A strong finish by Talib Zanna to his season and his subsequent performance in senior all-star games has boosted him into Scout.com’s final top-100 rankings. He goes from unranked to #63 and 4-stars. Dante Taylor finished the rankings at #16.
Meanwhile, the still too early list of top-25 teams has an update by Andy Katz. He drops Pitt in at #24.
The Panthers re-emerge in the rankings despite losing the top three scorers/leaders off their Elite Eight team, Sam Young, DeJuan Blair and Levance Fields. The rotation of four guards — Jermaine Dixon, Ashton Gibbs, Brad Wanamaker and Gilbert Brown — should be a tough matchup in the Big East. The key will be how quickly newcomers up front — namely top-five power forward Dante Taylor — develop into productive posts.
Locally, the Hill District rec center reopened with much hoopla.
While part of the ceremony was dedicated to the reopening of the center, a major reason for the gathered crowd was the “celebration of legends” ceremony, which included the unveiling of a banner commemorating each honored individual’s high school jersey.
Among the many “legends” honored were former Pitt stars Darrelle Porter, Sam Clancy and DeJuan Blair as well as all-time Pittsburgh greats such as the late Robert “Jeep” Kelley, Petey Gibson, Major Harris, Warner Macklin, Karen Hall, Maurice Lucas and Darrick Suber.
In all, 18 people were honored and will have their banners hanging in the newly remodeled gym forever.
“I’m only 19. I don’t think I am old enough to be a legend,” joked Blair, who was one of three of the honorees who spoke to the crowd.
Pitt coach Jamie Dixon, who was the guest speaker, said it was an honor to be a part of the program, especially since he has heard so much about the history of Pittsburgh basketball and all of the legends, and that this gave him a chance to meet some of them.
“I had met some of these guys before,” Dixon said. “I always get frustrated when I hear stories about what it used to be around here in terms of basketball because, as the Pitt coach, I wish it still was. But I think down the road here it can be a great place for basketball once again, and DeJuan is a guy who could very well be looked at down the road as the one who got it back started again.
“I had no idea all of these guys were going to be here. This was just something special. And like I said, I’m just humbled that they’d ask me to be a part of it.”
The Ammon Community Center was closed since 2004. It cost some $600K to reopen.
Here’s a pretty good interview with DeJuan Blair. Good news, it appears he actually finished his semester at Pitt.
Jonathan Givony: A couple weeks ago, when you declared for the draft and were asked to explain why you’re not just testing the waters, you said something along the lines of, “I’m an internet freak, I go on all the draft boards, nobody’s got me going in the second round, that’s almost a guarantee for me. Were you being serious with that comment?
DeJuan Blair: No, that was just, there was a little hostility coming from the crowd, there was a lot of tears watering up. If you were there, everybody laughed, so it was kind of a little joke. I actually don’t go on the internet. I was told that question was going to come up, I shouldn’t have said it, but I was just trying to liven up the room a little bit.
Jonathan Givony: What’s the best thing that you learned in your two years playing for Jamie Dixon?
DeJuan Blair: To be coachable. To be coachable and listen. If you call him and ask him, you know, and to be respectful also. He taught me a lot of stuff on the court about adapting to college, being respectful and coachable, because NBA coaches will be on you, just like he do, you just gotta learn to deal with it like you deal with everybody. He taught me a lot.
Jonathan Givony: What kind of NBA player is Sam Young is going to be?
DeJuan Blair: I don’t know, he’s going to be a tricky NBA player. You don’t know until Sam starts playing, you never know. He’s a workaholic, but you never know what type of a player he’s going to be, probably an excellent player, but you don’t know.
