Those Villanova bastards had nearly a week to think, plan and get ready for Sunday’s games. To say nothing of  putting last year’s Elite 8 game on loop and sitting down in a dark room with some lotion and a box of tissues. But, I’m not bitter.

Anyways, I was contacted early by two fine ‘Nova blogs: I Bleed Blue And White (which I imagine confuses and pisses off a lot of Penn State fans once they realize it isn’t for Lions) and Villanova Viewpoint. They had nothing better to do since the Wildcats had the rest of the week off.

You can find my answers to their questions here and here. Some of my answers are probably shorter than they should have been, because I had some 13 or 14 questions in total to respond to with very little time. For that I apologize. Here are their responses to my questions.

(more…)

The Marquette game tomorrow Milwaukee is a big one. 9PM on ESPN. The ex-Warriors are having a “Gold Out” (What? You thought Pitt was the only one who could do that?) for the game. Pitt has never won at the Bradley Center. It seemed like a good time for a Q&A with Cracked Sidewalks. One of the older and best Big East blogs out there and still not assimilated by SBNation. Tim Blair and Rob Lowe provided the answers to my questions. You can find my responses to their questions here.

1. Like Pitt, Marquette lost their marquee triumvirate of Jones, Matthews and McNeal. The difference, is that despite their overpowering presence, Marquette still had Lazar Hayward coming back for his senior year plus seniors Cubillan and Acker. The emergence of Jimmy Butler and Darius Johnson-Odom is at least surprising to those outside of Marquette. Talk a little about what the strengths are of these two and whether you expected their emergence this year?

We don’t regard Jimmy Butler’s emergence as being that big of a surprise. Butler came on strong to close last season and his efficiency as a role player was off the charts good, so it’s not that surprising to see him increase his possessions and still be very efficient. Jimmy Butler’s strength is that he always stays within his role, never playing out of character. He gets a ton of offensive rebounds and draws a great deal of contact, and is generally very good from the free throw line. If anything, we’d prefer that he was a bit more selfish. However, his game-winning shot against UConn and increased focus on driving with the ball give us hope.

As for DJO, this is a total surprise. When we looked JUCO’s in the Big East we found that it was rare for JUCO players to make any sort of significant contribution. However, DJO’s ability to shoot the open jumper and drive to the hoop have been the key to success this season (IMO). The big thing that always stands out about DJO is a comment we heard from Buzz, (paraphrasing), where it was basically that DJO was the only player Buzz could ask to “go get a basket” and he’d be able to do that. Essentially, everyone else needs to have a play run or find a shot within the offense; DJO can go get one.

2. Year two of Buzz Williams. It seems that things are working out better than expected. How are you feeling about the program under his control? There’s a pretty good argument to be made that he or Jamie Dixon will be the Big East Coach of the Year.

Honestly, we see Boeheim as a more likely candidate for Coach of the Year right now. However, this year the coaching job by Buzz has been a real revelation. The conventional wisdom on Buzz was that he was a great recruiter and unknown coach. This year, I don’t see how anyone could regard his coaching job as anything but great. Marquette has been competitive in almost every game this season except for the second half of the NC State game. Plus, considering the low expectations for this season we’re pretty pumped to even be in the conversation on the NCAA tournament.

As far as the program under his control, our quibbles are relatively minor. They are things like “Is Buzz wound too tight?” “Can he develop freshmen players? “Can he sign and develop big men?” In the big picture, we’ll take good recruiting, a competitive team, and a team that responds well in the face of adversity. The future looks bright in upcoming years in terms of incoming talent and Buzz’ coaching.

3. This is the slowest tempo Marquette team since Travis Diener was around. That’s not completely surprising given the change in players, but do you see this as more of the future with Marquette, or just an adjustment given the change in players and issues of depth?

This as more an adjustment given the personnel and issues of depth. The focus is on getting a good look and many times that doesn’t develop until later in the shot clock with the offense. Last year the team played at about an average pace overall. We believe that when the team gets deeper they’ll play probably at an average pace.

(rob’s note – this gets into questions of playing a higher risk strategy, especially when coupled with threes, that might not be beneficial given the team’s positive overall efficiency margin.)

4. Having lost 7 games by 5 points or less, Marquette had been labeled one of the unluckiest teams. The Golden Eagles have now won 3 games by 3 points or less. Do you see this as part of a balancing out of things through the course of a season? A growth in confidence and improving in the season or something else?

It’s a little bit of luck and a little bit of responding to the situations. There’s definitely a view that lucky/unlucky trends tend to even out. However, part of the reason MU lost those close early games was because they frankly choked at the free throw line and/or failed to make stops in key situations late in games. What we’ve seen in some of the recent close games has been the team responding positively to pressure situations by making free throws, field goals or getting stops down the stretch. This improvement in tight games comes through repeated exposure to these situations and the maturation of a team forced to integrate a lot of new talent while dealing with a spate of early-season injuries and a player departure. Buzz’ team has proven it can take a punch and not only survive, but thrive.

