Be honest. You really weren’t sure that the road game at FIU would be shown anywhere but on some pirated stream. Instead, it will be a game on FoxSports 1. Yes, they are still a real channel despite airing Big East basketball games. A noon game, but it counts.

To remind every one, this is FIU. They are not the school that fired Carl Pelini for alleged drug use or whatever the allegations now are. That’s FAU. No, FIU is the school that had rising coaching star Mario Cristobal and inexplicably fired him after a rebuilding year to eventually hire… Ron Turner.

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Happy National Pitt Networking Day.  I’ll be hitting the Cleveland one after work. Hope some of the Northeast Ohio readers make a showing.

The ACC will be supposedly be announcing something “big and breaking” today. Fingers crossed its the announcement of Bojangles coming to Pittsburgh.*

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No one has been arrested so far this offseason. And I’m not saying I want any players in trouble with the law. It’s just been real quiet the last couple weeks.

Nothing with recruiting. No police blotter. No conference insanity. Just ridiculously quiet.

So, what are still in my browser tabs that need to go?

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Year one in the ACC was a mixed bag for football and basketball. The teams finished about where they were expected before the season began. How they ended up there, made it feel like it could have been better.

What isn’t in dispute is that the money was a lot better right from the start.

Pitt’s annual share is about $17 million.

After almost a full year in the new conference, where has that money gone? Pitt athletic director Steve Pederson said he decided to put it in the hands of the people who knew best what various sports needed to be successful.

“Basically, what we did at this point with additional revenue is we’ve let the coaches put that into their recruiting budgets and their travel and competition budgets,” Pederson said in a meeting with reporters earlier this month.

“We tried to make sure that our coaches had enough money to recruit the way they felt they needed to recruit, and so they got significant increases in their recruiting budgets — some cases more than others — then also in their travel and competition budgets so that they could go to meets and games that they needed to play or bring teams in here that they wanted to play.”

The money also has, at least partially, allowed Pitt to make capital improvements to facilities for its flagship sports. This summer, the men’s and women’s basketball team areas in Petersen Events Center are undergoing a renovation. The football weight room at Pitt’s South Side facility also is getting a significant expansion.

And I’m sure some is being set aside for the eventual increase in the total cost of scholarships if the stipend or other methods are passed for the major conferences.

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Credit and curses to J.D. for noting this site. It’s a Craiglist or want ads for basketball games. Rather than individually calling each school, you can post your wants and needs for a game. Specify the date and/or the kind of opponent you want and hope someone gets back to you on this.

For example, UNC-Charlotte posted this gem: “Looking to buy a game for the opener. Competitive $$$$ – RPI 200 and below. Please call or email. Thanks.” They want a guarantee game with an opponent that won’t ding their RPI too much.

That “200 RPI or better” caveat is very common in the ads for a lot of major conference and high mid-majors looking for guarantee games.

Then there are the really sad ones. The ones looking to be bought. Like Alabama A&M looking to have practically their entire non-con on the road:

Hello Coaches! I hope you all enjoyed Dallas as well as the very exiting NCAA Tournament. We are looking for some games to fill our buy dates. They are as follows: Nov. 17, 21, 22, 23, 24, 29, Dec. 14,-23, Dec 29-30. Please help us out in this endeavor. Thanks Coaches!

It’s never been easy, but it is a different kind of rough being a player for a HBCU these days.

Pitt has posted their remaining need:

As you can see, Pitt is looking to fill a final home game right before the New Year. Pitt has a bunch of challenging road/neutral site games. And like many other programs on the list, they need a home game to fill that has to start at home.

So who wants to spend the rest of their day coming through the list to find Pitt a game?

The ACC started dribbling out some game times for the upcoming football season. As their TV rights are wholly controlled by ESPN, most of the gametimes are going to be held until two weeks or so before the game.

Pitt had three games times formally announced. Really, only one. The Thursday night game hosting VT (7:30) was a given. As was their Friday night road game at BC (7 pm). The season opener against Delaware will be a nooner that will be shown on ESPN3.com.

We can thank MLB for that time. The Pirates play that same day. Their game was originally slated for a 7 pm start time. Given the Pirates success last year, MLB decided to make that a potential FOX game of the week game. That meant they moved the start time to 4pm. The sweet spot in screwing with parking and fans when the two facilities share parking and so much else.

And even though, just past the quarter point of baseball season, the Pirates sit in 4th place and 8 games under .500. Well, MLB isn’t changing their game times now.

MLB’s brilliant idea was to have Pitt play at 10 or 11 am. AD Steve Pederson didn’t go for that one (and depending on your level of hatred for Pederson ranges from giving him no credit because it was obviously a bad idea to even listen to at least he didn’t screw this up).

No one is wild about noon starts, but it is the best of bad options. Frankly it will be those going to the Pirate game that will have the real problem. They have to show up while the football game is still happening. They will be frustrated by the parking problems and trying to get to the ballpark. Pitt fans can wait them out.

