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November 27, 2007

Long, long day. Only settling in to watch the game and get the basketball stories rounded up at the same time. Weak.

How far under the radar does the BU program operate in Boston? Well, their loss to Marshall was the lead capsule in a round-up of “other” college basketball games in one of the local papers. Putting it this way, Robert Morris gets more coverage in the ‘Burgh. I don’t care if the Terriers are favored in the American East, they don’t have a point to compete. Fields is looking to take another step (so to speak) in his game.

Fields dropped 15 pounds during the offseason, down to 190. He is noticably quicker on both sides of the floor. Fields wore down his teammates during summer games.

“It’s real difficult to stay in front of him,” senior forward Mike Cook said. “He lost weight and he’s a lot quicker. You combine that with the ball-handling and the way he shoots the ball, and it’s real hard to check him.”

Keith Benjamin got the love the last couple days as he was made available for the media.

“A couple of times, when I come here late at night and I think nobody’s in here,” Young said, “I’ll walk in, and Keith is already here working on his ball-handling drills.”

On Friday night, about 10,596 fans walked into Petersen Events Center and saw Benjamin perfect his game some more.

Benjamin has carried over a breakthrough summer and his nocturnal visits to the gym into his senior season for the No. 17 Panthers (5-0), who play host to Boston (1-3) on Tuesday.

Outside of Sam Young, Benjamin has to be the biggest beneficiary and most enthusiastic supporter of playing up-tempo. Often the last couple years., it seemed as if Benjamin would forget the team tempo and rush things.

But now that the Panthers are playing at a higher tempo, Benjamin’s level of play has risen as well. He is excelling when the Panthers play the transition game and get into high-scoring affairs. He set a career high with 17 points in the 92-45 victory against the University of Buffalo Friday. When Pitt thumped Houston Baptist in the season opener in another high-scoring, up-tempo contest, Benjamin scored 16 points.

Benjamin credits Pitt’s change in philosophy for allowing him to showcase his skills.

“In the past we were more of a patient team,” said Benjamin, a 6-foot-2 shooting guard from Mount Vernon, N.Y. “But now coach [Jamie] Dixon is putting onus on the guards to get out there and make the game better. That benefits me more, the things I like to do.”

Dixon is using Benjamin as his sixth man. He is usually the first reserve off the bench for starting shooting guard Ronald Ramon and is making the most of his opportunity.

Speed and playing faster — but smaller — is something of a necessity as the big players are just not ready for prime time.
It became obvious that Pitt would be playing smaller this season because of the wealth of guards and lack of true centers in the program. But five games into the season it is looking more and more as if the Panthers will be playing even smaller than anticipated.

It looks like Pitt will play most of its games without a player taller than 6-8 in the regular rotation.

Coach Jamie Dixon recruited 6-10 junior-college transfer Cassin Diggs and 6-10 freshman Gary McGhee to play center, but they do not appear ready to take on significant minutes. Diggs is averaging 9.2 minutes per game, but most of his minutes recently have come in the second halves of blowout victories. He played one minute against Saint Louis, the one game that was close in the second half. McGhee has played even more sparingly.

As noted in yesterday’s Q&A Pitt’s luck with JUCO’s has been missing since Ontario Lett.

It’s worth noting, Diggs is getting some time in this game with the Terriers. A good time to give him some work. Pitt is a bit ragged out of the gate overall. Despite that, slightly more than halfway through the first half, Pitt is up 19-5.

And I’m talking about myself.

I’m going to Morgantown.

Yes, Pitt is 4-7 and WVU is 10-1, and the game has opened with Pitt as a 28 to 28.5 underdog.

Yes in WVU’s last game they whupped up on UConn 66-21. A UConn team that humiliated Pitt 34-14.

Yes history isn’t helpful either. Pitt hasn’t beaten West Virginia under Coach Wannstedt, lost by a combined 90-40 in those two contests, last won in Morgantown in 2001 and is 2-5 in Morgantown in the last 7 games.

I have no sane reason to go. I have little hope of actually expecting a win in this game. Most likely it will be cold and potentially wet.
Nonetheless, I’m going.

I’m going because there is a chance to see history.

-100th Backyard Brawl (Pitt still holds a 59-37-3 advantage despite an 8-15-2 record over the past 25 games).
-WVU is either going to play for the national championship or have their dreams destroyed by a huge underdog that happens to be their most hated rival. I have the opportunity, so why not be there.
-Morgantown potentially burning in an orgy of couch fires and a series of meth lab explosions around and outside of the city with either result.
-A game that will have a huge impact on the pressure/confidence in Coach Wannstedt from the fans going into 2008.
Finally, and most importantly I’m going because 10 years ago I went down to Morgantown with a group of friends on something of a whim, and had my interest and love of Pitt restored.

The previous 5 years had me completely out of touch with Pitt athletics. I had left the area and the team sucked so there was very little news about the team making it outside of the Pittsburgh area. Especially in those pre-internet days.

I had been paying a little closer attention that season after moving to Youngstown. I watched and enjoyed the Pitt upset of Miami that Thursday night in some generic sports bar in Boardman after begging a bartender to give me one TV for that rather than the Pirates game.
I went down with friends, mainly to get drunk and have some fun.  We accomplished the drunk part — and then some.

[Brief aside. The original plan for the group was to grab a couple hotel rooms in town and go out in Morgantown — just for the hell of it. Somewhere in the course of the game we just decided that it would be best to go back to the ‘Burgh and not waste money in Morgantown. Then, as we had to wait for traffic to thin and for one of our group to reach the point where he was no longer going to be puke risk in the car, it became just go out for a couple beers near the apartment we were all crashing. By the time we got back and the emotional and physical drain in full effect it just became have a beer in the apartment, watch the highlights on TV a few times and crash. That was 10 years ago. It’s only gotten worse with time.]
What also happened was seeing the greatest game I ever attended. A triple-OT 41-38 win. Certainly the most enjoyable.
It completely brought the joy and hope back in that one game. I committed that night to season tickets with one friend who’s loyalty and attendance never waivered in all his years. Been holding since.

I guess, I’m hoping that there might be a chance to have a little faith restored.

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