7pm, ESPNU.
Oh, good. Bonzie Colson will finally return to the Irish line-up tonight. Always nice to have a warm-up game when returning from injury.
This is the final regular season game for Pitt. 0-ACC regular season looks solid. Oh, and in ACC Tournament it looks like Pitt will face ND or Syracuse.
If you feel like it, I did a podcast Sunday night with Talkin ACC Sports.
For the most part, I kept things coherent. That is until I had to talk about whether Kevin Stallings will be back for a third year as the head coach of Pitt Men’s Basketball.
4pm
ESPNU
During the ESPN College Basketball Game Day, they asked whether Pitt would break 45 points against Virginia today.
Have to be honest, I thought they had the line a little high. Perhaps it was so they could all go under, but if I was trying to gauge the O/U line, 40 seems like the sweet spot. 1 point per minute of game. Not too low to be absurd, but with Pitt’s offense, Virginia’s defense and both sides’ slow tempo; just enough to make you unsure.
Maybe it was just the ineptitude of Wake Forest that made the loss feel like the end of Stallings. Maybe it has been seeing his name on so many of the “hot seat” articles this week. Maybe it’s because no one was watching the game — at the Pete or even on TV. Hell, maybe it’s because it is snowing this morning where I live after being 70, two days ago.
Whatever the reason, there is almost a palpable feeling that Pitt basketball coach Kevin Stallings has moved into the terminal stage.
9pm (goddammit), multiple RSNs.
In what many are calling Pitt’s last, best chance for a wi– No. Sorry. Can’t do it. Tried to type it, but it wouldn’t happen.
Let’s see. Pitt is really slow offensively. Yep.
Ron Cook is feeling downright ghoulish, then sort of feels bad about it, but not really.
Remember the Pitt-Syracuse football game this past year? The one where Kenny Pickett had his redshirt blown for one play because Ben DiNucci couldn’t keep his helmet on? Lots of frustration at that point since there was no indication that Pickett was going to get much of a chance to play that season. Obviously that changed with the Miami game. One of the expected changes to the redshirting rule would have let Pickett stay redshirted.
If a new rule proposal goes through, that decision could be a lot easier and not cost anyone anything. The Atlantic Coast Conference has submitted a proposal to allow all players to participate in any four games without losing a redshirt, the designated term for a player who practices with the team but does not participate in game competition, thus preserving a season of playing eligibility. The proposal will be voted on by the NCAA Division I Council in April. If passed, it could go into effect as early as this fall but would not be retroactive to past seasons.
So, no it wouldn’t give Pickett back another year of eligibility, but this is a very exciting thought going forward.
6pm, ESPNU.
You know things are bad, when the Pitt quick notes, includes this.
Pitt has dropped 14 consecutive games, the longest streak in program history. The Panthers have dropped 18 consecutive regular season league contests.
Those are notes from Pitt. The part where they try and spin as positive as possible. Yet, there is no hiding from this reality.
A little unintentional fun from the ACC schedule makers. The last time Pitt won a regular season ACC game was exactly a year ago, against the same team they face today. That’s right, Pitt whipped up on FSU 80-66 on February 18, 2017.
Pitt is not a deep-pocketed SEC or B1G program. Can we all agree on that? There is no Michigan Money Cannon to fire. There is no crazed, big-money booster that will cut a check in exchange for more influence like at Auburn. Pitt also does not subsidize the athletic department on the back of the students or from the academic side of the university (Rutger, UConn — how are things going?). Nor is the athletic department about to take out ridiculous loans that put them so deep that they will head to conferences they don’t fit (What’s up, Maryland?).
Pitt is a fiscally conservative athletic department that is only now starting to receive the full share of ACC revenue. This is only year four of being in the ACC, and Pitt did not leap into full cuts in year one. They also had moneys to be paid to the Big East/AAC upon departure. To say nothing of the new outlays required to be a part of the ACC.
If Pitt wants to fire Stallings after two years, and hire someone with any sort of pedigree/upside; Pitt will need to have a lot of boosters coordinating the cash.
We had a nice, anonymous bombshell of something this evening.
More legal charges still could come, but what’s becoming increasingly clear as the discovery portion of the case comes to a close is that the breadth of potential NCAA rules violations uncovered is wide enough to fundamentally and indelibly alter the sport of college basketball.
The soundtrack to the three federal basketball corruption cases is essentially a ticking time bomb, which will inevitably explode. It will impact every major conference, Hall of Fame coaches, a score of current top players and some of the nation’s most distinguished and respected programs.
Multiple sources who’ve been briefed on the case and are familiar with the material obtained by feds told Yahoo Sports that the impact on the sport will be substantial and relentless. Sitting under protective order right now are the fruits of 330 days of monitoring activity by the feds, which one assistant US Attorney noted Thursday was “a voluminous amount of material.” That includes wiretaps from 4,000 intercepted calls and thousands of documents and bank records obtained from raids and confiscated computers, including those from notorious NBA agent Andy Miller.
“This goes a lot deeper in college basketball than four corrupt assistant coaches,” said a source who has been briefed on the details of the case. “When this all comes out, Hall of Fame coaches should be scared, lottery picks won’t be eligible to play and almost half of the 16 teams the NCAA showed on its initial NCAA tournament show this weekend should worry about their appearance being vacated.”
Oooooohhhhh. Juicy.
I don’t know how Pitt comes up with the buyout money, and then have enough to hire a promising coach and staff.
Part of me still wants to let him have one more year. Not because Pitt basketball will improve dramatically, but because the buyout becomes more manageable (meaning more money to hire a better coach and staff) and I would have more confidence that the players would be much more responsive to whoever came next.
But it is at that point (I know, well past for many fans), that Pitt’s administration may have no choice.
0-ACC looks more likely every game.
Sorry about the lack of open threads. Big family visit this past week into the weekend. Upside is that I didn’t get a chance to watch either game. More then a little bit of an indictment of the state of Pitt basketball when they guy running a blog devoted to Pitt football and basketball had no urge or desire to carve out time to watch two Pitt basketball games. Didn’t DVR it. Not even checking the phone for updates.
Two weeks ago I would have (and even might have) said that Pitt can’t/won’t fire Kevin Stallings after two years.
We saw it coming, so it isn’t the biggest surprise. With the second half of signing day passing, Renaldo Hill is heading to the NFL.
Hill, who played defensive back for the Dolphins from 2006 to 2008, has joined Miami’s coaching staff in an unspecified capacity.
…
He started 38 games during his time in Miami, picking off six passes and recording 152 tackles.
He joins Adam Gase’s revamped coaching staff, which has this offseason had changes at offensive coordinator, the offensive and defensive lines, running back and secondary.
Not quite the same excitement, but some likely good news today.
I’ve been sick since Sunday. I watched the Eagles win the Superbowl in a non-alcohol induced haze. My wife thought I was just being very restrained during the game. I didn’t tell her until sometime in the 4th quarter. Anytime a member of the family starts to run a fever, my wife immediately starts acting like the black plague is about to descend on the house. Especially this time of the year, as the stories of “worse flu season, ever” hit. I’m better now, thanks for asking.
8pm
As if this were a nooner on the ACC network affiliates. Or when reality kicks in elsewhere and it is ACC Digital Network Extra/WatchESPN.
The storyline if there was any drama to this game would be Cam Johnson facing off against his former team.
Meh.
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