The watch lists for college sports awards are more than a little waste of time. They either are too big to be useful or they simply take the best returning players at the position from last year and slap them on the list. For the most part, I don’t even waste time posting on a preseason watchlist any longer.

The Rimington Trophy belongs in the former category. The award goes to the best center in college football. Artie Rowell made the list. Which he should, given that it has 64 names on it. That’s more than half the teams playing 1-A football. Frankly, I’m a little concerned about the quality of centers in the ACC when only 8 of the 14 starting centers could make a watchlist this big.

I have no idea if the deal to expand the seating in Heinz Field by 3000 seats — in the South Plaza — will result in yet more reshuffling and reduction in parking around the stadium. At this point, though, I just assume that will happen since every other “improvement” to the fan experience at Heinz Field has been to reduce surface lots and tailgating.

Oh, hey, a new HD scoreboard as well. Swell.

One of Pitt football’s associate team physicians (he’s also an assistant professor at Pitt’s Center for Sports Medicine, but I’m focusing on the important thing) gets quoted about breathe-right nasal strips in relation to a story on horse racing.

Yes, I am scraping the bottom of the barrel for news.

Good luck with those Wing Stops, Shawntae Spencer. At least it isn’t a BW3. I guess.

So, the ACC is going to experiment with a 30 second shot clock in exhibition games this year.

“Our coaches and ADs both felt it would be an enhancement to the game in today’s world,” Swofford said. “It adds more possessions and potentially would speed up the game.”

NCAA men’s teams have used a 35-second shot clock since the 1993-94 season.

Swofford said league coaches submitted the proposal to the athletic directors during the spring meetings, and the athletic directors embraced the idea. The ACC would give its feedback on the use of the 30-second shot clock to the men’s basketball rules committee.

“That’s where the game is headed,” Pitt coach Jamie Dixon told ESPN’s Andy Katz at the NBA draft combine in Chicago. “We want to be ahead of the game. We want to provide data and see what it’s like.”

Presumably, Coach Dixon is at the NBA draft combine to support Lamar Patterson.

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Not a lot left from the ACC meetings. Coaches have already been departing.

The news now shifts to bigger picture things like NCAA changes. The five major conferences agitating for more control of their own interests within the NCAA was the major talking point.

One of the big topics at the ACC’s spring meetings this week was the potential changes to the NCAA governance structure. The Division I Board of Directors recently endorsed a new model. It will be officially voted on in August and one of the primary shifts would be to give the “power five” conferences — the ACC, Southeastern, Big Ten, Big 12 and Pac-12 more autonomy to create legislation.

“The whole idea here is that you would have some permissive legislation that would allow some schools to do things but not require everybody to do things,” Pitt athletic director Steve Pederson said. “So if we felt like, as five conferences, this is something we were really interested in doing, that if it made sense and we could pull it together, we could take it through the five without everybody voting on it.”

This week, the athletic directors met with Wake Forest president Nathan Hatch, one of the leaders in the NCAA’s reform efforts. The goal was to get a clearer picture of what the restructuring meant and how it would be implemented.

One of the early sticking points in the review process has been the supermajority needed for the power five to pass new legislation.

Any item would be voted on by the 65 schools, as well as 15 student-athlete representatives, and need a two-thirds majority to pass.

The support is mixed on this idea. There appears to be a split among the schools and conferences on this aspect. Some such as the Big 10 and Big 12 want a simple majority. Schools in the ACC seem to be more in favor of the supermajority. Honestly, I’m not sure on which would be the better approach. It isn’t clear to me on the details, so I can’t say which would be the way to go.

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Not a surprise, but still good news. The ACC is moving the ACC Basketball Tournament up one day, so that the championship game will be played Saturday night rather than Sunday.

The Atlantic Coast Conference will move its tournament championship game to the Saturday night before Selection Sunday after being a Sunday afternoon staple since 1982.

The ACC announced the scheduling change Tuesday during its spring meetings in Amelia Island, Florida.

The ACC tournament will be in Greensboro, North Carolina, in 2015, Washington, D.C., in 2016 and the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York, in 2017 and ’18. The 2019 ACC tournament will be held in Charlotte before it goes back to Greensboro in 2020.

Big shock that all the coaches of former Big East teams are happy to get back to normalcy.

“Prime time on Saturday night during the tournament week is another step in the right direction,” Pittsburgh coach Jamie Dixon told ESPN.com from the meetings.

The ACC, Big Ten, SEC and Atlantic 10 were the highest-profile conferences that have played a Sunday final recently, causing the selection committee to sometimes come up with an alternative bracket depending on who was playing for the title.

The ACC tournament will run a Tuesday-to-Saturday format, meaning the league’s regular season will end on the previous Saturday instead of Sunday. There will be three first-round games on Tuesday of Championship Week, four second-round games on Wednesday, four quarterfinal games on Thursday, the semifinals on Friday and the Saturday championship game.

“I think it’s huge. The Friday night doubleheader resonates around the country, it always has,” Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim said. “The extra day is good for the two teams with the preparation, and Saturday night you have the whole television audience.

“We’ve talked about this since we came into the league. This will be a great thing to switch to this.”

