Did someone drag Fran Fraschilla to an apartment party in deep South Oakland (Insider subs.)?

If you’ve ever been to Pittsburgh’s campus in the Oakland section of the city, you have to know that the Panthers are not going to lose their toughness even if the janitor has to suit up for Jamie Dixon. No surprise to me that they beat Georgetown.

Grant Wahl did his “Magic Eight-Ball” predictions for teams that will win the national championship in his mailbag.

Are you going to be smart enough to have Pitt in your Magic Eight? The Mike Cook injury hurts and the Levance Fields injury hurts more, but if Fields is back for March then Pitt will be much better for it. Look at the depth that is being created by their absence. Three freshmen (two true, one redshirt) are getting tons of PT because of the injuries. I would just advise you to consider them as the dark horse candidate. When Fields comes back, they are going to go deep into March regardless of seed.
— Josh Grubbs, Gibsonia, Pa.

I couldn’t go far enough to put Pitt in the Magic Eight, but I’m awfully impressed by how Jamie Dixon has handled the injuries to Cook and Fields, and the Georgetown win was particularly striking. Dixon is making his bones as a coach this season, and if he can keep Pitt in the top three of the Big East he’ll be a candidate for Coach of the Year.

So after a week of absence, Pitt is back in the power rankings.

ESPN.com has them at #13.

Jamie Dixon has rallied the troops and the shorthanded Panthers stepped up big time when they knocked off Georgetown. Ronald Ramon and Keith Benjamin can knock down jumpers with regularity. Dejuan Blair and Sam Young will take care of the glass. So much for getting ready for next season!

Luke Winn at SI.com returns them to #15.

I’ll admit I was expecting the Panthers to fold after losing Mike Cook and Levance Fields — and they did, to a degree, losing big at Dayton and narrowly at Villanova in the following two weeks. But they’ve rebounded nicely to win three straight in the Big East, including a Power-Rankings-worthy victory over Georgetown on Monday. DeJuan Blair, who had 15 points and nine boards in that game, and did yeoman’s work defending Roy Hibbert, remains under-hyped in this freshman class. He well behind Mike Beasley in terms of production, but stacks up against the other power-forward phenoms:

I’d just like to see solid conference road performances at Cinci and St. John’s in the next week. Cinci is a lot better than expected — especially at home — and St. John’s has been an inexplicable nightmare for Pitt. The road in conference is looking like a nightmare this season. Pitt needs to get road wins where ever they can. The road games in February and March will be brutal (UConn, Marquette, ND, Syracuse and WVU). Pitt has continued to dominate at home — and that can’t change.

Levance Fields and Mike Cook had their first meeting with the media since their injuries. The local media isn’t saying much about the questions and such yet — after all they have to have something to put in the paper tomorrow.

Mike Cook is indeed looking to get a medical redshirt. He doesn’t expect to find out from the NCAA until after the season.

Levance Fields is very optimistic about how quickly he is healing. He expects to be back around Valentines Day.

If Fields’ projection is true, his first game back would be Feb. 15 at Marquette.

The initial projected date of return was March 1. By moving up his timetable, Fields could play in the final seven regular-season games before the Big East tournament.

“If everything goes as planned I’ll be back before you know it,” Fields said.

That would give him time to be worked back in. To slowly get himself back into playing shape over the final 7 games.  Then carry things into the Big East Tournament.
If you missed the Ray Fittipaldo chat, there was a suggestion of a nickname for DeJuan Blair.

Blaznasty: Blair needs a nickname … “Grizzly Blair”?

Ray Fittipaldo: I saw that Dick “Hoops” Weiss from the New York Daily News wrote that in his Pitt-Georgetown game story Tuesday morning. We’ll have to see if it sticks.

I don’t know if Weiss intended it as a nickname, but I have to admit I like it. It was the final line of Weiss’ story.

“We weren’t going to lose in our house,” the grizzly Blair said.

I also like that Fittipaldo knew where it came from. It works.

Panther Club members and football season ticket holders should have received/will shortly be receiving an invitation through the mail. The invitation is for a “National Letter of Intent Event”:

Join the Pitt coaches as they provide exclusive insight into those football student-athletes who signed binding letters of intent to attend Pitt earlier that day and show video highlights from each student-athlete’s high school career.