5. One of the things — besides the key injuries — that seems to have hurt Marquette late in the season seemed to have been the players wearing down. It looks like Marquette is again playing a very short bench with several players getting at least 30 min/game in the Big East grind, are you concerned about that?

The short bench that Buzz employs has us concerned but more from a depth perspective. When MU was in the throes of late-game chokes earlier this year some fans cited the short bench and fatigue as a possible cause. Still, MU righted the ship in close games without amending the rotation all that much. As for wearing down late in the season, we don’t quite see it. If you’re referring to last year, that was more the Dominic James injury leading into the season’s most difficult stretch (UConn, @Louisville, @Pitt, Syracuse). Previous years (like 2007 with McNeal’s arm) are also more attributable to injuries. In our opinion, it’s more a matter of lack of depth — and the options a longer bench can give a coach — than wearing down.

Thanks again to the guys at Cracked Sidewalks for the knowledge.

Time to talk St. John’s with Pico Dulce of The East Coast Bias. You can find my answers to his questions here. This is what I had to ask him.

1. It seems once again that St. John’s lacks the offensive production and efficiency to stay in games. The ‘Nova game saw them with their highest scoring outputs in the Big East but shoot less than 40% (and an eFG% of 44.3) and lost. For the season, their eFG% is around 47%. Is that the biggest issue with St.John’s this year? Why? If not, what is the biggest problem?

Yes, and no.  The team’s effective field goal percentage – or their ability to shoot in general – has been very weak with this coaching staff.  But the problems of the season are long-running problems; and while the team thought that perhaps they had turned a corner in the out of conference games.  But even with Dwight Hardy, the offensive attack is inefficient.  And it’s not that it’s always inefficient; it’s that the team finds itself in scoring lulls.  The offense – or the players – are not good enough to score at a high level all game against elite opponents; it would help if they could finish tip-ins and layup attempts.  But with the offense that they have, the team would need to be incredible in field goal defense or force a lot of turnovers. Or draw a lot of fouls.  But the field goal shooting has been poor for years.

2. St. John’s plays a lot of players. It looks like 11 players are seeing 10 minutes or more. Exactly what is the rotation plan with St. John’s? Is there one? I realize Mason has only recently returned from injury, but it seems that St. John’s hasn’t figured it out.

P-lan?  What is this plan you speak of?  The staff would like to be able to run players on and off the floor to keep them fresh for pressure defense.  But the team doesn’t trap well, and the pressure is token pressure.  The lineups often reflect their opponent’s plans, not what St. John’s likes to do; many will ask why Dwight Hardy doesn’t start or get more minutes, since he’s the team’s most electrifying shot-taker.  But there’s not much of a plan.

The starting five doesn’t score much; then Hardy and Brownlee come in, Brownlee takes a bad three point attempt and Hardy scores a bunch. Then he’s taken out.  Malik Stith comes in, shows a little improvement, and is benched for the other Malik.  DJ Kennedy enjoys a long chat with fans, Justin Burrell comes in, makes some nice moves (but doesn’t rebound) and sits back down.

More seriously – the idea is to bring waves of players off of the bench to keep them fresh.  Now that Omari Lawrence is looking a little more like a player, expect to see everyone besides Rob Thomas log minutes.  No one knows quite where Mason will fit in – I assumed he’d take Paris Horne’s starting job – but the rotation is, again, dependent on the opponent.

3. Is this it for Norm Roberts? I mean, his demise has been predicted for a couple years now. The injuries. The rebuilding. The young team. All those excuses seem to be out, but the Red Storm still seem to be much the same as previous seasons.

You can’t predict a demise if the powers in control won’t play.  While other schools may decide to have a quick trigger, St. John’s has given Roberts a number of chances, because he’s gone about building a program the “right way” – scandal-free, decent players but not beholden to one AAU team.  He’s gotten a bye for a few years because folks like to consider that the program was in a terrible place when Jarvis left, and thought Norm should have a couple of years to repair relationships and then coach up some solid young kids who aren’t worldbeaters. (If you’re interested, some more on that from my blog here http://wp.me/p9vUp-hL and to a lesser extent here http://wp.me/p9vUp-jw.) But he’s not the kind of coach who can squeeze wins out of lesser talent.

The players are juniors.  I mean, all of them except for 4. Other teams aren’t as “crippled” by injuries as St. John’s has – there has to be talent to allow one or two players to go down.  The player development of big men in particular is damning; and the point guard position’s recruiting is damning as well.  But is this it?  We don’t know what metrics they’re using to evaluate the coach.

