7pm

ACC NE/WatchESPN.

I realize Pitt is now a Volleyball School, and their opening tournament game — which Pitt is hosting at the Pete is airing at the same time.

…But there is still this game.

Coming off a much tighter loss then expected at Iowa. One that created envy (and a suspension) Hawkeye radio crew.

“How do we not get anybody like that?” Dolphin said, pointing out Pittsburgh guards who had been making Iowa’s defense look silly in the first half. “It’s just year after year after year. Go get a quality piece like that. Just get one! They’ve got three or four.”

Hansen essentially responded in agreement. “Go get a key piece like that.”

The comment that has drawn the most attention was Dolphin later saying, “We get (guard) Maishe Dailey. … Dribbles into a double-team with his head down. God.”

Sorry, everything about that is still making me alternate between laughing and scoffing at the fallout.

I mean, I’m just imagining what Hillgrove and Groat have said when the mikes have been turned off over the last three years or so. Have to believe it was far more caustic.

While Pitt’s game was overshadowed in the context of the higher ranking and bigger name programs playing each other in the ACC-B1G Challenge, there was some taking notice of just how much better Pitt looked compared to the past couple seasons.

The beauty of hitting rock bottom is that there is nowhere to go but up. Capel is coaching with house money this year. After punting on Stallings so quickly, Lyke says that Capel, 43, will be given the time and every opportunity to turn the program around. He signed a seven-year deal, and both sides intimated that his year is more about getting better than winning. And the early returns suggest that his Panthers have indeed improved, having already beaten Saint Louis and falling a point shy at 14th-ranked Iowa on Tuesday night. But gut renovations take time. Capel says he does not believe in moral victories. At the very least, however, Pitt seems to have put the debacle that was last season just where it is, in the past.

Not losing the first City Game is always a good way to keep it going.