When: Wednesday, February 6th

Time: 6:00 PM, Doors open at 5:00 PM

Location: Heinz Field, East Club Lounge

I’m contemplating whether to go or not. On the one hand, it might be interesting to hear what the coaches have to say about these guys. On the other hand, I just don’t know if it’s really worth it to drive down to Heinz Field, especially if it’s not really all that exciting and they don’t tell us anything we don’t already know.

You’re allowed to take yourself and a guest, but you must provide your guest’s name so that Pitt can be assured no NCAA rules. Anyone out there (who is not a family member of a recruit, not in grades 9-12, and not a high school or JuCo coach) that wants to accompany me? Right.

Ironically (If I’m seeing this correctly), there is a picture on this invitation of Paul Rhoads speaking at a previous event. It’s safe to say he won’t be there this year.

Now that Paul Rhoads has accepted, and it’s (hopefully) too late for his return, I thought I’d give the Auburn fans some of my very biased perspective on the Rhoads tenure. They keep visiting and seem somewhat surprised that Pitt fans aren’t rending their shirts at the news of his departure.
Here are the basic numbers.

Year — Def. Ranking — Run Def. — Pass Def.

2007 —– 5th ———– 33d ——– 3d
2006 — 87th ——– 107th ——— 29th
2005 — 31st ——— 94th ———- 2nd
2004 —- 73d ——– 48th ———- 100th
2003 — 79th ——– 87th ———- 54th
2002 — 12th ——– 24th ———- 18th
2001 — 7th ——— 26th ———- 6th
2000 —- 29th —— 17th ———— 80th

That’s the kind of consistency Pitt has seen on the defensive side in the Rhoads tenure. The minute the talent previously recruited started graduating, the defense slid. Rhoads as a recruiter has been anything but good.

I’ll start with this post back in November about this season. After years of preaching “read and react” defensive schemes, Rhoads then had the gall to claim he has always been a proponent of aggressive defenses. He doesn’t do halftime adjustments or any adjustments. There’s a gameplan and he’ll stick to it.

The media will love him. Rhoads is a charmer in person by all accounts. It is why he has been well supported by media and the administration. He also disappears when things aren’t good. When things go well, he’s happy to talk. No one likes a guy who won’t be accountable in the bad times as well as the good.
Even halfway through this season, it looked like Rhoads was finally done as the media had finally conceded he hasn’t performed well.

This past season, Rhoads was stripped of secondary coaching and instead oversaw the linebackers. This was Wannstedt’s call to force Rhoads to pay more attention to stopping the run. Emphasis up front more. It was a brilliant move by Wannstedt because it recognized and used a key issue with Rhoads — When he had the focus on the secondary, he wouldn’t put them in a position to get burned at the expense of the rest of the defense. Now that he’s got the linebackers, he doesn’t want them looking bad. The result, for the first time in Rhoads’ tenure, the safeties were actually brought up in run support. Something Pitt fans had been screaming for years.

He preaches “fundamentals” but teaches crap. The focus has been on how good the defense has been this year. Consider what he’s done in past years, as well. If it’s about talent, then the question still remains — what role does the DC play as a recruiter? Rhoads escaped a lot of accountability for the talent slide on the defense.

Oh, and finally, Rhoads has historically sucked at getting the defense to handle spread offenses. I don’t think that can be stressed enough.
Thank you, once more Auburn and Tommy Tuberville for hiring Paul Rhoads. He’s your problem now.

I hate revisionism. The play of Sam Young and now Keith Benjamin have people second-guessing their usage in 2006-07.

Q: In light of the current play by last year’s bench players, doesn’t it make you wonder what could have been if coach Dixon would have let these guys (Benjamin & Young) play more last year? The outside game they bring is exactly what we were missing in the NCAA tournament. I think he had more loyalty to Levon Kendall than he to developing the younger players.

Mike Nixon, Libertyville, Ill.

FITTIPALDO: You might have a point, Mike, but you have to remember that Young was not completely healthy last season. He had problems with both knees that prevented him from being the player he is now. If Young had been healthy all season, I believe he would have received more playing time.

Benjamin is someone who is thriving with more playing time. This is the first time he has ever been in position to play 30-plus minutes per game. I guess you can say Benjamin deserved more minutes last season, but at whose expense? Ramon? Graves? They both played vital roles on a team that advanced to the Sweet 16.

Dixon is going to have an interesting dilemma on his hands when Fields is healthy enough to return to the lineup. Does he send Benjamin back to the bench? Or does he have Fields come off the bench? I suppose these types of problems are nice to have. It means you have players who are playing well and deserving of playing time.

