The new Pitt CBA team drafted its players.

The second-year Xplosion, a member of the American Basketball Association last year, will compete in the CBA in 2006-07. The CBA is returning to Pittsburgh for the first time since 1994-95, when the Piranhas won the Eastern Division and lost to Yakima, Wash., in the final in their only season.

The Piranhas played their home games at Palumbo Center and averaged about 2,500 fans per game.

The Xplosion, which played in front of crowds between 750 and 1,000, plans to continue playing most of their home games at Mellon Arena and a few at Petersen Center. The CBA’s 48-game schedule begins in early December and runs through the end of March.

…

The Xplosion has a new owner, Trinity Sports and Entertainment Group, a Florida corporation formed earlier this year by former NFL quarterback Jay Fiedler, five-time NBA All-Star Tim Hardaway and businessman Demetrius Ford. TSEG also owns several other CBA franchises.

…

The Xplosion selected six players in the CBA draft conducted Tuesday — 6-foot-11 Kevin Pittsnogle (West Virginia University), 6-8 Kelly Whitney (Seton Hall), 6-10 Tedric Hill (Gulf Coast CC), 6-4 Hassan Adams (Arizona), 6-7 Jai Lewis (George Mason) and 6-2 Carl Krauser (Pitt).

Naturally, you can expect many of these players to jump at the opportunity.

Pittsnogle recently signed a two-year contract with the NBA Boston Celtics for $1.1 million if he fulfills both years, and Krauser has signed to play professionally this season in Germany for the EWE Baskets Oldenburg, a First Division I team. The Xplosion has the rights to their draft choices for two years.

Uh, huh.

The kicking situation for Virginia, like Pitt, has yet to be resolved.

The kicking positions “are right up on the same bar of importance with the other positions,” Virginia coach Al Groh said. “The one guy I might want back more than anyone else is Connor Hughes.”

Hughes set a new standard for dependability at the placekicking position throughout his four years at Virginia. He made 83.5 percent of his career field goal attempts and set school records in points (332), field goals made (66) and extra points made (134). Of the 12 field goals of 50 yards or longer in Virginia history, Hughes kicked five of them. He was signed by the New Orleans Saints this summer but was released last week and is currently looking to catch on with another NFL squad.

Smith may have received less attention than Hughes but was equal in importance. Of his 66 kickoffs in 2005, 38 resulted in touchbacks and the average starting position for Virginia’s opponents was the 21-yard line, tied for the best mark in the ACC. He was picked in the sixth round of the NFL Draft by the San Diego Chargers.

The Cavaliers will look to junior Chris “Beep” Gould and senior Noah Greenbaum to handle the kicking duties. Gould carried out the punting duties for Virginia the past two seasons, a role that may be filled by junior Ryan Weigand this year, depending on how the competition shakes out.

Gould was a reliable punter averaging 40 yds/punt. That they would move him to kicking duties and go with a guy who did no punting for them last year suggests they don’t have much else they can rely upon.

A junior receiver expected to be on the 2-deep for the Cavs left the school for personal reasons. This in addition to the loss of star WR Deyon Williams with a foot injury. Add in a new starting QB and RB, and a bunch of new personnel on the O-line and the Cavs could be as offensively questionable as Pitt.
Groh expects Pitt to be fired up with the honoring of the 1976 National Championship team.

Wannstedt said he’ll probably ask some of the Pitt legends to address the current team this weekend.

“It’s going to be great to have them in,” said Wannstedt, who has two degrees from Pitt and was a graduate assistant on the’76 team. “The timing is perfect, so it’ll be a good night.”

…

Saturday night’s game marks the start of Al Groh’s sixth season as coach at U.Va., where his record is 37-26. Groh expects a “a little more juice in the atmosphere” than usual at Heinz Field, where Pitt went 5-1 last season.

“It’s going to be center stage in Pittsburgh, a big dog-and-pony show,” Groh said. “All of that is going to make it very challenging for this team.”

And of course there is the coaching controversy of Al Groh hiring/promoting his son Mike to Offensive Coordinator. I don’t see why. Just think of the successful father-son HC-OC deals like Joe and Jay Paterno, Bobby and Jeff Bowden, Lou and Skip Holtz. Why would there be questions?

