End of year projects being rushed or made at the last minute. Having to buy presents. Kid’s school stuff. A flurry of various doctors’ appointments to make sure all the money is used from the benefits account before the end of the year. There is nothing about December that isn’t rushed, hurried or harried. Tonight it is my daughter’s holiday concert. I love her, but sitting through an hour plus of kids from 4-11 doing Christmas music has to at least hold a spot in purgatory.

The concert is — of course — set for 7 pm. Same as the game with the Hornets. It appears to be a game that can only be viewed via the Pitt website. Guess I’ll be surreptitiously checking my phone for updates tonight.

As for the Hornets. They are a MEAC team. A 5-6 record. No surprise they are renting themselves out for beatings. They are in the midst of a 6-game road trip. They are coming off an overtime loss that nearly had them knock off Penn State. Which would have still counted as beating a major conference opponent. They also beat Delaware (making the Blue Hens’ upset win over Virginia look that much more fluky and unhelpful for Pitt’s non-con SOS)

About the only intrigue in this game is that DSU features a center named Kendall Gray. In one player, it can evoke the frontcourt of the 2005-2007 Panthers.

I’ll be happy when the holidays are finished. A little chaos to keep me away from the site.

In the meantime, Pitt added another offensive lineman to the 2013 recruiting class. Alex Officer out of Rochester, New York verballed over the weekend.

Officer has the size Coach Paul Chryst wants for his O-line at 6-3 or 6-4 and 285-322 pounds depending on the recruiting site of your preference.

All four major recruiting sites can agree, however, that Officer is the top offensive guard in New York. He is a 3-star talent according to every recruiting site. He had offers from Louisville, Rutgers, WVU and Syracuse.

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The wife and I don’t get many nights out without the kids. It just doesn’t happen. We don’t have family near us to watch the kids on the cheap. So any night out comes with an additional surcharge. When the opportunity does arise, unless there is a really good reason to say no you take it. Playing a 4-7 MEAC team is not a good enough reason not to take advantage.

The game is airing on ESPN3, so I’ll catch a replay later tonight.

The defensive coordinator position is open. Dave Huxtable has moved on to take the DC spot at NC State.

How do I feel about that? Eh. I can’t say it is a huge loss. It would have been nice to have full coaching staff continuity for two seasons, but it beats changing head coaches once more.

Some of the obvious names being bandied about are Charlie Partridge (serving presently as DC at Wisconsin, but also spent a few years as a Pitt assistant), Todd Orlando (former UConn and FIU DC), along with the usual Pitt guys names like Teryl Austin and Sal Sunseri. Tom Bradley’s name has been mentioned — with tongue-firmly-planted-in-cheek.

(Seriously. Tom Bradley will not be the next DC. He remains unhireable  as a college coach. His supporters and agent tried to float his name out there for the open Temple job and that sank quickly and quietly. No program is willing to take that chance. Please do not even try to make the case.)

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Overall, I take no joy in seeing the Big East reach the long, inevitable, break that has been predicted for years. I thought it would happen by 2010, so I don’t claim any special foresight (hell, I never expected the expansiopocolypse to go further than 12 teams in each major conference).

The Big East was founded on 3 basic principles: self-preservation, money and basketball. Today you can still argue that the BE is maintaining the principles of self-preservation and money. Basketball is just along for the ride.

I wrote that eight years ago. The self-preservation was against the growing power of football schools, and the diminishing power of basketball-only schools. The Big East basketball schools finally snapped. They were sick of basketball being along for the ride. They wanted their power back. Even if their fiefdom is significantly smaller. Even if they make less money. They wanted to feel like they were in control once more. (I thought about using the Milton quote from Satan of “Better to reign in Hell than to serve in Heaven” until I realized that, at best the Big East was more like Purgatory.)

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Pitt is off for the week. Taking those darn finals. Something about responsibility, education and schooling. I don’t know, seems odd.

In a previous post, I mentioned how the RPI and SOS numbers for Pitt’s non-con were rather bad. That plays a role in Pitt not being ranked. The other part of why Pitt isn’t getting ranked. Not only didn’t Pitt start the season ranked, last year happened (Insider subs.).

That being said, I can’t help feeling that Pitt, as so often happens with early-season rankings, is to some extent paying for the mistakes that we the voters committed all by ourselves in the preseason. Coming off a 5-13 season in the Big East, the Panthers were nowhere to be found in any of the various preseason top 25s for 2012-13. Throw in the fact that Dixon’s team has played only one ranked opponent to this point — they lost to Michigan 67-62 in Madison Square Garden on Thanksgiving eve — and you have a situation where our preconceived preseason notions with regard to Pitt have been more or less frozen in place.

