A Q&A with Aaron Gray on SportingNews.com. It’s rather fluffy, but he admits he can’t wait to face Roy Hibbert and G-town.

Seth Davis at SI.com lists 10 Sophomores ready to make the leap in impact this season.

LEVANCE FIELDS
5-10, G, Pittsburgh
2005-06: 21.7 minutes, 6.8 pts, 2.2 assists, 1.97 assist to turnover ratio
2006-07: 25.3 minutes, 5.8 pts, 6.3 assists, 4.22 assist to turnover ratio

Skinny: I could have gone with either of Fields’ classmates, forwards Sam Young and Tyrell Biggs, but I went with Fields because he has picked up the lead guard mantle left behind by Carl Krauser‘s graduation. Though he is actually scoring less than he did last season (largely because his shooting percentages have declined), Fields’ role on the team has been dramatically enhanced because he is the only true point guard on the roster. He is also the closest thing Pitt has to a vocal leader.

The points will go up, maybe not quite to 10 or so. There are just so many scoring options. But that assist and A/TO ratio is excellent so far.

Remember when Pitt made a run for Luis Colon out of Miami? Instead his AAU coach steered him to his good buddy Bob Huggins. Guess, we know why. He fit the system there a little better.

Kansas State freshman basketball player Luis Colon received an automatic one-game suspension for throwing a punch Wednesday in a game against California in Berkeley, Calif.

The suspension is Big12-mandated. So Colon, who is 6-10, won’t play Saturday when the Wildcats play against Colorado State in Fort Collins, Colo. Colon was ejected with 6 minutes, 39 seconds left in K-State’s 78-48 loss. He threw the punch at Golden Bears’ 6-10 freshman Taylor Harrison.

“Luis actions last night are inexcusable and will not be tolerated,” K-State coach Bob Huggins said in a prepared statement. “This is a tough game, and you have to be mature and maintain your emotions. Luis understands that he made a mistake and there are consequences for his actions. This cannot happen again.”

If it does happen again, the Big 12 has him done for the season.

Huggy-bear made Colon go the Cal lockerroom after the game and apologize directly. K-State lost the game 74-48

Let’s thank Paul Zeise in his latest Q&A for resolving a story I and many others had fallen for regarding the script Pitt logo.

Q: Who owns the trademark to the Pitt script and thus gets the royalties from sales of merchandise bearing it — the University or the athletic department?

ZEISE: Well, it took me less time to read the Old Testament than this question, which I believed I paraphrased to what the fundamental issue is — to settle a long running debate between two factions of Pitt fans regarding why Pitt does not go back to the script. I forwarded this question to the marketing guru of Pitt, Chris Ferris, because I have no idea why this issue is causing such a stir. Anyway, the response I got was very thorough but also complex (which I would expect because Chris has forgotten more about the marketing industry than most people will ever know), but again doing my best to paraphrase it: (1) the Athletic Department gets the royalties from all sales of Pitt script stuff and in fact already sells the stuff online and in the university stores, so it currently is reaping the benefits from sales of it. (2) Because of that, it is an incorrect theory/ assumption that the reason Pitt won’t go back to it is because the university owns the trademark and thus the athletic department wouldn’t be able to benefit from the merchandising of it. That’s just not true. (3) (And this is the marketing guy spin, not mine, so e-mail them to argue, not me) Pitt is now ranked 37th out of 118 schools in the Collegiate Licensing Company Consortium — a few years back (presumably when script was it) Pitt was not even ranked. Apparently that’s all due to the logo changes and not because Pitt from 2000-05 had a top 15 basketball team and a very successful football program, whereas the Panthers pretty much stunk the joint up in both sports during the 1990’s.

But there you have it, hopefully this answer has settled the dispute in a peaceful manner and didn’t cause any states to secede from the union.

Fans for Script should rejoice.

He has a Q&A today and a chat yesterday.

Just an idle thought. I figure Fittipaldo assumes he is one of the most hated college sports beat writers. He is hated by plenty of Penn State fans who assume he is biased against/hates their football team as the P-G beat reporter who also covers Pitt b-ball; and by plenty of Pitt fans who assume he is biased against/hates the b-ball team as the P-G beat reporter who also covers PSU football.

From the chat there was someone with unbelievably out of whack expectations for 3-point shooting:

MPM: Thanks for taking this question in advance. Going into last night’s game the Panthers 3PT shooting seemed adequate. Last night was horrible. Was it just a bad night or could this be a problem area for the team?

Ray Fittipaldo: Pitt was shooting 47 percent from 3-point range before last night. After going 2 for 17 from behind the arc, the Panthers are now shooting 41.2 percent. That is still good enough to lead the Big East. One of the reasons Pitt’s guards kept shooting last night was because of the supreme confidence Jamie Dixon has in them. Ron Ramon is shooting 57 percent from 3-point range. Antonio Graves is shooting 45 percent. Ramon is one of the top 3-point shooters in the country. I would view last night’s game as an aberration, but it also goes to show how opposing teams will defense Pitt. Most teams are going to try and stop Gray and force the guards to win the game. It will be interesting to see how Pitt fares in a Big East game when the shooting is off. They were able to get it done against Robert Morris. But will they be able to find ways to win against ranked foes?

“Adequate?” Jeez, I know everyone is hoping for big things, but keep in mind that shooting 40% from beyond the arc is like shooting 60% from inside. Pitt has an excellent chance of averaging over 40% this year with the way teams have to defend inside, but keep it realistic.

The Q&A has a question about Pitt recruiting DC versus NYC:

Q: I was excited about the signings in November. But I was surprised that none were from New York City. I hope the pipeline has not dried up. I find that it is very important to have those guys when playing conference games against east coast teams. Can you provide insight here?

FITTIPALDO: Pitt has not forgotten about New York City. It just happened to be one of those years when New York did not produce many high-caliber players. I did some research on this and wrote a story about it when Dixon hired David Cox as his director of basketball operations back in the summer. One of the reasons Dixon hired Cox was because of his connections as a former AAU coach in Washington, D.C. The Washington-Baltimore area, for the moment, has surpassed New York City as the recruiting hotbed on the east coast. New York City did not produce a top 70 recruit in the 2007 recruiting class. The Washington-Baltimore area had five players among the top 25. I think Dixon would like to make more inroads in the area. He signed Sam Young two years ago. I would expect to see more in the future.

It’s also part of why the football team is looking to tap the area as well. There’s just a boom in athletic talent in the area right now.

There were some questions about Sam Young struggling. As the Fittipaldo story pointed out earlier, part of it is Young playing a different position this year. It’s what Dixon has done plenty of before. Think about the way he has shifted the guards the last couple of years. Having them play both point and shooting. It’s about creating more depth and allowing Pitt to play the best players at once. Young at small forward may not last, but given that Young is 6’6″, not 6’8″ or bigger Young should want to embrace the position. It would enhance his pro prospects more than as an undersized power forward.

AOL has launched its College Basketball Fanhouse. The format has changed a bit. Rather than have individual bloggers coming individual teams, there are just a couple bloggers for each conference. A bit more wide ranging responsibilities.

Once more, I have been asked to be a lead blogger for the Big East. I’ll be sharing duties with the Mighty MJD — who concedes to something of a WVU bias to make this an interesting dynamic. MJD  has also been doing the NFL Fanhouse this year. His Monday Night Football Liveblogs have been about the only thing to make many of the games tolerable.

This should actually have less of an impact on my Pitt Blather blogging then the college football. The AOL blog will have me focused more on the whole conference not just Pitt.

You can find appropriate AOL links in the sidebar under the various categories.