The 30th anniversery of Pitt’s ’76 national championship is this year, and the team will be honored at the season opener this Saturday. The Trib. goes full-feature in looking back at the team. They start with how new Head Coach Johnny Majors recruited the class of ’73.

Pitt’s once-proud program had sunk to unfathomable depths. It hadn’t produced a winning record in a decade, hadn’t beaten Penn State since 1965 and was coming off a 1-10 season in which it was outscored 350-193.

The first key to the renovation project was a change in the school’s scholarship policy. Previously, Pitt had been locked into the so-called “Big Four Agreement” with West Virginia, Penn State and Syracuse. It was designed to regulate the schools’ football programs and limited each to just 25 scholarships per year.

Then-Pitt chancellor Wesley Posvar and athletic director Cas Myslinski sparked the program’s revival by removing the self-imposed scholarship cap and by hiring the charismatic, 38-year-old Majors after the 1972 season.

In part because Pitt gave out such a slew of scholarships — anywhere from 65 to 100 — the NCAA set caps on scholarships per year after 1973. The numbers are a little unclear, in part, because Pitt washed out a bunch of kids in training camp. There’s a great little note about what helped Pitt be able to get Tony Dorsett to stay local and come to Pitt.

Sherrill was the lead recruiter on Dorsett, and he quickly discovered that Dorsett’s closest friend and Hopewell teammate, Ed Wilamowski, was critical to the chase. He was a pretty good player, too.

“Ed was white and Tony was black, and at every school they visited, they were separated (in the college dorms),” Sherrill recalled. “I don’t know if I was smarter than the others, but I didn’t separate them. I knew Tony was very, very close to Ed. We kept them together.”

Dorsett remembers.

“There’s a whole lot of validity to that,” he said in a recent phone interview.

The end of the article features capsule reviews of every game from the ’76 season.

There’s also a “where are they now?” piece covering 11 members of the team. Plus a full feature on another member, Jim Corbett, who at age 51 is now doing relief mission work to Nigeria. He will be at the game on Saturday then leave for another trip in less than a week.

Pitt Athletic Department is moving ahead to another part of the fundraising for the “Quest for Excellence.” This part is for self-sufficiency of football scholarships by creating the Pitt Football Endowed Position and Scholarship Program.

The initiative’s goal is to endow the athletic scholarship budget for the Pitt football team. Contributors will have the unique opportunity to attach their name to one of 24 starting positions on the Panthers’ team (11 offense, 11 defense and two specialists).

“To fund the 85 football scholarships permitted by NCAA rules it will cost $2.1 million annually,” Long said. “While that may seem like an ambitious goal, the time to secure the promise of a bright future for our football program is now by focusing on building the Pitt football endowment.”

Coach Wannstedt and his wife are getting out in front on this by donating $250,000 to endow the left offensive tackle spot — his position when he played.

I’m sure plenty of schools do this. It makes sense considering the volume of scholarships the football team swallows every year. It will be interesting to see if some of Pitt’s other high profile football alum step up with their own contributions.

Today it is likely to be determined who will be the the starting left tackle. Jeff Otah was widely expected to take the job — coming in as a JUCO — and while he has not disappointed, John Bachman has shown a lot of growth from last year and fought very hard to keep the gig. Still, it is expected to go to Otah.

A brief preview of Pitt projects 6 or 7 wins.

Pittsburgh opens with Virginia and takes on Michigan State two weeks later. The squad later closes out its regular season with back-to-back games against Big East powers Louisville and West Virginia. Winning any of those games will be tough, although the Panthers figure to be competitive. Palko will put up numbers, but fans of the program are unlikely to see any more than six or seven wins in 2006.

Now here’s another classic PA college football rivalry that will capture the imagination.

Pennsylvania football fans don’t have the enjoyment of watching the Penn State-Pitt rivalry anymore.

But soon we will have Villanova vs. Temple.

Division I-A Temple and Division I-AA Villanova will meet in a four-game series starting in 2009. Temple will be the host for all four games at Lincoln Financial Field.

Villanova leads the all-time series, 15-12-2. The last game was in 2003, when Villanova won 23-20 in double overtime.