I can see how the president (rumor has it he’s the decider) can say “well, his guys are so young.”  But this is the full complement of players, and they’re still -.07 possessions below conference opponents.  If they’re not close to playing opponents even, they won’t be next year, and they will be very bad in 2011 with 9 newcomers.

And then, will St. John’s be able and willing to pay the right money for a good coach?  Or evaluate a coach well?

4. Johnny the Thunderbird? I can’t believe you retired Thunder. And really, what was wrong with that thunderbolt with abs and pecs?

I don’t wanna talk about it!  Ok, I will.  The thunderbolt was a lame costume but in retrospect, I like the realization of part of a “storm”.  No, that’s pretty lame.  I think the horse Thunder was also pretty lame.  But the team is named after a non-existent weather phenomena – St. John’s should have a bizarre mascot!

Thanks to PD for sharing.

The folks at Casual Hoya reached out to do a good old blogger Q&A. You can get an idea of how out of touch with present pop culture and local happenings by clicking over to read my answers (offered after a busy Saturday of watching basketball and drinking). Here, Andrew provides answers to some of my burning questions (asked before the Villanova game on Sunday).

1. Seriously. What the hell happened last year?

Ever hear of Murphy’s Law? No, its not the same thing as this TV show? Yeah, well last year was a perfect example of Murphy’s Law. By the end of January, everything that could go wrong, went wrong. Some blame it on team chemistry – which was apparently disrupted when Chris Wright and Jesse Sapp got in a fight during the Duke game. Some blame it on leadership, or lack thereof, as both DaJuan Summers and Sapp didn’t show a glimpse of passion or care as the season ended.

I blame it on youth. While the previous two reasons certainly had a role, Georgetown really played only three players (Summers, Sapp and Austin Freeman) who had any substantial experience running the offense. Combined with an incredibly tough schedule, quite possibly the most competitive conference ever, a demanding offense requiring reads and cuts, and a horribly weak bench – Georgetown should have played more like the team that ended the season, not the one that started it.

Losing three key players (Roy Hibbert, Jon Wallace, and Patrick Ewing Jr.) is a lot to make up for. But obviously Pitt had to ruin that excuse by doing so damn well this season. F-ckers.

2. While Pitt and Georgetown do not have the same systems, both teams are relatively slow-tempo offense and defense first. Each possession on offense, therefore is valuable. Do you worry about scoring enough?

No doubt scoring has been a problem for The Situation, err, Georgetown. It’s less an issue with the system that the Hoyas run as it is with the players they’ve got, with the starting 5 having to bring it every night with little help from the bench (to be addressed in the next question).

The upshot is that there are 3 players who can lead the team in scoring on any night: Chris Wright, the occasionally out of control point guard who is the most aggressive player going to the basket and looking for his shot; Austin Freeman, the steady 2-3 who is averaging over 20 a game in Big East play; and Greg Monroe, Gtown’s best post player and pro prospect and almost always the player with the most ability on the floor. Rounding out the 5 are Julian Vaughn, a bruiser who has been surprisingly effective both on offense and defense and Jason Clark, a sophomore who has had some great games while fading in others.

Thus far, the team seems to play to the level of the competition and with as well as Pitt’s been playing, they should be focused on offense and scoring.

3. Talk about the rotation for Georgetown. There are 4 Hoyas playing over 32 minutes/game. While the players don’t commit a lot of fouls do you worry about the players being gassed by the end of February?

We worry about the main players being gassed by the middle of January. Clearly the glaring weakness for Gtown has been the bench where a lot was expected of Henry Sims (a sophomore big) and Hollis Thompson (a freshman swing man). While Thompson has been playing consistently (but not putting up great numbers), Sims has been a big disappointment and his minutes are quickly being gobbled by freshman, Jerelle Benimon. Put simply, when the starters are on and can establish a lead, going to the bench isn’t terrifying but when they aren’t on, the Hoyas can go on long scoreless stretches due to weak bench play.

4. Will Georgetown ever consider elevating football? How do you see things playing out with rumors of Big 11 expansion?

Considering that the Georgetown football program has won 1 game in the last two years – the answer to that question is a resounding “Hell No”. This has been a tough decade for Georgetown football, who moved up to Division 1-AA from Division III in 1992. The Hoyas competed in the top half of the MAAC, until moving to the Patriot League in 2000. After that – it was all downhill.

Georgetown does not have the scholarships and facilities to move up to Division 1 football right now – there is no where to build a stadium (the current brand new facility stands uncompleted on campus due to lack of funding), and no money to dedicate to the team. I think the hope it to be competitive within the Patriot League at some point, and not get embarrassed by the likes of Lehigh and Bucknell every year. Georgetown is a decent athletic school: basketball, track, soccer, lax, crew and sailing all have received recognition in the past fews. But it is a long way away from being good in football. Mainly because people don’t care – I can count the number of full Georgetown football games I have sat through on zero hands.

