Via press release, this week the USA Today Sports Weekly will be a college football preview.

LeSean McCoy will be the cover boy for one of the 6 regions. (Dammit, Laurenitis is one of the others, so I know which will be the cover in Ohio.)

The Stanford job is open, but seriously, that’s not a job Dixon would take at this point. Aside from, at best being a lateral move, Stanford AD Bowlsby was an idiot. He put off Trent Johnson’s contract talk all season — then wasted two weeks after the season without making an offer (Johnson was in the last year of his contract). What? He thought no one would be interested in a classy, clean coach who won at Nevada and Stanford?

Besides, how eager would Stanford be to hire a Pitt coach after what happened with Walt Harris?

That said, expect rumors and reports that Jamie Dixon is in California. Because he is.

Pittsburgh basketball Coach Jamie Dixon is returning to the Southland Saturday to be honored by his alma mater, Sherman Oaks Notre Dame, at the school’s annual Knights of Honor dinner-auction gala at the Universal Sheraton.

…

UCLA Coach Ben Howland, a close family friend, will introduce Dixon. Jimmy Kimmel is the master of ceremonies at the event.

Yes, Jimmy Kimmel is the MC of a HS alumni event.

Bob Smizik puts himself into an interesting little corner in his chat.

SDWC: Hi Bob, I noticed in your column this morning a line stating “It’s nice to see a coach with his eye on the real target “. Was that meant to be a quiet dig at Jamie Dixon and the Pitt BB philosophy?

Bob Smizik: Yes, it was a reflection on how Pitt proceeds in the post-season. It was refreshing to see Therrien have his eye on the big prize and not the conference title.

There’s a few other Pitt basketball questions after that, and then this.

Baxter: Who has had the more successful basketball program over the past several years? WVU with two sweet 16 appearances and one elite 8 appearance with an NIT title in between or Pitt and its early exits from the NCAA tourney.

Bob Smizik: Pitt, with its Big East TOURNAMENT championship, probably feels it has been more successful. I also think it has the better record, although I don’t have those numbers in front of me. But based on NCAA play, the big prize, I’d say West Virginia has the more successful program.

By recent years, that is then limited to just the past 4 because WVU hadn’t been in the NCAA Tournament since 1998, prior to 2005. Then by that logic, John Brady and LSU is a more successful program in recent years. A lot of good that did the new coach at Arkansas -Little Rock State.

Sorry, I can’t buy into that. There’s no question that the NCAA Tournament matters. That it is the big prize. But to be outright dismissive of the regular season and the Big East regular season and the Big East Tournament is beyond moronic. No, I take that back. It speaks of someone who just doesn’t care about college basketball beyond the NCAA Tournament at best. Arguably, it is one of the worst things about being a college team in a pro town. The mindset.

It’s that reasoning which allows the BCS to survive, as proponents point to the claim that at least with the BCS, the regular season matters. That every game counts and it isn’t just to get to the playoffs.

Big hat tip to Dan for the scan.

I think I would prefer more doubters like Grant Wahl at SI.com.

Bracket buster: Oral Roberts. Scott Sutton‘s 13th-seeded Golden Eagles are playing in their third-consecutive NCAA tournament, and they’re blessed with more size than any other low- to mid-major, going 6-8, 6-9 and 6-10 on their starting front line. They will be taller up front than first-round foe Pittsburgh, which is riding high after its Big East tourney title, but for this game in Denver I’m predicting a repeat of what happened the last time Pitt went out west for the NCAAs and got knocked off in the first round (by Pacific in Boise in 2005).

Instead, it’s mostly positive stuff about Pitt.

SI.com: Who has the hardest road?

SD: Memphis, no doubt about it. Pittsburgh won four games in four days at the Big East tournament … clearly, with Levance Fields back, that’s a different team. Memphis will have to get past Pitt, then past Texas in Houston, where Texas has a home-court advantage — it will be burnt orange wall-to-wall.

Seth Davis also thought Pitt should have been a 3 seed.

What Pitt did in the Big East Tournament seems to have inflated lots of expectations. Bobby Knight isn’t the only one willing to predict Pitt in the Final Four.

