Gametime is 7pm on ESPNU. Plan accordingly. As the Mouse Monopoly wants carriers to pick up the channel, games on ESPNU do not end up on their ESPN360.com service.

This is a sort of must win game for Pitt. Not a make-or-break type, but it would be a really bad loss. No pressure, though.

Supposed to be very cold tonight — but no snow — in Pittsburgh so attendance at the Pete will bear noting.

I’m on DVR delay, and assuming the game doesn’t drive me to drink to excess, I’ll post some thoughts later.

Okay. Bad news, no liveblog tonight. Daughter’s activity schedule shifted, which freed up Wednesday night, so naturally Pitt plays on a Thursday night this week. Open thread will be up closer to gametime.

Much like Seton Hall, St. John’s is looking for the big win. Oh, goody. As forPitt playing the roll of reeling power that is ripe for the upset?

Could this be the moment for St. John’s to post a win that the rest of the conference takes notice of? The Johnnies (12-7, 2-5) played extremely well in the first half against No. 3 Villanova on Saturday, leading by as much as 11 before letting it slip away in another second-half drought.

“A week ago we were overconfident. Now we don’t have confidence? I don’t believe it works that way,” Pitt coach Jamie Dixon said. “That’s good for a story . . . but I don’t think it changes like that.”

We. Must. Have. Storylines. Don’t you dare dispute that.

As St. John’s has Pittsburgh native and DeJuan Blair’s HS teammate and friend, D.J. Kennedy, there is the obligatory local story. Plus the annual, how did Pitt miss on the guy question? Simply put, he wanted to go elsewhere. I don’t begrudge any college age kid choosing to go somewhere else. There were legit personal/family reasons for him to want out of Pittsburgh.

A two-game losing streak and time to question things. It might be time to use the bench more and keep guys fresher.

One of the issues is scoring more. The offense has been sluggish, to be kind.

It might help if Pitt was able to hit some shots from the perimeter. Right now teams aren’t giving the space and when they are, Pitt is missing. Shots going outside, would also go a long way to opening up the inside.

While McGhee has been a pleasant surprise in his improvements, the center spot has struggled just to get chances to score.

“We set a lot perimeter screens trying to free up our guards like Ashton, Jermaine and Brad [Wanamaker] to get shots,” Brown said. “We still run the same offensive sets. I actually think we need to get more touches down low. We need to get it down there so we can work out of it. There hasn’t been any real change to the offense because we’re more perimeter-based. The guards are just more assertive now.”

McGhee scored in double figures in four consecutive games against Wichita State, Texas, Youngstown State and Duquesne in the non-conference portion of the schedule, but he is not scoring much in recent games. He concurred with Brown that the team might benefit from the centers getting more touches on the interior.

“It’s just how the games have been going,” McGhee said. “Some teams have zoned us. We’re playing more outside. I think that’s the reason my touches have gone down. If we got it inside it could open up easier shots for our guards if they drop in and double the post player.”

Not surprising to see in the notes that Lamar Patterson’s ankle just isn’t healing enough for him to play. Wow, didn’t see that coming. Heading for a redshirt along with Talib Zanna. The bright side is that the staff is confident about his future that they want to preserve his eligibility.

Here’s one to catch you offguard.

The guy with this report is from  WSCR 670 in Chicago (and a ‘Cuse guy). As you can imagine, Bears fans responded with expected optimism at the idea of a guy who is associated with Dave Wannstedt coming to help the Bears offense.

The other report is that Strength and Conditioning Coach Buddy Morris may  go to the Washington Redskins.

Two thoughts:

1) Last time a Pitt coach headed to work for Mike Shanahan — Larry Coyers —  he was fired after only a few years.

2) It would allow Buddy Morris a chance to come back to Pitt a 4th time if he does go.

Otherwise, neither has me too concerned right now. Neither seems to be generating much buzz outside of Pitt-centric interest.

It would be a huge blow to lose Cignetti, obviously, but I don’t see that realistically happening.

Time to talk St. John’s with Pico Dulce of The East Coast Bias. You can find my answers to his questions here. This is what I had to ask him.