(Anyone else think that Georgetown is another Esherick-esque hire and a heartbeat away from becoming Fordham in athletics from that explanation?)

Big 11 expansion is interesting. The Big East is the only power conference to include non D1-A football schools. I have no doubt in my mind that many of the big football schools would love to kick out non-football contributors, and the recent successes of the Villanova, Georgetown and Marquette programs is the only thing holding it together.

People make the excuse that the Big East will never be broken up because of its history of being a basketball conference, but look what Boston College did earlier this decade. The founding member of the Big East jumped at the first chance of more money – too bad it was a terrible move because Big East football improved while ACC football sucked after the treason.

I hope the Big 10 goes after Missouri and Nebraska and leaves the Big East alone. If they take a Rutgers, West Virginia or Pitt – I see the Big East brining in Memphis or Temple (again) in order to preserve the D1 football vs. non D1-A football split. Alternatively, some want Nova to elevate football – but I think that will eventually lead to the dismembering of the Big East as we know it. Unfortunately, money counts – and Georgetown brings nothing to the table.

Thanks to Andrew for the sharing.

That promises to add to the weirdness.

For those who haven’t heard or read, the UConn-Pitt game on Saturday, October 10 will be a 3:30 game with regional coverage on ABC. And by regional, I mean regional. Here are the games at 3:30 on ABC.

I’ll post the regional map when it is actually published (or simply when I find it. Odds are, though, if you are on the East Coast you are set. West of the coastal states and you better have ESPN 360 or GamePlan.

As for my sobriety, which seems counter intuitive to a 3:30 start? Well, here’s the culprit.

There is a sportsbloggers panel at 2pm on Saturday. I’ll be sitting on a panel with bloggers from Pensblog and Pittsburgh Sports and Mini Ponies. The panel will be moderated by Mike Woycheck of Pittsburgh Bloggers.

So, I’ll be heading over to try and make kickoff afterwards. Faced with the choice of making a guaranteed ass of myself by trying to do the panel after drinking or only a 50-50 chance of it, I’m opting for the coin flip.

Offline world interfered yesterday and all morning.

Right now it is time for the first cultural exchange of the 2009 football season. James of Yet Another NC State Sports Blog contacted me about swapping questions. You can find my responses to his questions here. This is what he had to say in response to my queries.

1. Pitt fans and local media are not sure about this Pitt team, given the competition faced. NC State seems even harder to get a sense of where they rank given the — let’s be honest — egg they laid against the Gamecocks to open the season and then smacking around a couple 1-AA patsies. So, what is it about this team that should make Pitt nervous?

The very fact that they’re such an unknown commodity. I do want to address the South Carolina game for a second…I know it wasn’t a pretty game with a lot of offense, but I think folks in Raleigh underestimated how good South Carolina was defensively, and were pleasantly surprised at how well State played defensively. The theme I’ve heard constantly about that game was how poor job both offenses executed…but let’s give a little credit to both defenses for taking away what the opposition hoped to run. And as we saw last night, South Carolina is a capable football team, so I think that SC loss will look better with time, for both teams.

Getting back to your question, I think it’s the return of our starting left tackle, Jake Vermiglio, to the lineup. He left the SC game early on with a calf injury and hasn’t played since, but he was absent on the injury report released yesterday and should play this weekend. His return should give Russell Wilson better protection and allow him a split second more time to let the passing plays develop down field.

2. Is the NC State offense Russell Wilson and 10 other guys? Does the Wolfpack have a guy that can run the ball, or are the O-line injuries wreaking havoc with the running game?

Well, it’s not much more than him. But as I mentioned above, Vermiglio’s return should help improve the line play, meaning Toney Baker may be more effective than he was in the SC game. Baker was playing in his first game in nearly two years following two knee surgeries, and I think he’s knocked off almost all the rust over these last three games. There’s a certain level of trust a player has to regain in their surgically repaired knee before he can regain the form he once had…I think Toney’s on the verge of being there. Establishing the run game against Pitt’s defensive front will be tough but necessary, so the O-line and Baker have to step up if State is going to be effective offensively.

3. The secondary for NC State is young and injured. How does the D-line look and can they generate the pressure to mask the secondary? Or am I doubting the secondary too much?

I think the secondary is young but talented. You never like to trust your last line of defense to a group of freshmen and sophomores, but I think these kids are good enough to compete with just about every team on the schedule. I mentioned getting an o-lineman back from the injured ranks — starting safety Clem Johnson is back off the injury report, as well, giving State some experience and leadership in the defensive backfield they were missing in his absence. I think the secondary will be tested but should play well.

