Last article’s comments are getting unwieldy and as per direct orders from “pmdHTP” (whoever that is – I think an upstart commenter) here is a new tab… Enjoy!
Thanks. But, am not new here. Just am not smart enough to add much to the discussion usually.
H2P
I hope that did not all then leave the wedding reception.
H2P
H2P
What’s really funny is at ALL WVU football and basketball games the fans still chant, “Eat Sh#t Pitt” while they are playing Kansas or Iowa State or whoever else on their island in Morganhole.
Learning new chants requires some degree of brain power.
So, two Slimami football players are kicked off the team. Drug a 17 year old girl and abuse her.
H2P
PITT basketball non conference schedule is out.
@WBB = That has to be Carolina Panthers all time backfield. I know Steve Davis & Brad Hoover are both retired.
them.
Niagra
Samford
St. Bon.
Manhattan
Oakland
Holy Cross
Florida Gulf Coast
Bryant
LMAO, SMH!!!!!
NOT !
Thx Tony for linking that !
P.S. Wtf was the Carolina Panthers all-time running back list doing in the middle of a Pitt Panther story. I know we don’t proof read, but then again this isn’t our so-called profession.
Sheesh
I am so hopin for a 5-7 hoopie campaign this year so they get rid of holgorsen. Then watch the squad fall apart. Would Bradley be next head coach? Would Ollie be done. One must admit that they have done poorly since he took over in both revenue producing sports. I wouldn’t cry or anything!
Unfortunately, this has not transpired and I fear the worst for one of our older Blatherites. Farewell FRANKCAN I doubt we ever see another post from him here.
“Yet there’s no doubt the sophomore’s passing skills warrant a skeptical outlook: Voytik needs to add arm strength, needs to become more accurate and must be far more consistent than during the spring – and he will eventually cross all three items off his to-do list. For now, however, he’s an athlete learning the quarterback position on the fly.”
I’ll see some practices between the start of camp and the opener and will watch to see how improved he is – or isn’t – but I’m not holding my breath that he’ll be as good a passer as our last two QBs were. Not sure how ‘on the fly’ his learning is. He’s had two years of good QB coaching with Chryst and Bollinger and has taken QB2 snaps for the last year.
Either he’s ready this year or not…
Have not seen many add arm strength or accuracy, consistency, maybe. Sometimes you wonder where they get this crap. I think he will be able to avoid the rush better than the last two, so at least he has that going for him.
I am much more concerned how Galambos, a true sophomore will hold up at middle linebacker. He looked a bit light and a bit slow last year and had a superstar in front of him. He will be the key to stop the run this year and there is not much behind him.
My point, every time I’ve made the point over the last 2-3 years, has nothing to do with RPI or overall quality of the non-con as a whole.
I have only said, that the home fans are deserving of a quality game against a top 20 or top 25 non con game at The Pete.
This non-con is a disgrace for the home fans that have sold out the Pete for, what now, 12 or 13 years in a row??
It’s an absolute joke. It will also be portrayed that way by the pundits and talking heads during the season also.
I personally don’t care about those pundits or what they say, but I have seen it bother others on the Blather.
How about this novel idea??? Don’t play in tournaments and have a couple half decent home games against decent teams from other BCS conferences at the Pete.
Yep, yes I know, we could lose a game or two if we played a couple teams in the top 25.
Right, that’s how it goes sometimes when you take the challenge of having a decent schedule.
I’m disgusted by this schedule, but certainly not surprised in the least.
We have Indiana and may play some decent teams in the Maui.
I get that.
Holgy came out like a house on fire (couch on fire?), when he first started.
They were whippin’ up on people left and right.
I thought WVU would be a top 10 team for the foreseeable future.
They’ve really stunk out the joint the past couple years.
Very suprising to me, thought they were on their way.
Even with the step up to the Big 12, thought they were going to be a juggernaut.
NCAA rules virtually mandate playing in tournaments, as teams playing in a tournament is permitted to schedule two more games than if they didn’t. Many “tournaments ” are tournaments in name only. They are structured so those two extra games are played at home and the preliminary games are not really tournament games because the rent-a- teams in them are not going to make the trip to the scheduled portion of the tournament, even if they upset the home team.
Those two additional “tournament” games add victories to the total, which in turn makes a team more likely to get into the Dance and also add revenue from more home games. There is definitely a perception difference between a 25-9 record and the 23-9 Pitt would had last season without the Legends Classic
The teams in the neutral court, scheduled portion of these tournaments are all happy to participate because they make money on the extra home games, get two more victories against cupcakes, play decent opponents on neutral courts where they don’t have to pay to buy a home game or get “homered” by hostile crowds and refs, build more RPI than a home game and frequently get exposure visiting a town or region where they like to recruit.
Yeah, it’s a racket. But it’s not going away.