“I love the move,” Notre Dame coach Mike Brey told ESPN.com. “I’ve always thought it was powerful when we did it that way in the Big East. The Sunday final is almost an afterthought since the attention is all on the selection show.”

Brey is absolutely right.

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No one really gets too worked up over conference logos. It doesn’t carry the emotional weight of a school logo. In the end they all just seem like corporate branding exercises.

Apparently the ACC is updating its logo, where the primary change is with italics.

The ACC has a brand new logo (but don't tell anyone) pic.twitter.com/zcXRT0nKMc

— Brett McMurphy (@McMurphyESPN) May 13, 2014

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This week has the ACC spring meetings. Among the issues to be decided would be the conference schedule for football. Specifically, whether the ACC would go to 9 games.

Brief recap. After the joining of Syracuse and Pitt, the ACC decided to go to a 9 game schedule. This despite the complaints from GT, Clemson and especially FSU. All three have permanent rivalry games with their in-state SEC rival. To go to a 9 game schedule would make it harder for them to annually schedule 7 home games. This decision got rescinded after the Notre Dame maneuver. With Notre Dame rotating onto every ACC team’s schedule at least once every 3 years as a non-con — which is more frequently played than an actual conference opponent from the other division, excluding the protected rivalry game — it was seen as being too unfair to teams that had an out-of-conference rival.

[Just a brief aside, but the fit pitched by both Clemson and FSU over the issue of the 9th game at the time was cited by many as an issue that was driving those teams to look closer at the Big XII. Yet, the Big XII had already gone to a 9-game schedule, which seemed to be conveniently ignored.]

Now, with the coming playoff and emphasis on strength of schedule. The hope for an ACC Network (i.e., more inventory). And that the Big 10 was moving to a 9 game schedule. Well, that meant 3 of the major 5 conferences were already at that point. There was momentum to revisit and possibly return to that idea.

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The actual amount of time I spend watching the second and third round tonight likely correlates strongly to where and when Tom Savage gets drafted. If he goes early, it is very likely I will be done watching the draft for the night within 20 to 30 minutes. The later it goes, the longer I will probably keep watching simply because I will be tired and comfortable on the couch.

We will find out how much of that smoke about Savage rocketing up to near the top of the 2d round really holds. Oakland picks at #36 and could use a QB for the near future.

Cinci might go for a QB with their pick at #55 because of questions with Andy Dalton — both in terms of contract extension and the question of whether he really is their best long-term option. It’s not worth much, but Mel Kiper is predicting Savage to Cinci.

Then there are the Patriots down at #62. They have been a popular rumor for Savage, and a couple more mocks have him going to them.

I still miss the marathon weekend NFL Draft. Completely veg out on the couch. Drink some beer. Take an hour long nap and find out you have missed all of 3 picks. But it is hard to argue against the NFL and ESPN making more money when the demand supports a 2-night and 3d spread out of the draft. Heck, they are already talking about dragging it out to a 4th day. To say nothing of taking the draft on the road.

I would write of the ridiculousness of such a thing, but that would imply that the past 20 years or so of the draft extravaganzas have been considered restrained.

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Just a couple things today.

Detrick Mostella couldn’t get qualified last year. He struggled even with a year of prep school to get qualified. In fact his status as far as academics is still unknown. So, the one time Oklahoma State commit, followed by Pitt commit is now rumored to be a commit to Tennessee.

I had essentially given up on Mostella being in the Blue and Gold by the start of the late signing period. So, despite his talent, I am not exactly angsting over this one. Hell, Tennessee fans should caution their optimism. His eligibility is going to still be a question. Not to mention actually showing up on the campus.

Jamie Dixon will be part of a USA Basketball tie-in with the NBA and US Dept. of Defense.

Pitt basketball coach Jamie Dixon is one of seven college basketball coaches selected to lead a panel discussion on leadership with approximately 400 service members at the Pentagon on Wednesday. As part of the NBA Cares Hoops for Troops “Commitment To Service” program, the panel discussion is being sponsored by a partnership between the National Basketball Association, USA Basketball and the United States Department of Defense.

Dixon will join Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim, Connecticut women’s coach Geno Auriemma, Connecticut men’s coach Kevin Ollie, Michigan State’s Tom Izzo, Texas Tech’s Tubby Smith and Villanova’s Jay Wright on the panel.

Prior to the panel discussion, the seven coaches will have lunch with Martin Dempsey, the Chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff, to discuss leadership and other issues. Dempsey is the principal military advisor to the President and Secretary of Defense.

“These preeminent coaches lead their own world-class teams in USA Basketball and the NCAA,” said Dempsey. “We’ll discuss the importance of dynamic leadership to building winning teams and also expose these coaches to what our world-class military team brings to the nation.”

Moderated by ESPN college basketball analyst Jay Bilas, the panel discussion will be televised live on The Pentagon Channel and webcast at www.pentagonchannel.mil/livestream.aspx starting at 1:30 p.m. ET.

So this isn’t going to be like those Dove for Men commercials they air during the NCAA Tournament, right?