Now this is just plain funny.
DePaul is targeting Pittsburgh’s Jamie Dixon as its first choice for men’s basketball head coach, sources tell NBC 5.
Kansas State’s Frank Martin is the University’s second choice, according to the same source.
H/T to @PeteGaines.
There isn’t even anything worth adding to this bit of silliness.
Feeling a little guilty of thinking about what Pitt can do the whole way through the Tournament? Trying to convince yourself that you should only be focused on Oakland and not to the next round? Concerned you are jinxing Pitt or bringing in bad karma by looking ahead?
Don’t be. Xavier is doing plenty of it.
So, when a possibly second round matchup popped up against three-seeded Pitt in the second round, well, it brought a little extra spice to the draw.
“We know they are in our bracket, our main goal is to focus on Minnesota, nothing is guaranteed,” Jamel McLean said. “Minnesota is our prime objective. Hopefully we see Pittsburgh and we will take that game from where we left off last year.”
So, yeah, they are trying to focus on Minnesota, but their fans can’t stop looking ahead.
I am loving Xavier’s chances of making it into the second weekend of the tournament. Jordan Crawford is the kind of player that a team can hitch their wagon to. Minnesota will have a great defense set up to slow him down but I think Crawford is ready to shine on the big stage. Terrell Holloway has been very strong recently and Mark Lyons has been a weapon off the bench. I like our bigs against the Golden Gophers bigs. Xavier can get scoring from a variety of spots on the floor and can be tough defensively. IF we can get a second round matchup against Pitt I see Xavier exacting revenge from last season. IF we get a second round matchup against Oakland Friday night is going to be one hell of a good time.
The Musketeers are yet another team that benefited immensely from the dark lord, Kelvin Sampson. He who resulted in Scottie Reynolds at ‘Nova and Devin Ebanks to West Virginia. Well, Xavier has post-Sampson, Indiana transfer Jordan Crawford and another Indiana decommit in Terrell Holloway. This, more than anything else worries me about facing Xavier in the second round.
Not that Minnesota, that barely made the Tourney, lacks its fantasy goggles.
But the Musketeers, who finished 14-2 in the Atlantic 10 to tie Temple for the regular-season championship, aren’t an overwhelmingly talented team like Texas was last year.
And that gives the Gophers a shot.
“We’re excited again to make it to the big stage,” senior Lawrence Westbrook said. “And I feel like we can make a run in the tournament. We have to play like we did in the first three games of this (Big Ten) tournament, then we will be good.”
If they can make it to the second round, Minnesota has one of the easiest paths to the Sweet 16 of any lower-seeded team. The Gophers definitely have more talent than Oakland if the Grizzlies pull off an upset. Pittsburgh’s physicality could pose a problem, but the Panthers lost twice this year to Notre Dame. They also suffered a 10-point loss to Indiana in December.
I guess pre-Tournament is like spring training and it seems any sport in preseason. Everyone thinks they have a shot, and can visualize how it can happen.
Oakland may not be dreaming Final Four, but they are believing in a Sweet Sixteen run.
At Oakland, no one is lugging any extra weight. Kampe has done an excellent job with two senior leaders — guard Johnathon Jones and forward Derick Nelson. And 6-11 junior center Keith Benson is an overlooked star.
From the crushing disappointment of a year ago, when the Golden Grizzlies blew an NCAA bid by blowing a 13-point lead in the final seven minutes of a loss, something strong grew. Kampe handed out T-shirts with the phrase “Can You Finish,” and Oakland proved it could, even as it starts anew.
Oakland has won 20 of its last 21 games, and although it got hammered early by top teams — including an 88-57 loss at Michigan State — it’s a classically dangerous 14 seed.
“We were a Cinderella last time — now I think we’re just a really good team,” Kampe said. “Millions of people are gonna look at our name and have to decide, ‘Is Oakland gonna be the team that ruins my bracket?’?”
Kampe smiled broadly in his cluttered office, amid signs of what’s unfolding. He held up a yellow brick, something each player is required to carry around, symbolizing the long road in the “Wizard of Oz.” Stray from the path, bad things happen. Stay on the path, who knows what’s possible.
The numbers may not make them that much of a “dangerous” team, Pitt still has to beat them.
Same week the NCAA Tournament starts, spring practices get underway. I realize they have to get the practices in while school is still in session — that whole education thing — it just does not make it easy with everything with the NCAA Tournament.
SI,com’s questions for the Big East spring practices, centers on whether Pitt can dethrone Cinci — which even after 2 years of Cinci on top still seems odd.