I still stand by one and only gripe though, that they can’t schedule at least one home game for the fans.
I guess my bigger question is, up until 4 or 5 years ago, they had home and homes against the likes of Wisconsin, Ohio State and Washington and I believe even Georgia.
Wisky, OSU, and Washington were top 20 teams at the time, actually Washington was a top 5 team when we played both years. They had a couple of ballers and were a tough team.
Beat them here, beat them in Seattle.
I don’t know why that’s changed.
It’s not like I’m asking them to play Kansas, Kentucky and UCLA all in one year.
I’m just askin’ for one freakin’ game!!
Iowas State, Kansas State, Auburn, Illinois, anyone from a BCS conference would suffice, doesn’t have to be a top 10 team, just someone I recognize!!!
Meanwhile, I’ll try to get fired up for Bryant!!
Top tier teams don’t want to come to the Pete in the non-con and Pitt is actually playing some good teams away from home. If they skipped the tournaments, they would be allowed to play fewer games and they still wouldn’t get good teams easily at home. Sure, it stinks that fans only get to see several top flight ACC teams at home and not one or two teams from another conference. But this isn’t the creme-puff schedule we have seen some other years.
And lets not forget that it was the ACC-B1G that screwed us by giving us a shitty game against State Penn last year, and the Big Least that screwed us by taking away a game with Kentucky the year before.
People keep talking about “freezing out” teams like WVU so that they can’t recruit our areas, then think that no other school would do that to us. There is an assumption that schools like Villanova and Georgetown would be willing to play us and let us recruit in their area. But they are likely feeling the same about us as we are about schools like WVU. We abandoned them and they aren’t going to give us opportunities to come into their backyard and recruit.
Also, if we added “a game or two that we could lose” at home and lose those games, and then we also lose to Indiana and/or Hawaii as true road games early on, and lose to Arizona and/or San Diego St., people on this site will come unglued. It is ok to have a number of the non-con games be tune up games when several will be real tests. And it is better to have those “weak” home games after our road games so we have a chance to correct the things that might get exposed against the good teams we play right up front and away from home.
Yes, we might lose if we schedule Michigan State or Oklahoma at home.
I’d rather see that loss than us beating Kennesaw State 101-59.
Please show me where I stated otherwise???
I specifically stated “this non-con is a disgrace for the home fans”.
I’ve said it over and over, that this was what I was talking about.
Yes, it’s a joke for not scheduling good games at the Pete!!
Please don’t put words in my mouth or try to change the argument.
“In the 11 seasons Jamie Dixon has been head coach, they’ve averaged a KenPom non-conference strength of schedule of 250.1. Their highest ranking during those 11 years was 129th back in 2007.
Only three times in Dixon’s tenure has their non-conference strength of schedule been in the top 200. None of which have been in the last 5 years.”
So, ya, if you want to argue about the whole non-conference schedule, ya, it pretty much sucks too.
I mean, it’s what we’re known for, having a lousy non-con.
I love Pitt hoops, have been a big supporter of Dixon, when others have bombed him, but I’m not gonna sugarcoat things either.
There OOC scheduling has been horrible the last 4 or 5 years.
Used to play Ohio St, Wisconsin and Wash. home and home.
What happened to doing that???
Hopefully we get to play Arizona, Kansas State and Missouri in the Maui this year.
Certainly hope we don’t end up with Purdue and Chaminade.
You said to show you where you stated otherwise that you are only upset about the home schedule.
“Yep, yes I know, we could lose a game or two if we played a couple teams in the top 25.
Right, that’s how it goes sometimes when you take the challenge of having a decent schedule.
I’m disgusted by this schedule, but certainly not surprised in the least.”
My point in my post is that you started off talking about the home schedule, but then degenerated into talking about the crappy schedule and being afraid to play anyone good. They have good teams on the schedule this year, they just aren’t at home.
You said, “Yep, yes, I know, we could lose a game or two if we played a couple of teams in the top 25.”
Doesn’t this schedule, if you factor in the road and tournament games, accomplish just that? Which was my point. You can complain about the home schedule. But don’t act like this particular schedule is set up to guarantee we don’t lose any games. There is a good chance that by the time we get to our soft home non-con schedule, we already have two or three losses.
That being the case, our home schedule this year clearly isn’t about Dixon being afraid to lose a game or two, but, perhaps, about not wanting to lose five or six in the non-con. I don’t know what is so sickening about that.
I figured since I stated that I was talking about the home schedule, most would understand that.
I never degenerated one bit.
Now, the paragraph when I spoke about the overall schedule, ya, I stand by that.
We’ve had crap OOC schedules lately.
You can’t deny this can you???
Hopefully we get to play Arizona and Missouri and I will enjoy those games, and even the overall schedule if we get to play those teams.