Instead, I’m going with No. 4 seed Pittsburgh, which just battled through the Big East tournament to win the title at Madison Square Garden. The Panthers will bump free throw phobic Memphis and then Texas, if things play out according to my bracket plan, to join the three remaining top seeds in San Antonio. North Carolina, the top overall seed, takes UCLA in a classic title game.

While not predicting Pitt to win the South, Pitt is the “darkhorse” to come out of the bracket.

So how about Pittsburgh? A fourth seed isn’t that big of a dark horse, granted, but nobody from seeds 5-16 has a chance in this region.

Pitt is the hot “darkhorse” or “sleeper” team right now.

The Panthers are seeded No. 4, which is startling considering that they entered the Big East tournament last week as a No. 7 seed. But it would be hard to find a hotter team in the country than the Panthers, who became the second team in Big East tournament history to win four games in four nights. (A note of caution: the last team to do it, Syracuse in 2006, lost in the first round of the N.C.A.A. tournament.)

But the reason to be high on these Panthers is that they are finally healthy after the starting point guard Levance Fields came back from a broken foot. Sam Young has emerged as one of the country’s best players, and the freshman big man DaJuan Blair is no longer playing like a freshman.

I hate being the sexy pick. I’m not saying I want Pitt to be the team everyone is predicting to flame out in the first round, but it is a little too much. I worry about the players reading too many press clippings.
This breakdown of the 1st round game, is pretty good. And not just because they go with Pitt.

Pittsburgh game plan: The Panthers will look to wear down the Golden Eagles with their efficient offense. Though not an especially high-scoring team, Pitt can push the ball to negate ORU’s defensive style, create mismatches in transition and ultimately tire out the Golden Eagles. Also, forwards Sam Young and DeJuan Blair must establish themselves on the glass.

Oral Roberts game plan: ORU wins with defense – it held opponents to 39.7 percent field-goal shooting this season. It has a pair of shot blockers in Shawn King and Yemi Ogunoye and quick-footed guards who make teams work for every point. By slowing things down, ORU might keep the game close enough at the end for guard Robert Jarvis to take over.

Jarvis generally comes off the bench, but is their leading scorer.

This story from the Tulsa paper has the Golden Eagles poor mouthing their chances.

“They’re athletic, they play hard and they play great as a team. There’s no one man. You can’t just stop one man and expect to win,” said ORU senior guard Yemi Ogunoye. “They’re playing great toward the end of the season. They’ve got all the confidence in the world right now. It’s gonna be tough for us to come out and win. Everything has to be be on that night for us,” Ogunoye said.

But it was hard to dampen the Eagles’ enthusiasm after receiving their highest seed in their three consecutive years of qualifying in the tournament.

“We’re making progress,” said senior guard Moses Ehambe. “Two years ago, a 16 seed. Last year, 14, and now a 13. So we’re taking steps up. Pittsburgh is a physical team, but I believe if we go out there and play hard and play our signature (defense), we’ll be all right.”

Worth noting that ORU is a bad free throw shooting team. Only 67%. Granted I would kill for that after what Pitt did in the last couple games of the BET, but I’m hoping the team is over those yips.

Here’s another capsule collection of the teams.

Finally a couple of the Colorado papers look at the teams coming to Denver here and here. Nothing too important.

This is more for posterity. The win is over. Time to focus on the next game.
I guess Tim Higgins can take solace in the fact that fans of every Big East team hate him. He probably feels that means he is doing his job well and fairly. That’s the interesting thing from the Marquette perspective. Jerel McNeal was nearly run by Higgins.

This time, it appeared as though he ejected McNeal from the game as McNeal was seated on the bench. Higgins stopped play, walked over to the scorer’s table, then walked down the sideline and stopped in front of McNeal and twice gestured with his arm as though he was kicking him out.

McNeal and Crean appeared stunned. Then Higgins, perhaps realizing the storm of controversy that doubtless would have surrounded such a move, appeared to change his mind and allowed McNeal to stay, instead warning the bench area to keep quiet.

(Rosiak questioned some of the fouls called on McNeal, including a little bump on Young as he drove. Conveniently ignoring that they called similar fouls on Pitt. Not wild about the officiating, but it was bad both ways.) That was where McNeal seemed to lose his mind on the bench. It does seem that McNeal was going a little beyond emotional at that point.

