer 7 at this point (only IE 6). They are almost making it attractive to give it a try for November.

Pitt Athletics is proud to announce that Pitt’s upcoming men’s basketball games against Northeastern and Oakland on Nov. 17 & 19 will be available via live web cast on Panthers All-Access website for exclusive live streaming of these non-televised games.

This special offer includes complete game coverage of Pitt’s basketball game against Northeastern on Friday, Nov. 17 and the Oakland contest on Sunday, Nov. 19. Both games have a 5 p.m. tipoff and live coverage begins at 4:30 on the web cast.

It’s $7.95 for a month. Plus, act now and get a free”Panthers All-Access” keychain. Okay then.

Ah, the box score. My favorite. The team definitely cruised. 9 players with 18 minutes or more and the high in minutes was Kendall with 25. That is good to read in the early games.

The Panthers looked good, very good in the opening game (hat tip to Dave in Orlando).

Five minutes remained in the game when Western Michigan assistant Cornell Mann turned to Broncos head coach Steve Hawkins and asked him if he had ever seen an offensive performance like Pitt’s on Sunday.

“I said ‘Yes, two years ago when I went to watch Illinois at Michigan State,’ ” Hawkins said after the No. 5 Pitt Panthers put on an offensive clinic in an 86-67 victory over the Broncos here in the inaugural Maggie Dixon Classic, an event held to honor Pitt coach Jamie Dixon’s sister, the Army women’s coach who tragically died of a heart ailment at 28 on April 6.

Let’s keep some perspective, as nice as it is to read that. It was great that Pitt cruised and had 23 assists. It should also be noted that the team also had 17 turnovers. The turnovers are a little too high.

Hard mentally to accept that Pitt was the undercard for this day. The number in attendance was more than doubled for the women’s game later. Of course, the later game actually included the real home team at West Point.

Western Michigan, despite losing by 19 was not that unhappy with their performance in the new offensive style. And a solid effort.

“I thought we really battled hard in second half despite the score at halftime,” said sophomore Derek Drews, who led the Broncos with 13 points. “Pitt is probably the best team we’ll play all year and hopefully, at the end of the season, we’ll have a chance to play a team of that caliber again. (Our) hat’s off to Pitt. They came out and had a good run in the first half, and there’s not much you can do about it.”

…

[WMU Head Coach Sean Hawkins said,] “We didn’t play in front of 150 people and we didn’t play a Division III school. We were playing against a top-five team in the country and they played like it. And I was very pleased with the way our kids battled and competed throughout the day. Just too much Pitt.”

A very good start to the season.

Pitt wins the season opener up in New York, 86-67 over Western Michigan.

Aaron Gray had 10 points and 13 rebounds to lead No. 4 Pittsburgh to an 86-67 victory over Western Michigan on Sunday in the inaugural Maggie Dixon Classic. Mike Cook, a transfer from East Carolina making his debut with the Panthers after sitting out last season, was 7-for-11 from the field and had 17 points to lead five scorers in double figures.

Pitt shot over 50% and had the significant rebounding advantage you would expect.

Thanks to all who commented with observations on the game. Also a chance to point out a new Pitt Hoops blog (and it’s in the BE blogroll) being done by Dennis — who has some thoughts on the game. Welcome and glad to have more Pitt blogs.

Noon game on ESPNU. Here are the Game Notes (PDF).
Domestic issues keep me from sneaking to a bar and somehow convincing a Cleveland area bar to give me one screen while the rest blare the Browns-Falcons game. That would be a tough sell around here, and the best argument to muster is the Ohio State women play at 3:30. It’s the trade-off to getting 12 hours or so of uninterrupted college football watching on Saturday. I have to do lots of other stuff on Sunday.

The Broncos are expected to be middle-of-the pack in the MAC. They don’t have a starter over 6′ 7″. The one thing that might make them a bit of a challenge or confusing is that they junked their old offense and are in a new style that Pitt hasn’t scouted or reviewed from old tapes.

Hawkins has, implementing an attack that, in a nutshell, leaves Reitz alone inside and four players on the perimeter — with an emphasis on pushing the ball up the floor and having a fluid inside-out game once the offense enters its halfcourt sets.

Through a month of practice and two exhibition games, the players have been vocal supporters of the change.

“Part of the reason we’re shooting better is we’re getting open shots instead of checked shots,” sophomore forward Derek Drews said after WMU’s second exhibition, during which the Broncos shot better than 48 percent for the second time. “If we don’t get an open shot in transition, we feel we can work our way to the middle and, once we’re in the middle, kick out for more open shots.”

Hawkins said last year’s team would struggle to score if it failed on the fastbreak. That, coupled with limited offensive talent, led to less than 41 percent shooting for the season.

Another player the spread-out attack benefits is Reitz, who averaged 15.5 points as a sophomore despite almost always having four to six hands in his face.

