Not TV. No internet. If you aren’t going to the game or don’t have Comcast in Western PA, you are out of luck to see this one.

This game is one Pitt should win easily. The real interest is seeing how Coach Jamie Dixon plays with the rotation. He needs to see if he can find a combination that will give Gibbs some more minutes to rest on the bench.

Well Pitt is heading to Birmingham and the big discussion point is Dave Wannstedt. Wait. Is this 2011 or 2010?

Now let’s get this out of the way. I like Dave Wannstedt. I know he cares deeply about Pitt. I know he desperately wanted this to work. He wanted to win and win big at his alma mater. In his home turf. He wanted to be coaching Pitt for a good 10 to 15 more years. It hurt him terribly to be fired by Pitt. Especially since he never saw it coming.

I also know he cares deeply about the players that he recruited on this Pitt team. Not Jerry Sandusky or Bernie Fine deeply, but he cared.

There comes a point, though, where he has to either stop talking or be nice. What he did yesterday was more pointed, but similar to the stuff he has been doing since leaving Pittsburgh to coach linebackers for the Buffalo Bills. I’ve tried to avoid it because it should be in the past, and I had hoped that someone would tell him that he is making himself look bad. Clearly that isn’t happening.

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No Tennessee is not a particularly good team. They aren’t some low, mid-major either. Nor are they USF bad (have to adjust since DePaul looks kind of frisky this year). What they are is a major conference team, playing at home while struggling with a coaching change and departed talent. Pitt has higher aspirations, but played that game without their starting point guard for the first time this year.

In other words, this game was tougher for Pitt — not because of the opponent or being on the road — but because they were playing their first game with an adjusted line-up. John Johnson and Cameron Wright found their minutes upped significantly and Ashton Gibbs rarely left the court. Aside from Lamar Patterson getting a few extra minutes, because Pitt didn’t go to a 3-guard line-up with Woodall out, the rest of the line-up and minutes did not vary much more from normal.

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