The front four of State is the strong suit of the defense. Willie Young is strong and athletic at one end and Shea McKeen is disruptive at the other end spot. Expect to see a constant rotation at these spots, with Michael Lemon and Audi Augustine getting a lot of snaps. There’s not much drop-off in talent with these two (Lemon once played at Georgia) and O’Brien will try to keep all four fresh throughout the game. The tackles are solid, as well, with Alan-Michael Cash anchoring the group. In looking at Pitt’s offensive line, they look capable of handling State’s front four but don’t be surprised if Mike Archer dials up some zone blitzes to bring added pressure to Stull. He showed several blitz packages against our FCS opponents and should use some against Pitt, as well.

4. When was the last time NC State beat a Big East team? (Keep in mind that UConn was not a BE football team in 2003.) What does the Big East have on NC State?

You would have to make me do some research, wouldn’t you…unless I missed one somewhere, I think our last wins against the Big East came in ’97 and ’98 when we stunned Donovan McNabb’s Syracuse Orangemen two years in a row. (I actually covered that overtime win at the Carrier Dome for the school paper as a sophomore…probably my best memory as a young sports writer.)

The short answer is: I don’t know. We stood a great shot to beat Rutgers last year in the PapaJohns.com bowl and were leading by 11 at the half, but State fans all knew when Russell Wilson left with an injury and we had to rely on our two backup quarterbacks to hang on for dear life, the game was already lost. As close in proximity as our two conferences are, we don’t play a ton of Big East opponents. It seems like a natural fit, and I think Tom O’Brien — based on his comments regarding recruiting in the Pennsylvania area earlier this wekk — would love to play some more Big East opponents.

5. With year 3 of the Tom O’Brien era underway, how would you describe expectations at this point?

I would use a very commonly heard phrase among State fans — “Cautiously Optimistic.” I think some media publications went a little far in their preseason expectations for State based on the solid finish to last season to become bowl eligible. They started picking State to win the Atlantic division, had Russell Wilson in their preseason P.O.Y. discussions and predicted 10 wins. The truth of the matter is that this team is still lacking depth at critical positions and given our injury woes in the last three years, we’re not to the point where we can lose 5-10 starters over the course of a season and not have a drop-off in production.

Before the season I looked at our out-of-conference schedule and predicted a 3-1 mark, and predicted a 5-3 mark in-conference for a total record of 8-4. Losing that South Carolina game hurt our team’s perception nationally, and it stings to hear folks on the outside discount this team, but in the long run it might benefit this team to have lower expectations while O’Brien continues his rebuilding project. He’s not a fly-by-night architect, by any means…he builds teams slowly and methodically. I could see it taking all the way until year five before we get a true read on O’Brien’s potential as a head coach here. He’s got a tough job recruiting in-state against Butch Davis, but he’s beaten him twice since both coaches have taken over and that should help locally.

Bummer for Pitt football coverage.

This is my final day as the Pittsburgh Trib’s Pitt football beat writer, as I’ve been offered an opportunity to move into a new role within the sports department that includes writing a weekly column.

The new Pitt football beat writer is John Grupp, who has done an outstanding job covering the Pitt men’s basketball team the past three seasons and I promise will do the same with the Panthers in football. John also is one of the nation’s leading writers on horse racing and covered high school sports here for about two decades.

The Trib also has a new addition to our staff, Ralph Paulk, who started Monday and will join John in providing coverage of the Pitt football and basketball teams. Soon, they are expected to set up a Pitt-centric blog to continue the intensive coverage to which you’ve become accustomed.

I’d like to express my sincere thanks to all the readers of this blog who have passed along kind words. The pleasure was all mine.

This sounds great for Kevin Gorman. A definite step up in the food chain. I wish him luck and will miss his fine work.

Selfishly, I’m bummed about losing a quality writer that did solid reporting and provided fine observations on his blog. The Trib’s Pitt football coverage has been well done for some time. There was Joe Bendel before Gorman. The fact that both have moved up the chains does indicate some solid people in the spot.

I’m going to be curious about Grupp taking the football side. He’s been decent in basketball, but I can’t say outstanding. In his fill-in posts for the Gorman blog, they were rather devoid of any opinion. We’ll find out I guess about whether he’s comfortable to express his own opinions about what he sees.

Now for a little shameless note of getting love. From ESPN.com’s Big East writer, Brian Bennett’s chat today.

Jack (PA)
Are there any Big East bloggers that you would put on your Big East Message board MVP’s? (Most Valuable Posters) If so, who?

Brian Bennett
The ones I read the most are Troy Nunes is an Absolute Magician, Bleed Scarlet, Card Chronicle and Pitt Blather. For what it’s worth.

[hyperlinks added.]

Can’t fault his choices. These are the ones I read regularly in the Big East blogosphere.

Some more things with no specifics.

Sean at Troy Nunes is an Absolute Magician (Syracuse) has the latest Octonion to kick off Big East Media Days.

