Rankings and power polls are as much about how teams are viewed as they are on how they are playing. Kansas struggled at home against (a good) Cornell, then lossed to an undermanned Tennessee team. They fell to #3. Not because they played like the #3 team, but because up this past week they had played like a #1 team, all teams no matter how good hit a rough/complacent patch and the pure NBA level talent along with excellent college players on the squad.

Pitt had to overcome the perception that it has lost too much talent to be very good this year, and the “confirmation” of that perception with the loss to Indiana at MSG.

In the latest polls, Pitt is #16 in the AP and #20 in the Coaches.

ESPN.com placed them at #20 in the power rankings. Fran Fraschilla and Doug Gottlieb both had Pitt at #11 at the high end while Pat Forde inexplicably left Pitt off his ballot. Vitale had Pitt down at #24.\

Luke Winn’s power rankings at SI.com puts Pitt at #13.

Back in November (and even early December) this seemed like a season in which Panthers fans would have to tolerate a mediocre present and reminisce about the past — to last year’s Elite Eight run, or even all the way back to Jerome Lane‘s days, when the team had better jerseys and Bill Raftery was in his prime. Then Jamie Dixon‘s boys went and beat Syracuse and Cincinnati in back-to-back away games, giving them more quality true road wins than most of the teams in the Power Rankings, and making it clear that they need to be taken seriously. With a healthy backcourt of Jermaine Dixon, breakout star Ashton Gibbs and Gilbert Brown, the Panthers’ offense is no longer atrocious, and they look like a team headed for an above-.500 finish in the Big East.

FoxSports.com has Pitt debuting at #14. Garry Parrish continues his mea culpa by putting Pitt #12.

And now a word about the mid-way point favorite for Mosti Improved Big East Player, from Jay Bilas.

My vote for the most improved player in the Big East, and maybe the nation, is Pittsburgh’s Ashton Gibbs. The sophomore guard is averaging 17 points per game and scored 19 points at Cincinnati on just six shot attempts. That came against a defense which was geared to stop him. Pitt is still methodically running its half-court sets, but the emphasis of the sets has changed dramatically. Instead of looking for post duck-ins and pounding you in the lane, Pitt is looking for Gibbs coming off screens and setting up drives for Brad Wanamaker. Having Jermaine Dixon and Gilbert Brown back to help space the floor and provide options clearly has helped, but Gibbs makes the whole thing work. He makes great reads, and when chased off the 3-point line, he curls hard and really creates a lot of problems for defenses. Gibbs is very good, but he is also very smart and sees the game very well. No guard in the Big East has improved more.

Still, keeping perspective, Seth Davis at SI.com updates his teams as stock to include Pitt, and puts them at a “Hold.”

The Panthers have shot their way onto the national radar with road wins at Syracuse and Cincinnati. So now what? Well, it’s hard to say, considering they have only been at full strength for four games. Senior guard Jermaine Dixon (21 points vs. Syracuse) missed the first eight games because of a broken bone in his right foot, and junior forward Gilbert Brown (17 points off the bench against Cincy) missed the first 11 while serving a suspension for academics. I’d love to tell you the Panthers are on their way to great things, but check out what they have coming up: at UConn, home versus Louisville, at Georgetown, at Seton Hall, home versus St. John’s, then road dates at South Florida and West Virginia. Will Pitt’s lack of inside scoring be exposed in the next few weeks? Or will they continue to shoot lights out and take a ton of foul shots? Time will tell, but while I grant that this team is better than I thought, given all they lost from last season I have a hard time envisioning them moving into the top 15 and staying there.

Staying there? That will be tough. Getting there? Win the next 2, and it might be top-ten.

I haven’t touched on any football stuff for a while, so time to just see what’s out there.

Pitt ended the season in both polls ranked #15. Best ranking since ’82. First time with 10 wins since ’82. Seems like a trend.

With the season over, that means it is time to project way-too-early-top-25 lists. Pitt gets placed at the same spot by ESPN.com.

