Well, college basketball season is getting closer. As you have probably heard, Pitt is bringing back Midnight Madness in a unique way. The Panthers will have their first official practice outside, on a court set up on Bigelow in the shadow of the Cathedral. The event takes place on Friday, October 12. Which just happens to also be homecoming weekend.
The entire event will be livestreamed on ESPN3, and the ESPNU Midnight Madness show will be doing live look-ins.
Pitt has also finalized their TV schedule. There will be some games that are simply unavailable to those who don’t live in the Pittsburgh/Western Pennsylvania area. Those will be some of the games that air on Pittsburgh Panthers TV, which is a Comcast only channel. The scrimmage, two exhibition games and four patsy games — Oakland (Nov. 17), Howard (Nov. 27), Delaware State (Dec. 19) and Kennesaw State (Dec. 23).
Some games will be ESPN3 streaming only. With one surprise: Mount St. Mary’s (Nov. 9), Detroit (Dec. 1), the City Game vs. Duquesne at Consol Energy Center (Dec. 5), North Florida (Dec. 8) and Bethune Cookman (Dec. 15). The City Game being streamed only is a hell of an indictment on how far Duquesne has fallen at this point, and the expectations. Not even regional/ROOT Sports interest in broadcasting it.
Not surprisingly, outside of the NIT Tip-Off Classic, national or even regional broadcasts of Pitt’s non-con are non-existent. The mix of a disappointing season last year and absolute dreck for most of the non-con will do that. Though, with yet another lockout looming for the NHL you would think ROOT might have been a little interested.
As for the 18 game conference slate, that will be found nationally. Only five games end up on the Big East Network syndication — Villanova, USF, at St. John’s and both DePaul games. The other thirteen games will be on ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU or CBS.
In other time-wasters. The Syracuse basketball beat writer has been killing time with top-5 lists.
There are a few Pitt mentions in the lists. Like intra-city games that includes The City Game (obviously not a lot of choices).
Top 5 Freshmen:
1. Steve Adams, Pittsburgh: Adams, a 7-foot center, is a native of New Zealand. He played at Notre Dame Prep in Fitchburg, Mass., last year. He’s extremely athletic for a 7-footer. He plays hard, which will fit in with Pitt coach Jamie Dixon’s style. Adams burst onto the scene a year ago in the adidas Nations Tournament. Adams, playing for Team Asia, scored 20 points and grabbed 24 rebounds vs. Team USA Red. He had 37 points and 14 rebounds against Team USA Blue.
Top 5 Transfers:
1. Trey Zeigler, Pittsburgh: Don’t let the fact that Zeigler transferred to Pittsburgh from Central Michigan fool you. Zeigler, a 6-5 guard, was never a Mid-American Conference level recruit. He went to Central Michigan to play for his father, Ernie, who was let go after last season. Zeigler received a waiver to play immediately at Pitt. In his two years at Central Michigan, Zeigler scored 1,011 points. He hit double-figures 54 times in 63 career games there. Last year, he averaged a team-high 15.6 points per game, which ranked third in the MAC. He also led Central Michigan with 6.7 rebounds per game. Zeigler could have a huge impact on Pitt where he’ll get the chance to replace Ashton Gibbs in the Panthers’ starting lineup.
and Top 5 Venues:
2. Petersen Events Center, Pittsburgh: It’s hard to believe the Petersen Events Center has been around for 10 years. The facility still sparkles. It’s not just one of the best arenas in the Big East, it’s one of the best in the country. The facility includes the arena itself plus athletic training facilities, a practice court, coaches offices and more. From the Daktronics video-board to the courtside suites to the student section that wraps around three-quarters of the court, the people at Pitt got it right when they built the Pete.
Only disagreement on the venue list is putting the Joyce Center (ND) at #3 and leaving the Bradley Center (Marquette) off the list.
Comment by 85 09.26.12 @ 9:29 am”
Spot on…and if it sells out quickly enough, perhaps someone will see an advantage to making it accesible via Root.