Is there any team against whom Temple can claim a winning record?

With 4 Pitt players on the SF 49ers roster, and all starters to boot, they do get something of a rooting interest from me.

Right now there’s a lot of attention on Antonio Bryant, who despite not actually causing any problems in Cleveland for 2 years, is still considered something of a junior T.O. because of the jersey toss incident in the face of Bill Parcells. That seems to be the theme in discussing him.

San Francisco 49ers wide receiver Antonio Bryant and head coach Mike Nolan approach their relationship with honesty. Both recognize that Bryant’s intensity is likely to be displayed in unprofessional ways and disrupt team chemistry.

“It’s not an easy thing for us or for him,” Nolan said of Bryant’s competitiveness. “But it’s a good thing.”

Bryant once fired a sweaty jersey into the disapproving mug of Cowboys coach Bill Parcells. Bryant was traded to the Browns soon after that. After a year-and-a-half in Cleveland, the Browns had little interested in re-signing him, despite Bryant’s 1,009 yards receiving season last season.

Nolan has issued proclamations about accountability and zero tolerance for dissension, but he signed the admitted malcontent anyway. Bryant has a four-year, $15 million deal with $6 million in guaranteed money.

Bryant showed up at 49ers camp in Santa Clara wearing No. 81, the same jersey that once belonged to the crown prince of sporting infamy, Terrell Owens.

Of course by the end of the column it’s noted that Trent Dilfer of the “flawless reputation” completely encouraged the ‘Niners to sign him.

The reality of the situation is that the 49ers needed Bryant. They had no other receivers who can be a game breaker for their 2005 1st round QB, Alex Smith. So far things look very good between the two.
Then there is Kevan Barlow, going into a big year as far as expectations and whether he will be with the team next year.

“You’re in the ‘Burgh?'” Barlow asked via cell phone during my recent tour of Pittsburgh’s Garfield district. “Oh man, you’ve got to go up the hill now and see the real bad stuff. Turn right on Atlantic and go a block to where the projects are. Then go over to Fort Pitt Park and see where my uncle was shot and killed.

“I’ll call you back in an hour to make sure you made it out of there safe.”

Yes, he called back. He did so in between practices at 49ers training camp, checking not only if I survived, but if a new appreciation was born for his rags-to-riches story.

“Growing up in that environment, it was a tough neighborhood. A lot of guys in the NFL go through the same stuff,” Barlow said last week during a sit-down interview outside the 49ers locker room. “In my neighborhood we had Bloods and Crips. I’ve seen some of my best friends murdered.”

There was Darrell, shot dead in a confrontation with police. And Dorion, his best friend on the Peabody High School football team who fell victim to a drive-by shooting just for wearing a red polo shirt to Wendy’s. Worst of all was uncle Sidney, just 35 when, Barlow says, “a dude on dope” shot him to death at a 1999 Thanksgiving Day football game at Fort Pitt Field.

Barlow, like many athletes, has overcome challenges, that’s for sure. Can he do it yet again? Not the rough childhood part, but the beating-the-odds part. Can he stiff-arm his doubters, stay in the starting lineup and produce the truly big season that’s escaped him to this point?

He swears he still has the drive to succeed, that the 49ers’ recent failures haven’t dragged him into an abyss of despair.

That had better be the case, for this is probably his make-or-break year, to prove he’s a starting-caliber running back worthy of the five-year, $20 million contract that has three pricey seasons remaining on it.

“Every year I come back motivated and I’m still optimistic, still hungry, still wanting to be successful. That’s something God gives you,” Barlow, 27, said. “I still feel I can be the best at what I do. When I lose that, then you’ve got something to worry about.

“But I still feel I can go out there and be one of the best backs in the league. Guys like Larry Johnson and Clinton Portis, I feel I can do everything they do. I just haven’t been in the position or had the opportunity to be successful like them.”

Barlow is being pushed by Frank Gore, drafted out of Miami in 2005.

Still waiting for profiles on Punter Andy Lee and Cornerback Shawntae Spencer.

I married into a family of late sleepers. I am the only adult awake in a house with 4 kids (3 under the age of 5) running wild. Send help.

Mark May is in South Bend for the College Football Hall of Fame ceremony and golf tournament. Today he gets inducted.