I believe that’s a mistake. The Panthers are better than most observers expected in the preseason, and data point No. 1 here is losing by only five on a neutral floor to a team as good as the Wolverines.

That’s John Gasaway, most known for his work with Ken Pomeroy on the Basketball Prospectus. He’s very good with advanced basketball stats.

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So it appears that the Big East may go out in one giant clusterf**k.

The presidents of the Big East’s seven Catholic, non-Football Bowl Subdivision schools are expected to decide on their future in the Big East in the coming days, and it “would be an upset” if they remained in the league, sources told ESPN.

The seven schools — DePaul, Georgetown, Marquette, Providence, St. John’s, Seton Hall and Villanova — are “close to a consensus on what they want to do next,” a source said Wednesday.

…

Sources said Wednesday it’s becoming “more likely” the basketball schools will break away from the league’s football members.

It’s unknown whether they would attempt to dissolve the league or leave the league as a group. The league can be dissolved in a vote of the league members by a two-thirds majority, according to Big East bylaws. With all of the Big East’s recent defections, there are only 10 members (the seven non-FBS schools, plus Cincinnati, UConn and South Florida) that can vote on the league dissolving.

A source told ESPN on Wednesday that Temple, as a football-only member, has voting rights but can’t vote on dissolution of the league. With Temple unable to vote, that gives the seven basketball schools enough votes to dissolve the league.

Sources said there are multiple legal entanglements that make the voting situation “complex.”

And if they vote to dissolve the lawsuits that follow will be epic. Most likely including ones from Pitt and Syracuse over exit fees already paid and to be paid.

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Little crunched on time today. So how about some expaniopocolypse links to pass the time:

Great, detailed piece on how the Maryland to the Big 10 went down.

Confirmation bias is a dangerous thing. I happen to like and agree with this Nate Silver piece on how the Big 10 exapansion may not pay off in the long-term. But I have my own biases, and they definitely color how I look at the whole thing.

Barry Alvarez continues his bluntness in all things related to expansiopocloypse. While not saying Penn State would have really tried to leave for the ACC (never would have happened) he does admit that the Big 10 needed to do something to make them feel better. From the general PSU fan perspective, they have hated their isolation. And weren’t terribly pleased that the Big 10 went west rather than east last time. They also have their conspiracy bit going from the Sandusky scandal. A lot of ranting about how the Big 10 crapped on them as much as the NCAA did.

Fantastic summation by Nunes Magician on the steps to surviving the expansiopocolypse when you actually get out of the conference you hated.

Meanwhile Casual Hoya makes the reasonable argument that eventually expansiopocolypse will implode on itself. He lays out the factors. The only issue is when does it happen. And for the b-ball schools: when it does, will it already be too late for them?

Does anyone remember the start of the millennium? When C-USA was really good at basketball? Memphis, Louisville, Cinci, Marquette — heck even DePaul was tough — and some of those battles in the C-USA Tournament? No? Yes? Maybe? This?

Any bells?

There really were some great games. Huge drama.

Now? Not so much. Outside of those in the respective fan bases that remember those days, and some big college basketball wonks. Think Louisville or Cinci gets much respect for claiming C-USA Championships these days? Not when everyone looks at the present — and future — C-USA and see the level of competition.

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…What about recruiting?

Another recruiting weekend came and went. They took in a basketball game.

Pitt football coach Paul Chryst took in the game along with 13 recruits and got a standing ovation from the crowd when he was shown on the video board.

Here’s a list of about half of the attending recruits. Ooohhhh. Some offensive linemen. Need. Depth. Need. Talent.

Coach Chryst also spoke with the announcing crew during the game. Reaching tens of people not fans of Pitt on ESPN3.com. The interview was fine, notable for managing to go entirely without a single mention of Wisconsin.

Among those attending, Clairton WR Tyler Boyd — who just happened to cancel his official visit to West Virginia on the same weekend. Several in attendance like Scott Orndoff have already committed.

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In the best case scenario, Pitt was looking at a perfect 10-0 record to start basketball season. Worst case, 8-2. At 9-1, Pitt’s record is about what was reasonably expected. The way it ended up that way, naturally wasn’t quite as assumed.

Pitt pounded North Florida on Saturday night. Again, that was expected. There were some struggles in the first half with regards to rebounding and defense, but Pitt was just too big and too good for the Ospreys to hang for very long. Even when they were drilling 3s. Offensively, Pitt had one of its best nights. Good shot selection. Aggressive in the paint. Completely blowing North Florida off the court in the second half for the 89-47 win.

