Any chance they can push the start of spring practice to April?

No?

Pity.

Well, Adam Gunn and Pitt got a pleasant surprise from the NCAA. A sixth year.

Gunn, who redshirted during his freshman season, suffered a broken bone in his neck in the opener last season against Bowling Green when he collided with former Panthers linebacker Scott McKillop. He was knocked out of the lineup for the rest of the season.

Pitt appealed for a sixth year based on medical hardship and it was granted.

“We are very pleased for Adam that the NCAA has given him an extra year of eligibility,” Pitt head coach Dave Wannstedt said. “The next step is for him to visit with our doctors to see if and when he will be physically ready to begin playing again. We are, first and foremost, concerned with Adam’s long-term health and well being.”

Gunn isn’t expected to be ready to practice — hopefully — until the summer. Still, assuming Gunn comes back healthy, he provides some needed depth and experience at the linebacker spot.

AD Steve Pederson is letting the local media know he still wants to get people in the stands.

Now, a year later, Pitt is pushing to sell out Heinz Field for a team devoid of bona fide superstars — after the graduation of middle linebacker Scott McKillop and early entry to the NFL by tailback LeSean McCoy — but coming off its first nine-win season in more than a quarter century.

To do so, Pitt is offering season-ticket packages ranging from $82 to $280 that increase prices by only $10 despite adding a seventh home game to the schedule this fall. Five of the visitors to Heinz Field earned bowl berths last season, including non-conference opponents Navy and Notre Dame.

“There’s ‘real’ momentum and, obviously, an excellent team,” Pederson said. “I kind of view this as an opportunity to see a bunch of new, young stars step up. In some ways, it’s even more intriguing to see who the new stars are going to be. … That’s what’s exciting.”

Pitt announced its non-conference schedule and season-ticket prices Monday, as well as new initiatives for the annual Blue-Gold Game. The Panthers will open at home against Youngstown State on Sept. 5, play at Buffalo on Sept. 12, play host to Navy on Sept. 19, at North Carolina State on Sept. 26 and receive the first visit since 2005 from Notre Dame on Nov. 14.

Pitt also will play host to Big East foes Connecticut, Cincinnati, Syracuse and South Florida, and will visit Rutgers, Louisville and West Virginia. The conference schedule, however, has yet to be released.

It all comes down to winning and expectations of winning. That will be what gets more people in the stands.

The things implemented last year remain, and the spring game gets jazzed up a bit.

Beyond ticket prices, the athletic department also will bring back the family tailgate on Art Rooney Avenue, the Great Lawn tailgate for students, the Pitt band tailgate and the revised student shuttle bus program. And once again everyone who buys season tickets is guaranteed the opportunity to buy a parking pass.

The one major new development for this season is in regard to the Blue-Gold spring football game April 11.

“Brand new for 2009 is that, for the first time, our fans are going to get to interact with our football team on that Saturday at what we are calling the spring football festival,” Pitt marketing representative Chris Ferris said. “It will be unlike anything we’ve done before, and like the regular football games, there will be something for everyone.”

The spring football festival will begin at 12:30 p.m. (gates open at noon) April 11 with two events for fans — a football clinic on the field for children 12-and-under conducted by Pitt players, and a “chalk talk” and question-and-answer session for fans conducted by the coaching staff in the club lounge.

Both events are free and will be followed by the Blue-Gold game at 2 p.m. There also will be an autograph session on the plaza and in the Great Hall as well as live entertainment, games and other activities to give the spring game a festival atmosphere.

Sounds like fun.

Finally, since one of the favorite topics of off-season Big East football is expansion. One of the overlooked aspects of conference affiliation still involves the academics of the member institutions.

US News and World Report put together a conference breakdown from their academic rankings. Here’s the Big East. Here’s Conference USA (where the most likely target for additions reside). Note where Memphis and ECU reside in the ranking tiers. In no BCS conference are there schools that reside down in “tier four.” The Big East has the most “tier 3” schools of any other BCS conference with 4 (Cinci, Louisville, USF and WVU).

That has to matter for the Pitt and the other 3 schools that actually have academic reputations.