In a feverish dream, I saw you and your mustachioed leader.  I was bewitched by a prophecy.  It was December.  I saw a football field.  And upon it, the Pitt Panthers did battle.  And that field was in Birmingham Alabama.

NOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!

Also rules for writing on Big East Media Days.

Still no word on Bowl deals for the Big East, and Coach Wannstedt expects a few more commits in the next couple of weeks.

The Cinci Enquirer actually bothered to send a beat reporter this year.

Some local Cleveland area stories on Dan Schneider’s verbal.

“I’m excited about everything they have to offer at Pitt,” he said. “It’s been a rollercoaster ride – there’s times that it’s been great and times that weren’t so great. It’s also very time consuming. Once you do the research and get to the bottom of everything, it’s not too difficult to make a decision. But the time I put in was incredible, so I’m glad that’s off my plate.”

Schneider also needed to join a program at a school where he felt like he fit academically. He is one of the top students at Avon Lake, and Dlugosz said his grade-point average is just over 4.4.

“I was looking into all the academic scholarships before the football offers came along,” Schneider said. “It’s something I would have looked into had this not come about, but it’s so hard to get academic scholarships these days I don’t know how that would have gone.

“I’ve always wanted to play football in college though, so this is fulfilling a big dream of mine.”

So at the very least, he will help the team’s GPA numbers.

Just a couple little things.

He never saw the field because he couldn’t get out of bed and did not even get to El Paso, but Ronald Hobby is trying to start fresh at Liberty. Good luck with that.

The countdown clock to the first game is running. Why they don’t have a simple little widget of this for people to grab, post and promote is beyond me.

Panther Rants is back to posting.

The Pitt Consortium section of the blogroll has been updated to add The First Church of Fitzgerald and Eye of a Panther.

Do not confuse recent Pitt verbal Dan Schneider with this Dan Schneider.

The iCarly movie stars Miranda Cosgrove as Carly, Jennette McCurdy as Sam, Nathan Kress as Freddie and Jerry Trainor as Spencer. Victoria Justice guest stars as Shelby Marx and Reed Alexander guest stars as Nevel. “iFight Shelby Marx” is written by Dan Schneider and directed by Steve Hoefer. iCarly is from creator and executive producer Dan Schneider (Zoey 101, Drake & Josh).

There was a Big East Bloggers Pre-Season Poll, and somehow I got left out.  Simply more shenanigans from Rutgers folk.

You can have that silly official list of All-Big East and POY (coming tomorrow) stuff. Made up of votes from coaches in the conference.  What do they know?

Here’s the results of a Big East Bloggers roundtable. A big thanks to the East Coast Bias for deciding to pull this together.

DeJuan Blair took home player of the year honors amongst BE Bloggers. Lots of good stuff in the polling. Including a lot of underrated/overrated things. On the all BE-team. A fun read.

Meanwhile, John Gasaway at Basketball Prospectus picks DeJuan Blair over Blake Griffin for national POY (hat tip to Joe).

Sure enough, Blair is the more efficient offensive weapon, but the magnitude of the difference here (keeping in mind that Griffin’s offensive rating is of course excellent in its own right) can’t be attributed to workload alone. Part of it is Blair’s superiority on the offensive glass. Another factor helping Blair in this comparison is that he commits fewer turnovers than Griffin does, even when adjusted for each player’s prominence in their offense. At least one part of this difference in efficiency, however, can be explained even more simply: Blair shoots fewer free throws. With these two players, that’s a good thing.

That being said, throw Griffin at any of ten recent seasons and I’d wager you’d find me supporting him for POY in six or seven of them. Alas, this year is different.

DeJuan Blair is both one of the most efficient offensive players in the nation and the second best defensive rebounder in major-conference hoops over the past five seasons. His unprecedented offensive rebounding has played a major role in making his team quite possibly the single most effective offense in the country. When he’s in foul trouble, Pitt fans get visibly nervous. When he’s not, they have the sense that their team can do anything, up to and including beating Connecticut twice. He flipped Hasheem Thabeet over his head. He wears what appear to be headbands on his biceps. He even commits steals.

It’s enough to make him my Player of the Year. Congratulations, DeJuan.

Nice.

Dave of Friars Blog contacted me about a good old-fashioned Q&A exchange ahead of tonight’s game.

You can read my responses to his questions here. The responses to my questions follows:

1. Defense? How’s that going?

We knew coming into the season that Keno Davis was going to run an up-tempo offense that would produce a lot of possessions. So we knew a lot of points were going to be scored against us, but not like this. The top half of the league basically has scored at will against the Friar defense and its just maddening. PC’s man-to-man defense is simply not very good, so Keno is pretty much forced to use the matchup zone for most of the game. Well, that ain’t workin’ lately either, because team after team just gets completely wide open looks from behind the arc.

