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.