All through the first half, I was trying to relax. Marquette was staying with Pitt, but they were doing it by shooting really, really well from outside. As good as their guards and Lazar Hayward are, they are not 60% shooters from the outside. Add in that their best players — Hayward, Jerel McNeal and Wes Matthews  — played 59 of 60 available minutes in the first half. Well, that has to take a toll. Out of the gate in the second half, they put that theory to the test with a blitz. They were hitting everything. On the perimeter they hit their first two to go 8-12.

They somewhat cooled off to finish that 21-5 blitz 2-5 on threes. At that point they had made 10-17 on 3s. The Golden Eagles never made another 3, 0-9. Coach Dixon said he wasn’t worried.

“You never want to be down nine but, at the same time, I felt like we were taking good shots,” Pitt coach Jamie Dixon said. “If you’re doing things right and you have confidence in the system, confidence in the players, eventually, those things will fall the right way.”

Pitt (27-3, 14-3) responded with a quick 9-0 run, capped when Blair violently dunked a Levance Fields pass for two of his 23 points. Then, after Marquette – losers of three straight games – took a one-point lead, the Panthers responded with an extended 19-2 run.

And Marquette just wasn’t missing. But then they started to hit the front of the rim on their shots more and more. You could see their legs getting less lift, and their drives to the basket a little slower. As you would expect, the Marquette players denied feeling tired.

By the time all was said and done, McNeal had logged his fourth consecutive 40-minute outing and fifth of the season, and Matthews his third consecutive.

“Coach does a great job of making sure that all the guys that play an extended amount of minutes are getting enough rest,” McNeal said. “I don’t think I’m feeling any effects, physically. It’s more mental than anything.”

Marquette coach, Buzz Williams, is hedging as to whether they were tired. But he was rationalizing it this way.

“But I guess the thing I would say in justification of Jerel playing 40 minutes and Wes playing 40 minutes is, I’ll take five of those minutes they’re playing when they’re tired as opposed to subbing because I think they give us our best chance to win.

“Are they getting tired down the stretch? Maybe that happens; I don’t know. But if we wouldn’t have played them when we played them, we wouldn’t have won 12 games. I think it’s a delicate balance. Do I want to rest Jerel for 26 seconds at 8:26 before the media time out? Or do I leave him out there knowing it’s 61-60, and it potentially is going to be a possession-by-possession game, just like it was at Louisville?

“Obviously it didn’t turn out that way. But the best players typically play the most minutes.”

Ultimately, he does not have much of a choice. They give them the best chance to win, and there just isn’t much behind them.

The one thing Pitt did well the entire game was stopping penetration off the dribble. McNeal and Matthews had a much harder time getting inside. This also protected Blair from getting into foul trouble from guards going right into him. Jermaine Dixon and Gilbert Brown did a great job on keeping them in front of them. Brown, especially responded on both ends with the opportunity to play 30 minutes.

It was a breakout game for Brown, who had scored in double figures only twice previously in Big East play. He had 11 points and three rebounds and three assists.

“Gilbert and I talked today,” Dixon said. “I think he can give us so much. He can make us a better team. He was very patient and played smart. He was big, and we need that from him.”

Brown had 11 points on 5-8 shooting, grabbed 3 boards and had 3 assists to only 1 turnover. The important thing, was he wasn’t standing around on defense. Even when Pitt has had some struggles on defense, the rule on Coach Dixon’s team is consistent for the bench. If you aren’t playing defense you won’t be getting minutes.

Blair finished with only 9 rebounds in this game, in part because he only had only 3 offensive rebounds. Pitt was beaten on the offensive glass. There’s a good reason for that, though. Pitt shot 63% for the game. There just weren’t many opportunities to get offensive boards.

Pitt shot decently on 3s. They finished 7-17 (41.2%), but what was nice was the consistency. 3-9 in the first half and 4-8 in the second. Not forcing it. There were points where it seemed they settled too quickly for the 3s, but they were open looks most of the time as Marquette was trying to keep Pitt from getting the ball inside.

Before the game started, Pitt surprised everyone by retiring Brandin Knight’s #20.

