With only Coach Jamie Dixon and senior Jermaine Dixon at the Big East basketball media day, there won’t be a lot of stories making the national rounds regarding Pitt coming out of today.
In most preseason publications, Pitt has been picked to finish anywhere from sixth to 11th in the Big East.
As for individual awards, it’s doubtful there will be any Pitt players on the All-Big East preseason team. While forward Dante Taylor is a candidate for Top Newcomer, Cincinnati’s Lance Stephenson is the frontrunner.
Pitt certainly could develop into an NCAA tournament team for the ninth consecutive season, but the one-player, one-coach interview table at Madison Square Garden indicates how young and inexperienced the Panthers will be — at least for now. Virtually every Big East school brings two or three players to media day.
Now there will be some stories. Mostly focused on Coach Dixon and the U-21 gold medal team he coached. Frankly, even that will be minimal when you look at the coaching personalities and storylines. Calhoun, his health and new contract. Pitino and his sex and lies. Boeheim is a national media darling. Huggins and the return of Thuggins style players on- and off-the-court.
As for Pitt in the Preseason Big East Coaches Poll, Pitt gets to be underestimated just a bit. The Panthers get placed 9th.
2009-10 BIG EAST Preseason Coaches’ Poll
Pts. 1. Villanova (10) 218 2. West Virginia (5) 215 3. Connecticut (1) 185 4. Louisville 179 5. Georgetown 161 6. Syracuse 152 7. Cincinnati 135 8. Notre Dame 132 9. Pittsburgh 119 10. Seton Hall 110 11. St. John’s 82 12. Marquette 78 13. Providence 52 14. USF 44 15. Rutgers 43 16. DePaul 15 *First-place votes in parentheses
I’m a bit surprised Notre Dame still got picked ahead of Pitt considering they already suffered a key injury.
Seton Hall is the dark horse darling in the Big East by most estimations with their potential transfer talent. It’s a reflection of how disliked Bobby Gonzalez is, that the Pirates were picked 10th by the coaches.
Not surprised by the top-3. I would have had G-town ahead of L-ville.
Still trying to figure out how DePaul only got 15 points. Not that they shouldn’t have been dead last in every coaches’ ballot, but there are 16 ballots and so they should have gotten at a minimum 16 points. Or am I not understanding how points are tabulated?
I think the rule is you can’t vote your own team #1. Not that you can’t put your team on the ballot.
I have 100% faith in Coach Dixon. Jamie rarely oversells anything, and for him to be optimistic about the team’s expectations, tells me he sees us on the better side of the conference when all is said and done. I think the brutal stretch early in the conference schedule may humble them a bit, but great coaches use them as learning opportunities. We’re going to learn a little more about Jamie this year that may give us a glimpse into his future run (I’m thinking 2012) by how he handles this incoming class. All in all, I expect we will be happy with this year’s results when it is all said and done.
Can’t wait for BBALL to start!!! And FBall is still relevant! Yahtzee!
Each coach still puts a #1, which is why there are 16. However, no team could get 16 first place votes. Jay Wright either picked WVU or UConn for his #1.
While I expect Pitt can be a bubble team come March, there is a part of me that thinks Pitt could be around a 5th place finisher … but I’m biased.
I’m actually very excited about this season – I think we may be witnessing the early stages of the development of a very good team. It will be fun to see how this group grows not only this season, but the next couple years. As for expectations for this year, we all know that they are inexperienced, but the talent level, top to bottom, keeps going up. No guarantees, but they’ll have a chance to make some noise.