For whatever reason, the other obvious possibility is having Ramon coming off the bench. As he was before the injuries. Several other points.

Even while Young was struggling to get healthy, Pitt was trying to get him more time. The early 2006 experiment was to play Young at the small forward. That would have gotten him on the court more as spelling both Kendall at PF and Cook at SF. We now know he was hobbling, but he wasn’t comfortable at the small forward. Struggling, especially, on the defensive end. Ultimately, if he wants to make the NBA, he has to look to that position. With his range showing this year, he has a chance.

Prior to this season, Bejamin never showed the shooting touch, patience, or restraint. He also struggled in defensive assignments, because he was more eager to work the offensive end. I know the contra argument is that he was only getting limited minutes, and was looking to make them count and show what he could do. The problem with that, is it only got him yanked faster when he’d rush down the court and hoist a shot. It finally seemed to get through to him this year. Even before he got into the starting line-up with injuries, he was just playing within the team. So much better.

Finally, both Young and Benjamin are better and like playing much more up-tempo. The team’s configuration last year with Aaron Gray just wouldn’t work that way. In that respect, Levon Kendall was a much better compliment inside.

Look at the numbers last year. Young shot .458 from the field and .310 on 3s. I know, I howled “NO!” when Young hoisted from outside last year. Benjamin was even more brutal — .420 from the field and .255 on 3s, not to mention below 50% on free throws.

Keep perspective.

You know, when this AP story on how the Pitt win over WVU has produced such huge dividends, it was even before Paul Rhoads was able to ride finally getting a handle on the WVU spread to jump for the Auburn Defensive Coordinator gig. Words can’t adequately express how happy that Rhoads has finally moved on.

I didn’t think it would happen. I now have such optimism for 2008, that I am a little stunned. I do get a kick out of how he got characterized as an “excellent recruiter.” There’s little evidence of that. The talent on the defense started sliding after he got there, it has only rebounded since Wannstedt and Gattuso came to Pitt and started recruiting. As much blame as Walt Harris gets for letting the recruiting slip, after a good few years, there has been little evidence to suggest that Rhoads did much to help.
Consider, the areas Coach Wannstedt most wanted recruited were Western Pennsylvania and the rest of the state. Ohio was where Rhoads was assigned geographically. He had him recruit the area, of least concern and lowest expectations. That seems telling.

The good news for Auburn is that they have a good recruiter and coach in Tuberville. And Tuberville is a defensive guy.

This story on Holley announcing for Pitt, also includes some video of the announcement.

“After talking with my family and a lot of the people that I trust in the community, I’ve decided that this fall I will be attending the University of Pittsburgh,” Holley said, breaking out in a smile, something his coach Steve Shiffert said Holley had not done in a while.

…

An exhausting recruiting process that included 30 scholarship offers was narrowed to Iowa, Virginia and Pittsburgh by Holley, who was visited one last time at Easton by Panthers’ head coach Dave Wannstedt on Tuesday.

“I was hoping he didn’t have him come all the way out here to say no,” Easton coach Steve Shiffert said.

Part of the appeal for Holley was the fact that it isn’t in the middle of nowhere.

“I kind of had a good feeling about Pitt when I visited there last summer,” Holley said. “Then when I came back out for my official visit, I got to see the city at night, got to know the coaches better and got a better feel for the school. Basically, I just like everything about it.”

Holley said one of the main reasons he likes Pitt is because it’s in the city.

“There is a lot to do in a city like that. A lot of stuff going on,” Holley said.

Some pressure from family helped too.

Almost everyone has one, and Frank Varju happily admits to playing the role of Jarred Holley’s crazy uncle.

So when Holley returned from an official recruiting trip to the University of Pittsburgh on the weekend before Christmas, Varju, his wife, Kelly, and daughter, Marissa, all walked into the Sunday evening family dinner get-together wearing gray, navy and gold Pittsburgh Panthers sweatshirts.

“I guess if he was going to spend all that money on those three sweatshirts,” Holley said, “I had to go to Pittsburgh.”

Everyone say, “Thank you, Frank.”

According to Kevin Gorman, Pitt has only one scholarship still available and is saving it for a linebacker.

Holley is the 20th recruit in Pitt’s 2008 class, and the Panthers are reserving only one more scholarship, likely for either linebacker Steve Gardiner of Dublin (Ohio) Coffman or safety Robert Sands of Miami (Fla.) Carol City.

I have now idea how Pitt has 21 scholarships. I thought this was going to be a smaller class.