All but one day at Pitt was spent on the offensive line.

“When (head coach) Jackie Sherrill recruited me, he promised me I could play defense,” May said. “My first day as a freshman, I was on defense. One day. The next day, they switched me to the offensive line. At least he lived up to his promise.”

He talked a little about how and when he got his start in TV.

“My college years were so great because of the opportunities to bond with my teammates,” May said. “Pittsburgh was a special (school) in a special city. The people there cared about you. I was able to learn so much from the alums.”

It was also the place where he got his start in television. He got to know a sports director at the ABC affiliate. He convinced May to get involved in television before he graduated. When May was chosen by the Redskins, that sports director convinced the head of sports at the ABC station in Washington to hire May.

That training was followed by post-football jobs with TNT and CBS before finally landing at ESPN about five years ago.

Pitt fans would appear to be the exception among college football blogdom (writers and readers) in liking May on ESPN’s College Football studio show. Much the way ND partisans are the exception towards seeing Lou Holtz there.

The Arizona Cardinals, technically one of the oldest NFL franchises, have decided they need their own “Ring of Honor.” During today’s exhibition game against the Steelers, the late, great Marshall Goldberg will be one seven players and Bidwell, Sr. placed in the ring during halftime (PDF).

All fans in attendance will receive a commemorative Cardinals Stadium lanyard/ticketholder.

Ooooh. Well, there are the cheerleaders at least.

A couple stories on a few Pitt players in the NFL.

Larry Fitzgerald wants to get better on and off the field.

What’s really important to him, Fitzgerald said, is to remain low key and humble. He said he doesn’t go out much, and instead, he devotes time to some eclectic interests.

Last year, for instance, he hired someone to come to his home and teach him how to cook. He’s dabbling in real estate, and he intends to take some Spanish classes this year.

“It’s important to be well-rounded,” he said. “Football players get this stereotype that we’re just dumb jocks and that all we can do is run and stuff like that. I just try to change the mold up. There are a lot of things that interest me besides football, but this is what I love to do, and, hopefully, I can do it for a long time.”

Fitzgerald’s parents, Carol and Larry Sr., emphasized the importance of education and developing varied interests, he said. Fitzgerald’s grandfather called him recently to remind Fitzgerald that his younger brother, Marcus, is due to graduate from Marshall this year, and that a cousin also is graduating from college.

“He (his grandfather) is like, ‘You know, you’re the only one in the family who hasn’t gotten a degree,’ ” said Fitzgerald, who plans to tackle that in the coming years.

Fitzgerald has grown up on the field, too. Coaches said his practice habits are improved. He constantly asks receivers coach Mike Wilson, a former San Francisco 49er, how future Hall of Famer Jerry Rice did certain things.

Hopefully Pitt will make sure to do what it can to maintain ties to Fitzgerald.

Another great Pitt receiver is taking it out on a former Pitt cornerback in training camp practices.

Bryant had the cart flying Friday morning. He took off down the right sideline and was well covered by left cornerback Shawntae Spencer. In a sucker move by the more experienced wideout, Bryant slowed to a jog to dupe Spencer into thinking the ball was coming, then sped up to catch it in a laid-out position.

“Coming off the field, me and Antonio were talking about the deep ball,” Spencer said of the first highlight pass. “I had him covered and he slowed down and started jogging. I looked for the ball. He took off and the quarterback threw it. He said ‘You had me covered. All I could do is make you think it was thrown.’ ”

Darned if Smith and Bryant didn’t do it again in the afternoon practice. This time, Smith found Bryant down the middle for what turned out to be an 85-yard touchdown romp in which the ball was in the air about 45 yards. Spencer was again the victim in coverage.

While developing chemistry with Smith is important — vital, even — Bryant said he is also trying to make his teammates in the secondary better, in this case by schooling one of them. Spencer should have known better, since both men were college teammates at Pitt for a time.

“He’s a scrappy guy,” Bryant said of Spencer. “I like going up against him. He gives it 100 percent. He never gives up on a play. Shawntae is going to face a lot of talented receivers this year. I’m doing my best to be there for Alex and help our DBs look good. It’s all about team.”

Spencer is being moved to left corner this year.