This is why college basketball is ignored until after conference play really gets underway. Poor planning. There are a slew of good games worth watching starting tonight through Saturday (except for Friday which is dead). Yet, it is overlooked as minor bowls are starting at the end of the week. A bunch of great games, all while the students are on break and people are scrambling to get ready for Christmas. Or some &*@&@!%#% holiday concert you have to go to for your kid — not that I’m projecting.
For ESPN, Thursday is the big primetime game — though the Georgetown-Memphis game on Saturday at noon is the bigger impact game.
Rivals.com puts this at the top of their 5 games worth watching.
Andy Katz in the ESPN.com Weekly Watch is excited for this game.
[What I’m looking forward to this week…] If Pitt vs. Duke on Thursday night (ESPN, 7 ET) at Madison Square Garden can live up my expectations as one of the best nonconference matchups of the season.
Pitt and Duke remain in the same spots in both polls.
Mike DeCourcy at the Sporting News also makes this his game of the week.
Game to watch this week: When Duke and Pitt agreed to the game at Madison Square Garden that will be played Thursday at 7 p.m. EST, it appeared the game would involve two very good, Sweet 16-type teams. One word for that assumption: oops. The Blue Devils and Panthers have yet to lose, which means this should be the first of perhaps three games this week between undefeated teams. Unless Albany takes out the Blue Devils tonight; you never know. Both Pitt and Duke attack defensively and like to shoot from the perimeter. Both are led by freshman frontcourt players who have elevated their teammates: Duke with Kyle Singler, Pitt with DeJuan Blair. Neither team has great size, which eventually could be an obstacle to a national title, but it appears both will have something to say about who does win it all.
He also sings the praises of DeJuan Blair a little later in the post.
Say hello to: Pitt freshman bigman DeJuan Blair, who beat up the Oklahoma State Cowboys so badly it’ll be hard for him to fit into Santa’s “nice” column. Blair pounded OK State with 20 points, 10 rebounds and five blocks and only missed two of his 10 field goal attempts. In early October, my buddy Dave Telep of Scout.com called, and the first words out of his mouth were these: “I’ve got the Big East newcomer of the year for you.” He was pushing Blair, a wide-body with surprising quickness, length and explosion. I’d written extensively about Blair’s importance to this Pitt team during the summer, but never once thought of him for that honor. Shame on me. But where was Telep in August, when I had to make that selection?
To be fair, in a conference that had Jonny Flynn, Donte Green, Chris Wright, Corey Fisher, Corey Stokes and Dar Tucker in the freshman class; overlooking DeJuan Blair wasn’t nearly that obscene in August or even October.
People are noticing now. Everywhere.
Pittsburgh always seems to find players like DeJuan Blair — big, defensive forces who can dominate a game by rebounding. Blair might be the best of them all, with three double-doubles in his last four games and a 20-point, 10-rebound, five-block effort in Saturday afternoon’s victory over Oklahoma State. In a loaded Big East Conference, Blair could lift the Panthers among contenders Georgetown and Marquette for the whole regular season. He’s already survived one key test — with the Washington student section taunting him last week, he overwhelmed the Huskies with 16 points and 14 rebounds.
Coach Jamie Dixon does a Q&A in the NY Sun.
Do you think scheduling highly ranked non-conference opponents early in the season toughens players up for later in the year, and for tournament time?
You’re telling me that a game in November is going to help you in March, when we have 18 league games in play? We have 18 league games to play in January, February and March, those are what will get us ready. Our schedule is going to have us pretty toughened up by the time we’re done with conference play.
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You’ve got a big matchup with Duke coming up — that’s another team that’s changed its style to something more up-tempo with their big man gone. Do you see this as an emerging trend in the college game, the way it’s been in the NBA with teams like the Suns and Raptors going with smaller guys at the 5 spot and athletes all around them?
Maybe there was a time when there were a lot of quality big men around, but that was before I started coaching. I think the three-point line being more and more used, teams spacing the floor, using quickness to defend more so than size, all of that has become pretty common. On the other hand, nobody’s turning down a big guy if you can get one.
Scheduling good non-con games is as much about getting early TV exposure. Getting the team out there and helping to sell the program to recruits. Most coaches if they could, would go the UConn/Syracuse/Duke route of nearly all the games at home against minor talent mostly, with one tournament and an extra neutral site or good road game for recruiting.
Pitt of course is excited about the game against Duke. Perhaps, nearly as much as we fans. Pitt’s radio color analyst, Dick Groat played b-ball at Duke but professes his partisan bias is with Pitt.
“So many people ask me who I’m going to be rooting for,” Groat said yesterday afternoon. “I’m a Pitt man. I love Jamie Dixon and his coaching staff. I love these kids. I spend so much time with them. My only association with Duke now is with coach [Mike Krzyzewski] and some of his assistants.”
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Groat began broadcasting Pitt basketball games in 1979. And even though legendary Pitt coach H.C. Carlson did not offer him a scholarship coming out of Swissvale High in 1950, Pitt always has been a special part of his life.
“I’ve been a Pitt man my whole life,” Groat said. “This goes all the way back to when I was 5 years old. I’ll always be indebted to Bill [Hillgrove] for getting me back involved in college basketball. It’s been a godsend for me.”
Can’t wait.