A banner featuring Knight and his No. 20 jersey was raised in his honor during a pre-game ceremony prior to Pitt’s game against Marquette. Knight joins Don Hennon (1956-59), Billy Knight (1971-74) and Charles Smith (1984-88) as the men’s basketball players in school history to have a jersey retired.

A Pitt point guard from 1999-2003, Knight’s outstanding play and leadership helped drive Pitt’s basketball renaissance. Knight helped guide Pitt to two consecutive Big East regular season titles (2001-02 and 2002-03), two NCAA “Sweet Sixteen” appearances (2002 and 2003), the program’s first-ever Big East Tournament title (2003), three consecutive appearances in the Big East Championship final (2001-03) and an 89-40 (.690) four-year record. A 2003 Wooden All-America team selection, 2002 Associated Press All-America selection and two-time All-Big East honoree, Knight concluded his career with 1,440 points, 785 assists, 492 rebounds and 298 steals. He earned the Big East’s co-Most Valuable Player and Most Improved Player awards in leading Pitt to a 29-6 record in 2001-02. Knight holds school records for career assists (785), career assist average (6.2 apg.), career steals (298), season assists (251 in 2001-02) and season minutes played (1,284 in 2001-02).

Sam Young, meanwhile with his 18 points continues a solid climb up Pitt’s all-time scoring list.

Senior forward Sam Young passed Billy Knight for seventh place in Pitt’s all-time scoring list. Knight, an All-American in 1973-74, scored 1,731 points from 1971-74. Young scored 18 points to give him 1,745 for his career. He needs nine points to pass Ricardo Greer to move into sixth place.

The next game Young plays, will also put him on top of the list of most games played for Pitt.

The immediate impact of the win is that it clinches that Pitt will have a double bye in the Big East Tournament. It most likely also clinches Pitt a #1 seed in the NCAA Tournament. Especially with Oklahoma (and Kansas) losing last night.

ESPN bracketologist Joe Lundari held a conference call today and here are some of the tidbits that Pitt fans will be interested in:

The only scenario where Lunardi sees Pitt losing a No. 1 seed is if the Panthers lose three consecutive games. They would have to lose tonight to Marquette, to Connecticut on Saturday and then in their first Big East tournament game.

He also said Pitt is very likely to end up in Dayton as the NCAA tournament’s No. 1 overall seed, but that distinction might fall to the Panthers based on geography more than anything else. The play-in game (the two lowest-rated teams in the tournament) is held in Dayton and because the selection committee’s preference to keep the play-in winner in Dayton and because of Pitt’s proximity to Dayton, the Panthers are all but assured of going to Ohio for their first- and second-round games.

Pitt has just one more regular season game remaining.

Pitt trailed by as many as nine points in the second half before routing the Golden Eagles behind a demoralizing 25-4 run that prompted the Pitt fans to start chanting “We Want UConn” with three minutes to play.

Blair is already anticipating Saturday’s showdown with No. 1 Connecticut, which Pitt beat three weeks ago in Hartford.

“This was a motivation game,” Blair said. “As you heard the fans saying, ‘We want UConn.’ And you know, we want UConn. It’s going to be a celebrity death match.”

A win over UConn gives Pitt a tie for 2nd in the Big East. At that point, Pitt will have to be in the odd state of rooting for a WVU win over Louisville to share a 3-way tie for the regular Big East title. But Pitt will hold the tie-breaker to be the #1 seed in the BET. First, though, Pitt needs to beat UConn in a game that brings back memories and is new.

When Pitt plays No. 1 Connecticut on Saturday, it will mark the first time a top-ranked opponent has visited Petersen Events Center in men’s basketball. The highest-rated opponent to ever play at The Pete was No. 4 Syracuse on Jan. 29, 2005. No. 20-ranked Pitt upset the Orange, 76-69. The last time Pitt played host to a No. 1 team was Dec. 12, 1998, when top-ranked Connecticut came from behind to win, 70-69, at Fitzgerald Field House. That’s the game in which UConn point guard Khalid El-Amin jumped on the scorer’s table at the final buzzer and taunted the Pitt fans.

Not that long until Saturday, but it can’t come soon enough.