It’s been a weak schedule, and it will not be any stronger in the final three non-cons after the kids finish finals week. Surprisingly, Pitt’s RPI isn’t as bad as I assumed. It’s hanging at 59, though strength of schedule is a bad 223d. It will get worse.Oakland and Howard are both sub-200 RPI teams and Bethune-Cookman and Kennesaw State are down in the 300s.

Coach Jamie Dixon has usually been a much savvier scheduler than this. At least to play the numbers. And we all know about the lost game with an SEC team. That still doesn’t explain such horrid scheduling overall. He’s generally done well at avoiding any teams that have RPIs in the 300s — much less the 200s. There’s going to be a lot of pressure on Pitt in the Big East schedule. Even if Pitt finishes in the top-5 of the Big East, this non-con slate will drag them down a notch or too for NCAA Tournament seeding.

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It’s another ESPN3.com game. That means another open thread. One more reason to look forward to the start of Big East play. Games being aired on the Mouse Monopoly. Have to say that Root Sports really blew it. Not bothering to air any games. in the non-con. I get they aren’t the most inspiring match-ups but they are at least live sports. I guess they were actually banking on a NHL season.

We will see if Pitt can come out with a bit of energy and accuracy in their shots to start the game. Slow starts have been the disturbing norm in the past couple of weeks. Either they are coming out taking teams for granted or this is just a team that starts slow.

The opponent is North Florida. The Ospreys have played — and been soundly thrashed by — Pitt once before.  North Florida is an Atlantic Sun team living the non-con life as a rent-a-patsy. This will be their seventh road game in the season. They only play two home games in their non-con. Yeesh.

It’s still more than three years away until Pitt and Penn State play for the first time since Pitt shut out Penn State 12-0 in 2000 — wow. It will be a 16-year gap. Amazing. Hard to believe it will be that long. But I digress.

The renewal was only to be a single home-and-home. But that was before all the, um, changes that have taken place in Happy Valley over the last year or so. A new coach. An interim AD. The passing of a certain obstinate figure. And the continual badgering by Pitt’s AD have led to an extension of the series to four years rather than two.

Last year, the two universities signed a home-and-home agreement for the 2016 and 2017 seasons. Today, Pitt and Penn State announced a two-year extension of the original pact for 2018 and 2019.

Pitt will host the initial game at Heinz Field on September 10, 2016. The Panthers will play at Penn State on September 16, 2017. The new agreement will have the series returning to Pittsburgh on September 8, 2018, with a return trip to State College on September 14, 2019.

It’s welcome news for a rivalry game that should have never ended.

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I’m only now home and with some time to sit down and post on what is old news: Pitt will have the same coach from the regular season coach the team in Birmingham. Something that is actually unique for the program.

The buzz last night and at the start of the morning was that it looked like Chryst wasn’t leaving Pitt. The message he and his assistants were getting out to the 2013 recruits was much more forceful than it would be if he was even torn on the idea. By comparison, Louisville Coach Charlie Strong told his players that he was deciding about what was best for his family before deciding to stay with the Cards.

Still, it was his alma mater. It was his home state. There are a lot of reasons he could change his mind. And, frankly, until there was something more tangible, the possibility he could decide to go back to Madison would be hanging over everything.

Enter Wisconsin AD and interim HC Barry Alvarez in a press conference today.

Question: Barry, you know how popular Paul Chryst is around here, and his name is going to be out there until proven otherwise. Is he a viable option to be the next head coach here?

Alvarez: I asked some very good friends of mine to help Paul get that job. I think Paul has already come out and said that he’s committed to Pitt. I think he should be committed to Pitt. I wouldn’t think it would be right for him to leave after one year. I wouldn’t feel right, and I don’t think it would be appropriate for me to hire him back after I asked someone to do me a favor and help him get that job.

So Paul’s going to stay at Pitt.

And there was much rejoicing.

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Anyone who has followed Pitt this season knew that Pitt was going to do everything they could to get the ball inside this game. They were going to focus on trying to feed the big men and get more rebounds. There wasn’t any secret. Especially against an undersized and young Duquesne team.

The good news: they pulled down the rebounds. The bad news: Water. Boat. Fall. Miss.

Pitt was really, really trying to get the bigs to score — defined in this case as Steve Adams, Talib Zanna, Dante Taylor and J.J. Moore. But it was ugly. At halftime, those four combined to shoot 2-16 (that’s 12.5%). And basically that was what was keeping Duquesne in a very ugly first half for the first 12 minutes or so.

Then Travon Woodall had just about enough of that. Woodall didn’t even attempt a shot until nearly 7 minutes into the game. Offensively he was deferring. Working with James Robinson in the backcourt to get the ball inside. Passing up shots. As was most of the front court. Woodall, Robinson and Lamar Patterson were clearly focused on feeding it inside or penetrating to the basket.

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