The Panthers have their own holes. They must replace three starters on the offensive line as well as both tackles on the defensive side. More importantly, they need a successor for QB Bill Stull. Vying for the role: sophomore Tino Sunseir and redshirt junior Pat Bostick, who started as a true freshman in 2007 but sat out last season to improve his mechanics.
With Pitt, there’s also the matter of mental hurdles. Did this group learn from the three-point loss to West Virginia and the one-point loss to Cincinnati that kept it out of a BCS game? If so, the Panthers could be legit contenders.
The QB question is also the big spring question from Brian Bennett at ESPN.com. It’s not a revelation that this is Pitt’s headline theme for spring practices. It also is not the only big issue.
Both starting corners from a year ago have moved on, and it wasn’t exactly a position of great strength beforehand. Gary and Reed have playing experience, with Gary starting the final five games of ’08 and once last season. But Pitt is counting on junior college transfer and midyear enrollee Saheed Imoru to claim one of the starting spots. If Imoru lives up to his billing, this could turn out just fine. If not, the Panthers may have to scramble to find answers in their pass defense.
And as Paul Zeise points out in an extensive and must read — all of it — post, not the only issue with the secondary.
The secondary is a mess, an absolute mess, because of injuries so the spring is probably going to be somewhat of a wash for that unit. With Dom DeCicco and Andrew Taglianetti sitting out with injuries and the aforementioned Mr. Fields on a voyage elsewhere, there is going to be a lot of mixing and matching and just trying to get enough bodies in certain spots to make it through camp. Antwuan Reed and Ricky Gary and Saheed Imoru will start spring as the top corners and Jared Holley will start at one of the safety spots but beyond those three there are a lot of questions. Eventually, once the season starts the secondary, at least the safety spots, will be solid which means Gary, Reed and Imoru and guys like Buddy Jackson better have a big spring and show they are capable of holding down those corner spots.
Obviously this is opening up some big opportunities for players. Wide open and a chance to seize a pole position on the depth chart. There’s also the possibility come the summer of someone like Todd Thomas might end up as a DB rather than WR, given the glut on that side. Again read Zeise’s in full.
Lots to digest and probably get you in the mood for some crazy obsessiveness for every tidbit that comes out of spring practice.
Thanks to Luke who is running the show and setting the rules this year. Take it away, Luke:
Welcome to the PITT Blather 2010 Bracket Pool
1st place nabs the winner:
“Baldwin for Heisman” t-shirt (spring practice also starts this week);
a “talking” Pitt bottle opener;
A $25 gift card TBD (Ed. note, if anyone knows where on the Pitt team store you can purchase gift cards it would help rather than defaulting to something like Dick’s.)
There is no prize for 2nd place.
The scoring system will be a little different. The total points for the round will be multiplied by the seed you pick to win. For example, if you took a 3 seed to beat a 14 seed, you would get 3 points, as opposed to getting 14 if the 14 seed won.
The full rundown on scoring can be found here. I just thought it was an interesting twist from the normal pool that you’re probably in.
1 Bracket per person.
Use the password: pittblather (all lowercase)
Thanks to Luke for setting this up and good luck.
Well, here’s something predictable and not so predictable. Bob Smizik thinks Pitt can make the Sweet 16. Of course, he must preface it thusly,
I am not a huge fan of this Pitt team. I think coach Jamie Dixon has done the best job of his stellar career in getting this team to where it is. It does not have great talent.
But the Panthers are capable of winning two games and get to the round of 16. If they can do that, what already has been season of unexpected highs will become a truly remarkable one.
I could be being sensitive, but it is typical Smizik to denigrate while complimenting. No one, even when Pitt was surging into the top-10 nationally, has claimed that this team has “great” talent. It has good talent that works hard and is well coached. The potentially “great” talent on the team is inexperienced, raw or redshirting (or coming next year).
Meanwhile Ron Cook says the obvious — while pretending others are saying otherwise — that Pitt has to win their first round game.
A lot of people around here will tell you that the Panthers don’t have to beat Oakland for this to be regarded as a successful season. They will point out, quite correctly, that Pitt didn’t look much like a tournament team at the start of the season after losing four starters to the pros from a team that went 31-5 and made it to the final eight in 2009. They will argue that its marvelous regular-season success — including a tie for second place in the powerful Big East Conference and wins against then-Top 5 opponents Syracuse, West Virginia and Villanova — assures that this will be remembered as a great year.
Sorry, I’m not among those people.
What? Who, outside of the Pete would claim that losing to Oakland in the first round wouldn’t be a huge disappointment and put a bad taste in everyone’s mouth and discolor the accomplishments of the entire season? I mean, did you not notice the reactions when Pitt went down in their first game of the Big East Tournament to a hot Notre Dame team? You would have thought that Pitt played itself completely out of the Tournament.