Apparently it got to the point in the MAC last year that teams were calling out exactly what the Broncos were doing as they were setting it up. Joe Reitz is their 6′ 7″ Center/Forward. It should present an early challenge to the perimeter defense and see if the Pitt players can keep the guys outside and from penetrating with the ball.

For Pitt, it’s about the expectations. The team and fans are ready to get this season going (especially after yesterday’s football game). THe team isn’t shying away from expecting big things this season. All the way through the NCAA Tournament.

“I’ve always had unrealistic expectations here,” Dixon said. “When I came here, they told me I had unrealistic expectations. Ben (Howland) told me I had unrealistic expectations. What people think are new expectations, I’ve already been through those and had those.”

Joe Starkey wants to remind everyone to enjoy the ride with all the expectations.

Realize how lucky you are.

Do you know how many teams in the brutal Big East have a better conference winning percentage than Pitt’s during that span? Only Connecticut, at 77.5 percent. Pitt has won 73.8 percent of its Big East games.

Do you know how many teams in the country have a better overall winning percentage? Precisely three. Here are the top five:

• Gonzaga – 84.5

• Duke – 84.3

• Illinois – 81.4

• Pitt – 80.1

• UConn – 79.5

Pitt has reached the championship game of the Big East Tournament four times in the past five years and has an NCAA Tournament record of 7-5, which means you’ve seen more exciting games, more victories, than just about any group of college basketball fans in the country.

Counterpoint, is that all of those other teams made it past the Sweet Sixteen at least once.

But do yourself a favor. Avoid putting too much thought into March. You might miss a lot of memorable nights along the way.

Fair enough. I’m hoping to enjoy this season immensely.

After the Pitt-Western Michigan game, there will be a ceremony to honor the late Maggie Dixon.

Dixon’s parents, Jim and Marge, from North Hollywood, Calif, will be given a pair of Patriot League championship rings.

The team’s Patriot League championship banner and Dixon’s Patriot League Coach of the Year banner will be hoisted to the rafters at 5,000-seat Christl Arena, where they will remain.

This tournament will be moving to MSG next year and become an all-women’s b-ball premeire event.

Today’s double-header features teams with coaches who had some connection to Maggie Dixon.

[WMU Assistant Coach Jeff] Dunlap’s relationship with Maggie Dixon was mostly through Jamie Dixon, whom he grew up playing against in North Hollywood, Calif., and has remained close with through the Complete Player Basketball Camps in southern California, which Dunlap runs.

WMU head coach Steve Hawkins also is friends with Jamie Dixon, with the two having met at Dunlap’s camp.

“They wanted to bring in (coaches) who know the family,” Dunlap said. “Jamie thought it’d be nice for us to come in aand share in this tribute classic for Maggie.

“We wanted to do it for that reason. On the flip side, it helps our program. Hawk and I want to play a nationally respectable schedule. … You have to play people who, on paper, are better than you and go after them. That’s what we’re doing.”

With so much of the Dixon family still living in the New York area, there will be hundreds of friends and family attending.

I still don’t know what to say. I was on the phone with Lee as he described the action to me in the OTs. I saw the replays of the 2-point conversion.

I’ve read the stories in the ‘Burgh dailies. Both said the same sort of thing. Pitt’s offense went way too conservative, way too soon. The defense couldn’t make a tackle. Everything else just filled in around it. They aren’t the fans. They don’t feel the same anger, so I accept that I’m not seeing things particularly unbiased at the moment. So the articles pissed me off because I see them as crap pieces that are being way too nice and nary a peep about how poorly the defense was designed.

Instead, to get a better idea, this from UConn’s Randy Edsall on how D.J. Hernandez went from 51 carries for 69 yards and 47-89 with 6 INT and 3 TDs; to a night with 17 runs for 130 yards plus 20-29, 164 yards and 4 TDs passing.

Edsall said one of the things that had helped Hernandez in this game was that the Panthers didn’t pressure a whole lot with five and six men. And when they did, the Huskies had pretty good protection.

“He had a sense he could stay in the pocket and not get flushed, particularly in the second half,” Edsall said. “He really knew where everything was and had a feeling where everything was. Where he could step up or get inside or outside.”

Yes, because the best thing a defense can do for a young, inexperienced QB is let him have time. Glad to help. Glad that the Pitt defense was unable to pressure or contain. It does wonders for confidence and stats.

Now, if you’re like me, you saw the 2-point conversion and Clint Session take a tremendous leap at Hernandez’s little toe. Rather then try and cut him off or stay upright and just make him throw or run out of bounds.

In Connecticut, and the “Legend of D.J. Hernandez,” the story will be told differently.

The vision of Clint Session swooping in on an unsuspecting D.J. Hernandez brought a moment of silence over the Rentschler Field fans who stuck it out until the end in Saturday’s Big East football marathon.