1. It seems once again that St. John’s lacks the offensive production and efficiency to stay in games. The ‘Nova game saw them with their highest scoring outputs in the Big East but shoot less than 40% (and an eFG% of 44.3) and lost. For the season, their eFG% is around 47%. Is that the biggest issue with St.John’s this year? Why? If not, what is the biggest problem?

Yes, and no.  The team’s effective field goal percentage – or their ability to shoot in general – has been very weak with this coaching staff.  But the problems of the season are long-running problems; and while the team thought that perhaps they had turned a corner in the out of conference games.  But even with Dwight Hardy, the offensive attack is inefficient.  And it’s not that it’s always inefficient; it’s that the team finds itself in scoring lulls.  The offense – or the players – are not good enough to score at a high level all game against elite opponents; it would help if they could finish tip-ins and layup attempts.  But with the offense that they have, the team would need to be incredible in field goal defense or force a lot of turnovers. Or draw a lot of fouls.  But the field goal shooting has been poor for years.

2. St. John’s plays a lot of players. It looks like 11 players are seeing 10 minutes or more. Exactly what is the rotation plan with St. John’s? Is there one? I realize Mason has only recently returned from injury, but it seems that St. John’s hasn’t figured it out.

P-lan?  What is this plan you speak of?  The staff would like to be able to run players on and off the floor to keep them fresh for pressure defense.  But the team doesn’t trap well, and the pressure is token pressure.  The lineups often reflect their opponent’s plans, not what St. John’s likes to do; many will ask why Dwight Hardy doesn’t start or get more minutes, since he’s the team’s most electrifying shot-taker.  But there’s not much of a plan.

The starting five doesn’t score much; then Hardy and Brownlee come in, Brownlee takes a bad three point attempt and Hardy scores a bunch. Then he’s taken out.  Malik Stith comes in, shows a little improvement, and is benched for the other Malik.  DJ Kennedy enjoys a long chat with fans, Justin Burrell comes in, makes some nice moves (but doesn’t rebound) and sits back down.

More seriously – the idea is to bring waves of players off of the bench to keep them fresh.  Now that Omari Lawrence is looking a little more like a player, expect to see everyone besides Rob Thomas log minutes.  No one knows quite where Mason will fit in – I assumed he’d take Paris Horne’s starting job – but the rotation is, again, dependent on the opponent.

3. Is this it for Norm Roberts? I mean, his demise has been predicted for a couple years now. The injuries. The rebuilding. The young team. All those excuses seem to be out, but the Red Storm still seem to be much the same as previous seasons.

You can’t predict a demise if the powers in control won’t play.  While other schools may decide to have a quick trigger, St. John’s has given Roberts a number of chances, because he’s gone about building a program the “right way” – scandal-free, decent players but not beholden to one AAU team.  He’s gotten a bye for a few years because folks like to consider that the program was in a terrible place when Jarvis left, and thought Norm should have a couple of years to repair relationships and then coach up some solid young kids who aren’t worldbeaters. (If you’re interested, some more on that from my blog here http://wp.me/p9vUp-hL and to a lesser extent here http://wp.me/p9vUp-jw.) But he’s not the kind of coach who can squeeze wins out of lesser talent.

The players are juniors.  I mean, all of them except for 4. Other teams aren’t as “crippled” by injuries as St. John’s has – there has to be talent to allow one or two players to go down.  The player development of big men in particular is damning; and the point guard position’s recruiting is damning as well.  But is this it?  We don’t know what metrics they’re using to evaluate the coach.

I can see how the president (rumor has it he’s the decider) can say “well, his guys are so young.”  But this is the full complement of players, and they’re still -.07 possessions below conference opponents.  If they’re not close to playing opponents even, they won’t be next year, and they will be very bad in 2011 with 9 newcomers.

And then, will St. John’s be able and willing to pay the right money for a good coach?  Or evaluate a coach well?

4. Johnny the Thunderbird? I can’t believe you retired Thunder. And really, what was wrong with that thunderbolt with abs and pecs?

I don’t wanna talk about it!  Ok, I will.  The thunderbolt was a lame costume but in retrospect, I like the realization of part of a “storm”.  No, that’s pretty lame.  I think the horse Thunder was also pretty lame.  But the team is named after a non-existent weather phenomena – St. John’s should have a bizarre mascot!

Thanks to PD for sharing.