It’s a standard thing. The NCAA Tournament gets everyone’s attention. So every local paper suddenly remembers that a local product is playing somewhere and if lucky for an NCAA Tournament team.
In Indiana, the local paper tracks down Gary McGhee.
“The whole Big East has tough big men,” said McGhee. “I played against Pittman and Monroe. And going against DeJuan (last year), it was a battle every day to keep him off the boards; it made me tougher and prepared me for this year.
When asked for a favorite game this season, McGhee pointed to the Panthers’ triple-overtime victory over West Virginia on Feb. 12.
“We were down six with 34 seconds (in regulation) and we tied it,” said McGhee. “Then we hit our free throws to win it.”
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While McGhee’s basketball goals are short-term, his overall goal for his time at Pittsburgh remains on target.“I’ve got to get my degree, I promised my mom and dad that I would,” said McGhee, who majors in communications. “I just want to keep working hard and see where it takes me.”
How do you not root for him when he says exactly the right thing?
Dante Taylor may have left home to go to high school, but he isn’t forgotten.
It has been a learning season, especially for someone who had preferred facing the basket at power forward. He has made the most of practicing against 6-10 center Gary McGhee and 6-7 forward J.J. Richardson.
“Coach has got us getting better; he’s got me getting better,” Taylor said. “Going against Gary and J.J. and all the big guys is helping me get more physical. This first year was an opportunity for me to watch a lot of things on the bench.”
Taylor hasn’t lost sight of his roots. A young group from the community center came down to MSG for a Pittsburgh-St. John’s game a few weeks ago. Afterward, Taylor came out onto the bus to talk to the kids.
We’ve all been wishing for more, frustrated, disappointed, and/or wanting Taylor to have done a lot more this first season. Nothing he has said or done, though, has me thinking he won’t be working hard and getting better.
In Lancaster, PA they check in with redshirting freshman Lamar Patterson.
“It’s not that bad (to sit and watch),” he said Wednesday. “I’m still having fun.”
He sees the big picture, after all. And the way he looks at it, redshirting can only benefit him in the long run.
“I feel I’m ahead of the game,” he said. “I got experience, and I’m coming back (next year) as a freshman. I’ll be ahead of every other freshman. I’ll be fine.”
He is already up to speed with his teammates in one regard — he has his own Twitter account, LPatterson21. He regularly takes questions from others, like how he settled on No. 21 as his uniform number (it was the same one he had at McCaskey, so he stuck with it), who else recruited him (Arizona State, Virginia, Virginia Tech, Miami and Marquette — but as he wrote, “I didn’t even give other schools a chance. Pitt is where I wanted to be at.”)
Patterson is likely to stay in Pittsburgh for the summer like most of the team usually does. It also comes out at the end that Pitt might take a sanctioned overseas trip. Teams are allowed every so often to do this. They play some exhibitions and get a chance to play and practice together under coaches supervision — usually a prohibition.
If so, I would consider that to indicate Coach Dixon is really optimistic about the potential of the team for next season.
ND goes cold in the 2nd half and loses, and Florida is giving BYU all they can handle. All of my brackets could look like crap after the first three games. Oh well. Go, Pitt!
The best thing about it is that by ND making the NCAA, it probably bought Bray another 2-3 years.
I will hate facing Rice every year in games that count instead of non-con matchups. Andy Katz says Oregon is going after Few. Expect Rice to get one of the Big East jobs, especially after today’s performance against a team and coach percieved as among the Big East’s best.
But coaching in the Big East with the reputation, media, tourney, etc., will have to be tempting especially after his time at Pitt. Seton Hall is only 30-40 minutes away, so it’s “in the neighborhood.” And if DePaul is serious, they could throw huge money at a guy who could recruit both Chicago and NYC. Lastly, who knows what other BE jobs might still come open. It’s early.
Rice will come out a big winner regardless I think.
As for Rice, I’m not so sure a Big East school is going to come knocking this year. If DePaul is serious about spending big bucks on a coach, then they are more likely to look towards a more established guy (Rice has only been a head coach for 3 years). It sounds like they want to make a splash, and Rice would not do that for them.
I think Seton Hall might be a little wary of Rice as well. I think he’s a class act, but he does operate on the verge of craziness sometimes, and coming off of Gonzalez, they may want a different personality type.
Fordham, however, really is a good fit. Not only is it his alma mater, but his experience level probably fits what they are looking for. Also, if he does well there, it will open even bigger doors for him if he wants to move on/up.
Their decision-making still sucks but at least you can work around it that way.
As much as I dislike the Mousekateer Sports Network sometimes, at least if the NCAA opts out of the CBS contract and goes to ESPN, they’ll use 3 or 4 of their channels to show the games simultaneously.