Even the players are aware and think it would make the season a disappointment. You don’t think that goes for every team that is on the first four lines? It’s brutal when you are a #5 seed and it happens — and most people are conditioned now to expect 5-12 upsets.
Pitt is under no more or less pressure to win that game than any other team on those 4 lines. Get over the myopia.
Since the field expanded to 64/65, the #3 seed has been upset 15 times out of 100 opportunities.
The Golden Grizzlies of Oakland are looking for things to motivate and give them a chip-on-the-shoulder. Since they only have to go to Milwaukee, they are going with the seeding.
Oakland also played a tough schedule, featuring the likes of No. 1 seeds Kansas and Syracuse, Michigan State and Wisconsin.
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Yet it’ll face Pittsburgh (24-8), the regional’s No. 3 seed.
“It’s mixed emotion,” Kampe said. “I’m happy we’re not going to Spokane or San Jose. It gives our fans a chance to come and see us. We’ll have five or six busloads going there.
“I’m real unhappy with the seed. I don’t know how we got a 14th seed. Our RPI (Ratings Percentage Index) was 51 this morning. Maybe we’re new to it. Maybe we need to win. Maybe it’s our league.”
Kampe pointed out New Mexico State has an RPI of 91, but the Western Athletic Conference tournament champion got a No. 12 seed and will open against No. 5 seed Michigan State in the Midwest Region.
And their closest loss to those other BCS teams was 16 to Wisconsin (the other three were an average of 31 point losses). They also lost by 12 to Oregon and 31 to Memphis.
Oakland to their credit, did play a load of tough games. They went 6-7 in their non-con with 8 road games. Granted, as guarantee games, they probably made up the bulk of the basketball team’s budget, but that also gave them their surprisingly high RPI number despite the losses.
It’s about a seven hour drive to Milwaukee for Oakland, so they should have a decent contingent make the trip.
Pitt does have some extra scouting information via Chase Adams.
ll they have to do is turn to senior guard Chase Adams, who faced Oakland for the past three seasons when he was at Centenary College in the Summit League.
“They’re definitely a veteran team,” Adams said. “They’re a complete team. They have an inside game and they have shooters. It’s going to be a good matchup.”
I’m going to assume that he’s going into more detail for the coaches and teammates.
Like most fans, there isn’t a lot of complaining from Pitt players about things.
“We’ve got a favorable draw,” junior forward Gilbert Brown said. “We just have to try to make the most of it.”
…The Pitt players, however, couldn’t resist at least taking a peak at what might lay ahead.
…
“I know who’s possibly the next two teams,” senior guard Jermaine Dixon said, “but that’s something we’re not thinking about now.”
Added Brown: “You see the potential games that you could play, but your main objective is to focus on this first game.”
Come on, get those cliches going.
There was an interesting piece in the New York Times this past week on the money Big East teams spend on their basketball programs. Here’s how the whole thing looks.
Now when you separate out the football schools:
Pitt is dead center in both. But what strikes me is that Pitt is at the point where there is a significant drop-off.
Obviously there is also a significant difference in success when you spend money and don’t. Not just for this year or last, but over the past decade. When Pitt made the commitment to invest in the basketball programs results came.
Obviously hiring the right coach in terms of recruiting and player development makes more of a difference than shiny new buildings. The new facilities are vital for selling recruits on the seriousness of the program, but you need the coaches that can develop and sell things.
It sucks, to some degree to simplify winning to money, but everyone has learned over the years. The only way you win consistently is by consistently spending the money (or if you prefer, reinvesting) on the programs.
That money of course, is what drives the acceptance by every fan of Big East football programs that if another conference comes calling, of course they will jump. Whether it fits right or not.
It’s been a long few days of watching lots of basketball.
Pitt got the 3 seed. No complaints about that part. I have no explanation how Villanova ended up with a 2 seed. Temple was screwed by 2 lines. I thought they had played to a 3 seed, but ended up with a 5 to face Cornell.
The Big East placed 5 teams on the first 3 lines. Another strong year and respect for the Big East.
As for the first round game with Oakland of the Summit League. I always worry, but this is a good match-up for Pitt.
They are not a strong defensive team. They don’t force turnovers. And they don’t shoot 3s real well. They do try to play more up-tempo than Pitt.
The one thing that they do, do well — or specifically what their center Keith Benson does well — is rebound. Benson. He’s a double-double and does grab offensive boards. He can also hit free throws at a 73% rate. Gary McGhee is going to have to put a lot of effort on the defensive end.