Sure the you can argue about the KenPom rankings, but to be consistently below the top 200 year after year?? I could see if someone was ranked #57 in SOS and arguing that some team ranked #48 doesn’t have a harder schedule. There’s certainly wiggle room.
But always below 200?? Every year??
Some could also argue, the rankings are negligible, meaning that the difference could be some teams may play one or two teams in the top 50, and that skews their numbers upward.
Ok, that’s all I’m saying, is why can’t we be one of those teams that is in the top 50 SOS??
Hell, even the top 100??
This will be my last post on this, you or others may have the last word.
I will leave with this positive thought, hopefully the teams we may play in the Maui tournament are a trend of Dixon and or Peterson starting to schedule a much tougher OOC schedule every year than they have in the past 4 or 5 years.
We aren’t enemies here. We are both Pitt fans. That said, you do the same thing in your last post on this subject as you did in the post I quoted. You say you are just talking about the home schedule, then you criticize the entire schedule. And the statement, “Yep, yes I know, we could lose a game or two if we played a couple teams in the top 25.” isn’t a statement about the home schedule, but about the schedule in general. We have probably four legit games we could lose in this non-con that could end up having at least two games against top 25 teams depending on how the Maui Invitational plays out. So while those games aren’t at home, I just don’t see how this particular schedule is a disservice to fans or is a cupcake schedule of rent a wins as perhaps some in years past have been.
I didn’t argue about KenPom ratings because I don’t care about those things. But when you talk about SoS, the reason Dixon can allow our OOC schedule to be so light most years is because we do finish in the top 50 for SoS when the conference schedule is factored in.
I agree with you that I would like to see a few more quality opponents in the non-con most years. The fact remains that major conference teams now, unlike several years ago, don’t want to come to the Pete to play. They see it as a loss. And it has been documented that Dixon has tried to get neutral site games with top teams and they have declined repeatedly. The real, legit criticism is that he has been unwilling to go on the road in the non-con in order to get some good opponents. But if high majors won’t play us at the Pete, how is it any different that we won’t go on the road to play them at their place?
The truth is, this is a complete non-issue. Say we added Ohio St. at home in the OOC this year. Would that make the games against Oakland, Samford, and Bryant sell out? No it wouldn’t. So, in order to not rip those fans off, then, do we need to replace all eight of those mid-majors/low-majors home games with high major games? Adding one good home game changes nothing. And since playing on the road is harder, the fact that we play Indiana and Hawaii on the road, then the Maui as neutral site with a terrible time difference makes the schedule tougher than if we had Ohio St. or Wisconsin at home instead.
Kanyon, are you reading my posts or just glancing over them??
I stated then, and I’ve stated many times since, that I was talking about the home non-con!!!!!!
What, are you a mind reader, you know what my thoughts are??
And to back that up, that would be a stupid statement for anyone to make, since we were in the Big East and now the ACC,
we play LOTS of top 20 teams every year, and have every year for the last 13 years. So, who would make a statement like that about our overall schedule, and why???????
It’s very clear I was talking about taking a chance on losing to a non-con top 20 or top 25 team, at home
We always play top 20 teams, and I might add, top 20 teams at home, at the Pete!!!!!!!
Good Lord, how many times do I have to say it???
Then, you say, there I go again. The only time I’ve criticized thw WHOLE OOC schedule is when I said, “if you want to argue that point”.
I was very specific that I was now talking about the overall schedule. Which I have several times now.
Do you see in the last post where I said,
“now, the paragraph where I spoke about the overall schedule, yes, I stand by that”.
See, I changed the subject there, and said I was talking about the overall schedule.
The even further above reference, I stated
“If you want to go there (meaning the OOC as a whole), fine”.
There again, the subject was the overall OOC.
So yea, now for many post, I have been talking about the home non-con, and the overall non-con together. You are correct about that.
You are however incorrect in your thoughts that I was talking about anything other than the home OOC schedule, at the Pete.
An issue for SOS, ranking, “ripping off fans”, no, probably not I guess.
My original point however, has nothing to do with rankings, or “ripping off fans”, or the SOS number.
It has to do, with fans deserve at least one home non-con game to get excited about. A top 20 or 25 team, or at least a BCS caliber team that the fans can get pumped up over and look forward too.
Also, you interjected that by the end of the year, we are in the top 50 SOS in KenPom.
NOT what I was initially talking about, once again, I’ll state, I was initially talking about the home non-con games being played at the Pete.
I also see in your reply, you used the word non-con initially. Either replying to Chas’ or me.
I clearly typed out the 8 names of teams that are Pitt’s home non-con. It’s right above, check it out.
You then reply “with Indiana any the Maui Inv. there is nothing wrong with this non-con”.
I mean, I even specifically typed out the name of the 8 teams I was talking about. They are all the 8 that are the home non-con.
link to usatoday.com