That’s why in my answers to your questions I joked about the only way for a Providence upset was for Blair to get into foul trouble. Obviously, any team can beat anyone if they have a blistering night from behind the arc. However, that potentially won’t matter — Providence made SEVENTEEN threes against Villanova, and STILL lost!

2. So, Providence had to “settle” on the 2008 national coach of the year, Keno Davis. How about a recap of the coaching search and tortured rejections that led to the hiring. How is everybody feeling about it now? Plus, why didn’t you just hire President Obama’s brother-in-law away from Brown? He could have been wearing a black-and-white striped scarf at the Inauguration for recruits to see.

What a roller coaster that was. First we had the low of a 6-12 season in the conference, followed by the high of firing Tim Welsh and thus having hope, which then led the embarrassment of getting rejected by several coaches. It felt like nobody wanted to coach us. It’s the BIG EAST damnit! I mean, someone willingly accepted the DePaul job. Thankfully, Keno Davis came along and Friartown was once again filled with hope and excitement.

As this season comes to an end, I think everyone is still on board with the direction Keno wants to take the team in. It’s hard to blame him for not getting this group of players who never been able to win to make a big leap. For next year, he has a lot of new faces coming in (2 JUCOS, 4 Freshman). Everyone is real excited to see what he can do with players that fit into his system. There may be some growing pains with the young team, but it will pay off.

As for Craig Robinson? Well, apparently PC needed more time to search, and Oregon State was able to offer him a job right away. I’m happy with Keno Davis though.

3. It seems that Providence has some good to very intriguing players, but they still haven’t seemed to connect as a team — Brooks, McDermott, Curry, Xavier and Efejuku. Is this a lingering effect of the Welsh era, does this go back to just wanting to run and not play defense, or is it something else and I’m oversimplifying?

It’s a complete enigma. Most of these players (McDermott, Efejuku, Hanke, Kale, and Curry) have been STARTING with each other for the past FOUR seasons. You would think they would have had time to gel and play better as a whole. I think part of the problem is that they got so much time as Freshman and showed such promise, that we gave them too great expectations. Curry has been the one who has showed the most consistent improvement as his career progressed (thankfully he’s coming back next year). Jonathan Kale has surprised and has come on real strong for his senior season. However, some of the other players have just been asked to do too much — McDermott is a great rebounder, but is extremely limited on offense and breaks down at the end of each season due to a bad knee. Xavier is a one dimensional offensive player. Efejuku has been dominant at times this season, but other times just coasts along. Hopefully it all comes together tonight, because it’s SENIOR NIGHT for all of them! While it’s disappointing this group hasn’t won as many games as one would like, I would want nothing more than to see them close out their career at THE DUNK with a victory over a #1.

4. Will there ever be a Big East commissh that isn’t tied directly to the Friars?

Just for asking that, the BIG EAST office has dispatched two goons over to your location to go stab you.

5. Which team will make the NCAA Tournament first and why: Providence, St. John’s or Seton Hall?

I’m going to be a homer and say Providence. St. John’s is well, St. John’s. Seton Hall has actually been to the tourney most recently (2006) — Can my reason for them not making the tournament first be because Bobby Gonzalez is a d-bag? Besides, why would top players from NJ pick Seton Hall, when they can be coached into the ground by Fred Hill at Rutgers?

Game predictions you wish to make?

I have a weird feeling that it’s not going to be the blowout I initially thought…I think it’s only fitting if we keep it close for most of the game, with Pitt pulling ahead in the last few minutes. Pitt 82-78.

Thanks to Dave for taking the time and initiative on this. Hopefully the Friars will get a chance to win one game in the B ig East Tournament and make a nice showing in the NIT.

More or less just past the halfway portion of the conference slate of basketball. It’s time for the latest liveblog and roundtable of Big East bloggers.

Brian Harrison at Orange 44 will be the host once more.

In addition to yours truly, here’s the line-up of participants.

Sean of Troy Nunes is an Absolute Magician;
Brian of Orange 44;
John of Mountainlair;
Dave of FriarBlog ; and
Kevin of TheUConnBlog

The fun starts around 9pm. Stop by and join the fun.

Another thing that I’ve gotten away from for a while. The exchange of questions with an opponent blogger.  Chris from the I Bleed Blue and White blog contacted me and we exchanged questions about Wednesday game. You can find my responses to his questions here. This is what he had to say to me.

1. Scottie Reynolds, a junior at ‘Nova. Amazing. It seems he is always on the cusp of greatness and ready to go to the NBA, but is just not quite there. His numbers haven’t changed dramatically in each season, but this season there seems to be a more balanced team around him so he doesn’t have to carry the full load. Especially with Pena and Cunningham inside.

Is that reality? Or is it still, ultimately about what Reynolds can do?