Zeigler will be in consideration for all big east this season. He is a great fit for what Dixon wants to do, play defense, rebound, make the extra pass and get/take good shots.
His 6.7 rebounds a game was close to top 10 among all guards in the country last season and more than anyone at Pitt averaged. It wouldn’t shock me if he was close to that average this season. Pitt’s defense will create a lot of missed shots (sadly their offense might create a lot of misses too). Adams and Zanna will attract a lot of attention by the opponents. And Adams tips a lot of rebounds leaving loose rebounds for guards. Zeigler is extremely quick to loose balls.
Would not be surprised to see the starters average 30 rebounds:
Adams 9
Zanna 6
Patterson 6
Zeigler 6
Woodall 3
I thought yes we did, and I was looking forward to going over. But I see we’re no longer on the roster.
What happened?
Sorry hard to think about hoops in Sept. esp. now since we’re 2-2.
Minnesota which played in the generic Metrodome for 30 years, finally built a beautiful 50,000 seat ON CAMPUS STADIUM. This was from the game piece.
“The crowd erupted, cheering and dancing to ”Gangnam Style” in the kind of euphoric college atmosphere the university was hoping to recapture after moving out of the lifeless Metrodome four years ago.”
While Heinz isn’t as bad as the Metrodome (neither had/has much of a College atmosphere) and PITT wasn’t as bad as Minnesota, until PITT makes a substantial financial investment in football, as they did in basketball, I see us staying at our level of mediocrity with an occassional 9 or 10 win season. Or it could be worse, as the level of competition in the ACC is much better than in the league we’re leaving.
Which that level of mediocrity was achieved in.
Recruiting & coaching will have to be stepped up, as we all know. (VT gift game non-withstanding)
Sort of another Boston College in the ACC, as they were mediocre like us in the Big East. They did manage to play for the ACC title when I believe Matt Ryan was their QB a few years.
They’ve fallen back a little now. What’s disconcering a little is that BC was excellent in BigEast hoops, not so much in the ACC.
The Maui preaseason tournament is in 2014. Next year they play in Brookyln at the new arena in the Legends Classic.
If Pitt built a stadium in Oakland (if they somehow found the space) people would say they won’t go because too hard to get to. Always some excuse. I think people are forgeting how empty Pitt Stadium was the last 20 years they played there.
for 692 yards and 7 TD in 2 games before haveing
a injury.
BC once we hit the ACC, at least I hope not.
WVU is a more likely scenario especially with his grade issues over 2 years at Pedophile State.
That being said, Pitt might have been a decent choice for him in August when he would have had 3 years in the system, but now that he has played this year, he’ll only have 2 years. Since he hasn’t really developed as a QB since high school, it’s hard to see how he would beat out Savage and/or Voytik next year, which means at best he would be hoping for 1 year of playing time, and even that seems unlikely at this point.
It’s unfortunate, but Jones seems to have made a series of bad decisions about college football, beginning with his choice of PSU, and culminating with getting talked out of transferring in August and playing a game at TE. Hopefully he really considers his options this time around.
I guess other options for on-campus would be expanding further up into the Hill District (around the new baseball complex) or down into Panther Hollow, although both of those have political implications as well. Just not a lot of space around here…
Instead of a bowl shaped stadium which took more room, you could make it a rectangle with steep stands, like a pit if you will. The pit at PITT.
50,000 to start with, with option to expand if need be. 48k in a 50k place looks packed, unlike 48k in a 65K place. Also for a huge game, with say Florida State, you could always move it to Heinz if 65-70K was expected. Like the old saying, if there’s a will, there’s a way !
“Where there’s a will, there’s a way”.
In this case, the “will” had better be one of some just deceased billionaire because it would take about 500 million to site study, permit apply/approve, design and build it.
Pitt does not have the political clout or the athletic department deep pockets.
Besides, the VA is entrenched.