Hernandez literally grew up in front of the University of Connecticut football faithful, spearheading the “Rally at Rentschler.” Session reached out with his two huge hands and prepared to haul Hernandez to the turf. Then, in a flash, the Pittsburgh senior linebacker lunged toward the UConn quarterback and came up empty.

Or this.

The call was a “bounce” pass play designed with freshman Terence Jeffers as the primary receiver. But Pitt linebacker Clint Session, who made a career-high 15 tackles Saturday, blitzed quickly from Hernandez’s left. Session chased Hernandez from the pocket and took a swipe at the quarterback’s ankles, making contact near the 10-yard line.

Hernandez stumbled but regained his balance and raced to the goal line. By the time he hit the 5, the sophomore knew he was in and raised the ball in triumph.

Jeffers was also covered by Revis who didn’t bite and other stories indicated that’s part of why Hernandez started scrambling.

Crap.

Once again, the game does not appear to be on ESPN GamePlan (and yet USF-Syracuse is). It is on regional coverage instead. The Pittsburgh area has it on WTAE.

That means I will be keeping tabs on it, but miss seeing it. Instead, I’ll be doing the AOL gameday blogging.

UConn needs this game to keep it’s very faint bowl hopes alive. Would it shock anyone to know they have some hope that they can win with the running game?

Pitt needs this game. If not, you might as well cancel the rest of the season. Seriously, if not, Heinz Field on Thursday will become Mountaineer Field as Pitt fans will have no desire or hope to see that game. I don’t even want to think what the final game against L-ville would look like.

The Sporting News puts Pitt at #5 in its preseason rankings and has the preview for them up.

This is Pittsburgh we’re talking about. This is the place that Herb Sendek, Skip Prosser, John Calipari and at least one sportswriter you might know departed so they could move up a little in the basketball world. This not only is 100 percent Steelers country, but also is a place where winters mostly have been occupied by hockey talk. It is amazing the city has come so far so fast in adopting basketball as a favored pastime.

There is one final step, though, for Pittsburgh to become a true basketball town.

Get the Panthers to the Final Four.

They’ve won the Big East regular season. They’ve won the Big East tournament. They’ve advanced to three Sweet 16s. All these were moments of profound joy for the few basketball-loving folks around long enough to remember when the city high schools turned out the likes of Maurice Lucas and Kenny Durrett and the only really big hoops night of the year was the Friday in April when Sonny Vaccaro staged his Dapper Dan Roundball Classic. To engage the entire town, though, Pitt stepping into the Final Four would be the golden ticket.

…

Some teams appear deep because they have a lot of veterans with established credentials and/or young recruits with lofty reputations. Pitt’s a little different. What Pitt can do that few others can is search through its pile of talent for the right component that fits on a given night.

The trick if find that component early enough in the game.

Over at ESPN.com they have their 9 “experts” pick their Final Four teams. Two of them pick Pitt in the FF.  Fran Fraschilla is one of the people picking. The other might be something of a stunner (it was to me), Doug Gottlieb. I mean, on the bright side, it wasn’t Dick Vitale.

It may not shock anyone, but AOL has no Rutgers blogger. As the lead for the Big East, it fell to me to do a lot of Rutgers blogging this week. Some things about the Rutgers game.

Greg Schiano made some astounding halftime adjustments to the defense (remember, he’s also the DC) — and there must have been one hell of a halftime speech. One of my fellow Fanhouse bloggers, Brian Cook (Michigan) came away suitably impressed by what he saw from the Scarlet Knights. Schiano recruited speed — high motor guys — for the defense, and even if the players were undersized and/or not major prospects he coached them. Taught them fundamentals. Utilized their talents in the best possible ways with some great calls and schemes.

Made the whole unit more than the indvidual players. Much in the way West Virginia and Rich Rodriguez does with the O-line. Louisville has a tremendous offense. It is balanced. They can run, they have great receivers, probably the best pro-ready QB in the Big East (and top-3 in in the country), and rather good O-line. Rutgers’ defense made Louisville’s offense in the second half look like Pitt when they faced Rutgers. You can’t tell me, there weren’t moments when you thought it was Pitt not Louisville getting swarmed. Like when they played Pitt, they compensated for the disadvantages in the secondary against receivers by keeping the QB off balance and under pressure.
Once can be an aberration. They’ve been doing this all year. It is a quality defense that isn’t afraid of any team or situation.

The offense for Rutgers did what it does. It runs. It runs a lot. Mike Teel is not the worst QB, but he definitely gets little help from his receivers. Those drops. Ugh.

For this year, it is a blow to the Big East as the odds of a Big East team making the BCS Championship are just a step above the ACC. Long-term, the Big East just demonstrated some significant depth is happening in a conference with only 8 teams.

Success for Rutgers makes recruiting there that much tougher for schools that have had a lot of good times poaching talent — BC, PSU and Maryland are going to find the going much harder. Of course, it also means, the price to keep or hire Schiano just went up.