It seems so long ago that Reynolds was lighting it up as a freshman. Without being too harsh, it does seem as though he has never met the expectations he put on himself. It would be a shock if he left early for the NBA (something that seemed inevitable after his freshman year). With the emergence of other players on the team such as Corey Fisher, Corey Stokes, Dwayne Anderson and especially Dante Cunningham, Villanova has been able to win games even when Reynolds hasn’t been putting up 20 points.

He’s been put (or put himself) in a role where he is playing a more distributive role. Even though he had 40 against Seton Hall, it seems as though the days of that are long gone. As Corey Fisher matures though you’ll see Reynolds playing more off the ball, where’s he most dangerous. That’s when you’ll see Villanova reach its potential.

2. Almost 1/3 of Villanova’s shots are from the perimeter. Does it seem like the guards are taking more or less of their shots from outside versus driving to the basket? Is there a bit more driving and dishing with Cunningham in full (healthy) bloom and Pena’s growth? Is this a more balanced ‘Nova team than the past couple years or is it still all about the guards? I’m trying to get a better feel for the way the Wildcats play this year.

Cunningham may be the team’s best player, but the majority of the offense is created by the guards. A guy like Corey Stokes is going to shoot it from the outside, while Corey Fisher takes it inside most often. Reynolds is a mix of the two. So it really depends on the personnel as fare as shot selection. Pena is making good strides, but he still doesn’t realize how good he can be.

As for balance, 3 years ago this team was starting 4 guards and couldn’t spell post-presence. Dante Cunningham has changed that. He can get it done inside and his new-found jumper came out of nowhere. You’ll see Villanova look to him a lot, where as in the past he was lucky to get 2-3 shots a game. But this is Villanova. It’s run by the guards. When it clicks for Fisher and Stokes this will be a fun team to watch.

3. Last game at the Spectrum. What does this really mean? Don’t get me wrong, there are great memories of the place. That said, it isn’t the Pavillion where Pitt hasn’t won in ages. What kind of crowd do you expect?

Last game at the Spectrum indeed, although I wouldn’t put too much significance behind it. I think Jay Wright and his boys would love to close the place out with a win, and I think that the students are getting behind this idea a little, but in the end, I don’t see it having a major impact on the game. The Pavilion, as you noted, is a true home court advantage in the Big East. I’ve personally never been to a game at The Spectrum (just The Wachovia Center) so I’m excited to take in this one.

It should be a good crowd though. The students will always be there and because Pitt is such a big name in the conference, I wouldn’t expect to see too many empty seats. Hopefully that provides Villanova a little extra edge.

4. Right back at you. Both teams play tough defense. Villanova goes with more of an attacking defense that tries to force the turnovers and disrupt the plays. Pitt plays mainly straight man, that forces clock to run and force contested and bad shots. How do you see this one playing out?

Pitt is always a frustrating team to play because they like to slow the pace down. If Villanova had their way they would press, press and press some more and try to run a little. Pitt won’t let that happen. I think Antonio Pena needs to continue his string of successful play and frustrate Blair. It would be nice if Scottie Reynolds had a big night too, but I won’t count on it against the smothering Pitt D. This could be a game where the total score barely reaches 100.

Last night at the Spectrum, there’s got to be a little mojo behind that. Plus, Villanova has taken a few close losses to Louisville and UConn.They are due for a win against one of the big boys. I’ll go with Villanova 62, Pitt 60.

Thanks to Chris for the exchange. The game is Wednesday night at 7pm on ESPNU.

It’s back for a second week. The Big East Blog Chat returns.

Hosted and moderated once more by Brian Harrison at Orange 44. John Radcliff of Mountainlair and myself will be participating.

There will be a good deal of talk about the bowls and the end of football season. Stop on by around 9pm at Orange 44 to join the fun.

Not a lot of movement, except for one team free-falling right out of the top-25. This despite the arrows, which didn’t seem to update from Week 14’s ballot.

Rank	Team	Delta
1	Oklahoma	—
2	Florida	1
3	Texas	—
4	Alabama	2
5	Texas Tech	—
6	Southern Cal	—
7	Utah	—
8	Penn State	—
9	Ohio State	—
10	Cincinnati	1
11	Boise State	1
12	Oklahoma State	1
13	TCU	1
14	Oregon	1
15	Georgia Tech	1
16	Pittsburgh	4
17	Brigham Young	—
18	Georgia	—
19	Oregon State	2
20	Michigan State	2
21	Virginia Tech	5
22	Northwestern	2
23	West Virginia	2
24	Boston College	1
25	Missouri	6

So, with only a few games this isn’t surprising. Not sure even BC and Mizzou should stay ranked, but also unsure what teams should be there instead.

I might be too hard on Ball State, but then I also think I was too kind to them for the last few weeks. So, maybe it all balances out.