Okay, that is kind of a strange factoid. In the 169 or 168 times that Pitt and WVU have met, Thursday’s game will be the first time both teams are ranked at the same time.
Most of Pitt’s basketball success has come in the past 30 years or so. The AP ranked Pitt for the first time Jan. 14, 1974. After the ’74 season, the Panthers didn’t get ranked again until 1986 and spent most of the next five seasons in the national rankings. They have been a consistent presence in the AP poll since early January 2002.
West Virginia, on the other hand, enjoyed some of its best years in the 1950s and early 1960s. The Mountaineers were consistently ranked from 1950-1963, including a No. 1 ranking for eight weeks in 1957 and ’58. After ’63, the Mountaineers got ranked for one week in 1971, but didn’t get ranked again until 1982. Until this season, the Mountaineers were ranked only 21 times from 1989-2004.
Those are some big gaps.
And in case you just haven’t gotten enough of the Steelers:
Pitt is in the preliminary stages of putting together a ceremony to honor the Steelers for their victory in Super Bowl XL. School officials are trying to work to get Steelers players to attend for a pregame or halftime ceremony.
It won’t be the Providence game (Feb. 25) since that one will be the “Centennial Team” honors. Probably couldn’t pull it together in time for tomorrow night’s game. That leaves either this Saturday’s game against Cinci or the final game against Seton Hall (March 3).
Pitt comes into the game losing 2 straight while WVU hasn’t lost in BE play and has won 15 of its last 16 games. Both teams played over the weekend, with WVU beating Cinci on Saturday and Pitt lost to G-town on Sunday.
The big match-up issue will be the presumed one between Aaron Gray and Kevin Pittsnogle. I’m not so sure. Pitt might consider a different match-up given Pittsnogle’s ability to shoot from outside. It has to at least be considered to let Kendall and Young give up some size to be able to come out on Pittsnogle.
An article claiming that Patrick Beilein is WVU’s biggest trash-talker? I’m just going to let that go.