Beyond that I am not sure who Pitt will face after that. I really don’t have a strong impulse.
The Minnesota-Xavier game is close to a toss-up. Minnesota is playing great ball and they have an experienced coach in Tubby Smith. Xavier is just as good.
I’m thinking Coach Dixon should bench Gil Brown for the opening game and save his good game for the second round.
I don’t even know who Pitt would face if they got to the Sweet 16. BYU and K-State could be there. BYU would be having a home game if that happened. K-State has enough talent to win games. The one thing with them is they foul a lot. That could hurt them if they face BYU and the way they shoot.
Here’s the schedule for the first round (PDF).
Minnesota-Xavier tips around 11:25 AM 12:25 PM ET. Oakland-Pitt tips off about 30 minutes after their game ends. That is roughly a 2 PM 3 PM ET start.
Just so you know, I’ll be running the liveblog over on Fanhouse this evening to discuss the bubble, seeding and Selection Sunday. The fun will be starting around 5:30 and will probably go 90 minutes or so. Stop on by.
I’ll be posting later on what happens with Pitt and seeding and match-up.
There will be a Pitt Blather Tournament Pool. Complete with a top prize. I am looking for a volunteer to be the bracket manager — and by that I mean choosing which automated major sports site tournament pool, setting up the private group and doing summaries of the leaderboard to post. If you feel like you want to do that shoot me an e-mail at pittblather-at-gmail-dot-com
While Ernie Kent’s time at Oregon is almost over — just a matter of seeing if the NIT bothers — the obvious next step is getting his replacement. Unlike Arizona and USC fans and media, there seems more realism that getting a new coach won’t be a simple matter of throwing bushels of Nike green at someone.
This one might be a most pessimistic take.
In the Pac-10, I’d put it about seventh.
UCLA and Arizona are the best gigs — don’t worry, we’re getting to Arizona. USC is about to get hammered by the NCAA, but at some point, well, there’s a reason (beyond the alleged payments) O.J. Mayo thought he could raise his Q score by playing in L.A.
Washington’s a better job because of the decent recruiting ground in the Huskies’ backyard. Ditto for Stanford and Cal. Arizona State sits in a big-time pro market.
Argue if you’d like, and slide Oregon ahead of one of the above, or maybe two; it’s how I got to seventh. But if you’re looking for consensus, the gig ranks for sure ahead of only Oregon State and Washington State.
I think he is overvaluing Stanford and Cal, but he is not far off. As far as attractiveness, the Oregon job is middle-of-the-pack for the Pac-10. He makes an even better point, that even the “name-brand” basketball powers don’t have the easiest time filling the gig — using Arizona as an example. That buckets of cash alone are not enough.
Surprisingly enough, despite the Nike bucks and the sucess of the football program. Guess what? Oregon’s athletic department struggles to make ends meet. Actually posting a small loss.
Still, there are the claims of interest from Coach Dixon.
I’m told that University of Pittsburgh coach Jamie Dixon is interested in the job, and that there’s some mutual interest coming from Camp Swoosh. Remember, this decision will be run through the Beaverton sneaker company. Dixon’s contract runs through 2012-2013 at Pitt and he’s taken the Panthers (24-7, 13-5 Big East) to an Elite 8 already so I’m not sure if he’s posturing here to get some leverage (Read: extension) or if he believes he’s done all he can do at Pitt.
And even that seems tepid in belief. With good reason. I’m impressed with some rather clear thinking from those writing about Oregon basketball.
There is no real downside to Jamie Dixon except that there’s almost no chance he’d leave Pittsburgh, that I know of, for Oregon. Really? Why would he come to Oregon? He’s set financially. He’s successful in a much tougher basketball conference. Doesn’t need the challenge of building something back up.
Add in the fact that he rejected both USC (twice) and Arizona with offers of more money and better longterm situations than Oregon. To say nothing of the fact that he had seniors leaving and Pitt was supposed to be rebuilding this year. I can’t see anything happening with this other than maybe another extension.
I have no fear of Auburn coming calling.
The only job Coach Dixon seems to have taken an interest in, is where he was once an assistant and met his wife.
Word buzzing around M?noa is that Jamie Dixon, head coach of 16th-ranked Pittsburgh, called the University of Hawai’i to discuss the Rainbow Warriors’ head basketball coaching job.
Well, relax. He called to recommended Hawaii look into hiring St. Mary’s assistant Kyle Smith.
Okay. Everyone calmed down a bit more?