15. Pittsburgh Panthers

Pitt finally got over the hump under coach Dave Wannstedt, who led his alma mater to its first 10-win season since 1981. The Panthers will have to replace quarterback Bill Stull and three starting offensive linemen, but they’ll have two of the country’s best playmakers in tailback Dion Lewis and receiver Jonathan Baldwin. At least five starters will have to be replaced on defense, too, including All-Big East defensive tackle Mick Williams, linebacker Adam Gunn, and cornerbacks Aaron Berry and Jovani Chappel. Wannstedt hopes junior defensive end Greg Romeus is coming back for his senior season. Pitt plays an aggressive nonconference schedule, with road contests at Utah and Notre Dame and a home game against Miami. The Panthers will play Big East road games at Connecticut and Cincinnati and will play Rutgers and West Virginia at home.

I expect Pitt will be ranked pre-season anywhere from 13-24 in most of the polls. Pitt will likely be picked to win the conference. I would hesitate to make the early suggestion that Rutgers might be a darkhorse after they failed miserably in the role of sleeper/darkhorse Big East favorite. That said, they have done very well in recruiting and have a very good QB in place with Savage.

Speaking of talented freshman, Dion Lewis earned Freshman All-American status. In Paul Zeise’s ranging and interesting off-season posts on the football team (dare we say Gorman-esque), he touches on Lewis already back at work.

But Lewis is special for so many reasons and here is yet another one – he is reportedly already hitting the winter conditioning program with a vengeance because he understands how hard it is going to be for him to repeat what he did this past season now that he’ll be a marked man. He’s as serious of a player as I’ve ever been around in terms of, being great matters to him and he is more than willing to do whatever it takes to achieve that.

How do you come close to matching a season like that? Few players are lucky enough to have one season like that, and he did it as a freshman. Well, more pressure on the O-line to help match the job done last year.

The issue of DC Phil Bennett’s seemingly imminent departure back to Texas remains oddly minor. We do know he isn’t going to work at Texas A&M.

That doesn’t mean he will necessarily be back – he and Dave Wannstedt are set to sit down face to face tomorrow for the first time since the bowl game and they will no doubt discuss his future. When Phil was hired two years ago it was thought to be a short-term kind of hire so it will be interesting to see how this ultimately plays out. There are still a number of jobs out there and his family is still in Texas with no plans to move here to Pittsburgh, so Bennett could still be moving on as he had told a few people was his plan during the season, but it seems fairly clear that if he is leaving, he isn’t going to Texas A&M as defensive coordinator.

The angst is relatively low because his reasons for leaving are mainly family — so it isn’t personal or job performance related. Also, there is the fact that Greg Gattuso will likely take over in what seems like a no-brainer. Finally, and probably most important, Coach Wannstedt is a defensive coach. The defense has his fingerprints all-over it and so the presumption is the DC is less vital than a good OC. In that respect, it is much like the lack of angst from Cal fans when OC Cignetti left Cal for Pitt last year.

And as I hoped/suspected, the Dave Walker to ‘Cuse rumor looks like bunk.

The David Walker to Syracuse stuff is another thing flying in internet land but in doing some digging, that thing just doesn’t have many legs or much to it. The only way that would happen is if Walker were going to be hired as the offensive coordinator and that isn’t the case. He has been here now since 2005, has made a life here for his family and isn’t likely going to make a lateral move, especially to another Big East school.

Looking at recruiting news, well not so much news as what the kids are doing. The Big 33 roster for Pennsylvania was announced. Six Pitt recruits were on the roster: Aaron Donald, Kevin Weatherspoon, Andrew Carswell, Khaynin Mosley-Smith, Salath Williams and Anthony Gonzalez. Or 6 out of the 10 HS senior Pitt commits from Pennsylvania.

Minor surprise when looking over the verbal commit list. Of the 24 verbals, only 11 (including Todd Thomas) come from Pennsylvania. Yes, there is a lot to do with trying to expand the recruiting base and losing out on some of the best players to Penn State and Ohio State, but it also has something to do with this being something of a down year for Pennsylvania talent.

Mark Meyers, the St. Ignatius (OH) QB commit that seems to have captured more than a few fans’ fancy as to the possibility of competing right away for the starting job, has been named to the USA Football team.

…Myers has been selected to play in USA Football’s Team USA vs. The World game Jan. 30 in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla.

The game, which will be televised live by NFL Network, matches USA Football’s 2010 Junior National team — 45 of the country’s top high school seniors — against a world team composed of 45 of the best players aged 19 and under from eight other countries.

So there is that.