Football news has been less than sunshine, rainbows and unicorns this week. How about something from the basketball side?
The Pitt basketball schedule may not be out yet, but ESPN put out it’s Big Monday Schedule and it is highly Pitt-centric. There are 8 Big East Big Monday games, Pitt plays in three of them.
Jan. 17: Villanova at Connecticut, 3:30 ESPNJan. 17: Syracuse at Pittsburgh, 7:30 ESPNJan. 24: Notre Dame at Pittsburgh, 7:00 ESPNJan. 31: Louisville at Georgetown, 7:00 ESPNFeb. 7: Pittsburgh at West Virginia, 7:00 ESPNFeb. 14: West Virginia at Syracuse 7:00 ESPNFeb. 21: Syracuse at Villanova, 7:00 ESPNFeb. 28: Villanova at Notre Dame, 7:00 ESPN
In addition to those, before “Big Monday” officially kicks off, there will be three other Non-Big Monday, Monday games including UConn-Pitt on December 27 at 7:30. The one downside is that the Oakland Zoo will be on winter break.
Oops. Seems the full schedule for Pitt is out — big hat tip to PittScript for being on this.
In hopeful good recruiting news, Khem Birch took a visit to Pitt last weekend (Insider subs.) and took in the New Hampshire game. Birch is one of the top recruits in the class of 2012 (ESPNU ranks him the #2 overall player).
Birch and Notre Dame Prep coach Ryan Hurd traveled to Pittsburgh to see Hurd’s alma mater, the University of New Hampshire, take on the Panthers football team on Saturday.
“Khem has expressed a desire to take more ownership over his recruiting process,” Hurd said, “and obviously he has had interest in Pitt since Coach [Pat] Skerry left Providence, so this was a good opportunity for us to spend some time together and for him to see another campus.”
Skerry had begun recruiting Birch while previously an assistant at Providence.
“We had a great time at the football game and then Khem got a chance to see the campus and speak with the coaching staff,” Hurd said.
Birch has also visited Syracuse unofficially as well as Providence when Skerry was previously on staff there. Pittsburgh and Kentucky were two of the schools that visited Birch on the Notre Dame Prep campus last week, while Hurd said North Carolina and Kansas are expected to make the trip within the next two weeks as well.
Birch would be the biggest recruit Pitt has gotten since the days Paul Evans had John Calipari on staff. So wait and see. Especially if Kentucky is involved.
Rumor is that the schedule will be officially released later today.
link to pittsburghpanthers.com
I haven’t had time to digest it yet, but on first glance, the toughest part seems to come at the end. In February, back-to-back road games against WVU and Villanova, and a closing stretch of WVU (home), at Louisville, at USF, and a Saturday CBS game at home against Villanova.
Can’t wait!