Yesterday turned out to be a pretty good day for Pitt. Michigan St., Wisconsin, Maryland, New Mexico, BYU, Texas A&M and Baylor all went down. That’s a significant number of teams trying to claim a 2, 3 or 4 seed going down either in their first games of their conference tournament or needed at least two wins to stake a claim.
The odds remain that Pitt will still be a 3 or 4 seed.
Once more, the bigger issue that will decide whether Pitt is a 3 or 4 has to do with geography, how to place the other 7 Big East teams, and not putting a team against a team they have already faced this year in the first round or two (which is why projections putting Pitt against Wofford are a bit silly).
Not much left to say about the ND game. It was frustrating, but not one of the most frustrating (the second half of the 2004-05 season kind fills out most of the list). It just sucks when a game is that slow paced, and remains that close throughout, but Pitt could never get there. It also sucks when ND drills their open 3s early against Pitt, but then goes cold against WVU.
Credit should go to Notre Dame. They had won 5 in a row coming in — and lost just before that in OT at Louisville. They have been a hot team that had completely reinvented themselves on the fly. It is completely disconcerting to think Mike Brey might not be that bad a coach.
The thing I have seen with Pitt all season, is that they are a good team that has overachieved. The margin of error for Pitt in nearly every game just seems so small. They can survive if one player has an off game *cough* Gilbert Brown *cough* or is controlled by the other side, but if more than one player has a bad night it can be too much for the rest of the team to pick things up.
Oh, heck, I want something that makes me feel better. How about this tremendous story on Bill Raftery? I would love to have a drink or ten with him.
At the end of last night’s liveblog, there was the frustrated angst of how Pitt had played itself out of a 3 and even a 4 seed. I’m not buying it given the field and how weak it really is after the first couple of lines. If Pitt gets bumped to the four line, it will have more to do with geography, the number of Big East teams in the field and a sense of interchangeability between a lot of teams.
Still, if you are so inclined to worry, here are the teams you should be cheering to win today:
Life interrupted things. Rest of the family got sick which put all the crap on me. In addition, this is the start of the busiest time for me with Fanhouse. So very little time the last couple as you can see by the lack of posting.
Things are somewhat sorted out. At least to the extent that there is no way in hell, there won’t be a liveblog tonight. I agreed with Gil Brown about wanting to see ND again, and after the beatdown they put on Seton Hall, I feel a little more trepidation. Holy hell, they suddenly know how to play defense and are being incredibly efficient on offense.
Fun starts at 7 with the game on ESPN.
If you need to break it out from the site, Click Here
You remember that bowl game planned for Yankee Stadium in December? It has a name. Please welcome the New Era Pinstripe Bowl.
The New Era Pinstripe Bowl will be held on Dec. 30, 2010, and televised nationally by ESPN.
A press conference announcing the name will be held at 10 a.m. at Yankee Stadium. The name comes from the game’s four-year title sponsor, headwear and apparel manufacturer New Era Cap Company, Inc.
The bowl will match the third-place Big East team with the sixth-place Big 12 team, after the BCS teams from each conference are excluded from consideration. Both teams will stay in Manhattan, the Big East team at the Grand Hyatt and the Big 12 team at the Sheraton New York.
The bowl’s Web site, newerapinstripebowl.com, will be launched later today.
According to the press release I got sent:
There is a four-year agreement extending through 2013 for the Big East and Big 12 to participate in the New Era Pinstripe Bowl at Yankee Stadium. In future years beyond 2010, games will take place no earlier than Christmas Day and no later than New Year’s Day.
Will it last beyond that? I have no idea. Just as I have no idea if the Big East and Big 12 will be around in 4 years.
I don’t see Pitt’s seed changing unless they win the Big East Tournament. Based on various projections I’ve seen, here is my half-assed, amalgamated projection of the top four lines.
#1 — Kansas, Kentucky, Syracuse, Duke
#2 — WVU, K-State, Ohio St., New Mexico
#3 — Villanova, Purdue, Pitt, Wisconsin
#4 — Michigan St., Baylor, Tennessee, BYU
Others that could move up the line to #4 or possibly #3 with a big conference tourney: Maryland, Temple, Vandy, Texas A&M and Georgetown.
The top two lines look rather solid in my view. Meanwhile a Hummel-less Purdue and oddly unraveling Nova squad seem more precarious at the #3 seed.
Even if (god forbid) the team goes out in the quarter-finals, Pitt would still be a #3 seed. MSU seems like the most likely to be able to move up a line given the relative openness of the Big 11’s conference tourney as compared to the SEC and Big 12.
I would much prefer to see Pitt keep winning in the BET, but I don’t think Pitt will get much movement from it.
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