Tim Higgins went over to the Golden Eagles’ bench and gave a stern verbal warning to McNeal, who had been jumping up and down and screaming profanity in protest of a call. It appeared as if Higgins ejected McNeal, as he pointed to the locker room, but McNeal returned to the game a few minutes later.

As has happened so many times recently in the Big East tournament semifinals, Pittsburgh left an opponent frustrated and on the wrong side of the scoreboard.

As another paper put it, McNeal spent much of the game chewing his fingernails from the bench.

Sure enough, the moral victory stuff I mentioned at the end of last night was a theme for Marquette after the game. I understand and they should go with that. Heck if it had been Pitt in that situation, we know Dixon would have spun it that way, but it is a touch predictable.

In a game that had a lot in it, it’s a bit of a shame that Tyrell Biggs got shorted in the local papers for his contributions. Biggs gave Pitt 31 minutes for a foul-plagued DeJuan Blair. He provided 6 points on 50% shooting and 8 rebounds. He had a block and only 1 turnover. He stepped up for Pitt in the game. I suppose it makes some sense. Both recaps were essentially game recaps. As newspapers, they had deadlines and the lateness of the game meant the newspaper beat writers were up against it — which also explains the minimal amount of quotes in the stories. Even the post-game pressers had to be limited in what they could use.

Eric Hall at the Beaver County Times, though, did work Biggs into his recap.

Consider where these Panthers (25-9) stood after a punishing loss at West Virginia two weeks ago. The Panthers just wrapped up their fourth loss in six games. Hope was disappearing. The players appeared disconnected. They weren’t playing together.

Consider that the hero of Thursday’s win was Gilbert Brown, the redshirt freshman with the unusual shooting stroke and some questionable decisions. He played 36 minutes against Louisville, many more than his career high.

Consider that the hero of Friday’s game was Tyrell Biggs, an inconsistent player who has never delivered on potential that had him on Duke’s wish list. But Biggs played in foul-ridden DeJuan Blair’s stead, 31 minutes worth of rebounding (he had eight) and good defense.

Consider that only once in the history of this event had a team won the night after winning a game in overtime. But the Panthers broke out to a 16-4 lead and never trailed.

Consider that Sam Young, the volatile member of this team, evolved into a leader and has scored at least 21 points in all three games this week. On Friday, he had a game-best 22.

“There’s something about the Garden,” said point guard Levance Fields, who reclaimed his leadership role after a tenuous return from an ankle injury. “Special things happen.”

Revenge always feels good.

“Oh man, we really wanted to get back at them after that,” said Pitt swingman Gilbert Brown. “We came out flat that game. They took a big lead early in the second half and started celebrating. I mean, (Marquette guard David) Cubillan was actually dancing to the crowd.

“We kept that mind.”

Last year was a revenge tour for Pitt with Marquette and Louisville. So was this year. Now it’s time — hopefully — for revenge on G-town for last year.

Because the Panthers will remember:

A 26.2 percent shooting night (16-61) to set a tournament record for fewest points in a 65-42 loss.

The Hoyas celebrating their first Big East tournament championship in 18 years.

John Thompson III clearing his bench with 11/2 minutes left.

Patrick Ewing Jr. giving his old man a hug and handing him a Big East championship cap.

Roy Hibbert scoring 14 of his 18 points (with 11 rebounds) in the first half and dominating shell-shocked Pitt center Aaron Gray.

There’s fatigue factor with Pitt’s short bench, but you can’t argue with the results.

There’s a lot of focus on Levance Fields now returned and fully integrated within the team again.

It’s no coincidence that Pitt is making this surge at the same time he’s rounding into the form that made him the team’s best player before his injury.

“A lot of people thought it was going to be easy to come back and be ready to go right away,” Dixon said. “Even Levance probably thought it was going to be easier than it was …

“I thought it would take us two weeks for him to get into it, us getting used to him and him just getting his legs and getting knocked down a few times. So I think I just kept encouraging him. I think there was some frustration at times with Levance, but he got through it and our guys have confidence in him.

“We’re where we wanted to be right now.”

Fields still isn’t shooting well. He made 3 of 10 shots last night and is an abysmal 8 for 31 in the tournament.

Still, there’s no one on the Pitt team that you want to have the ball in his hands late in a game more than Fields. It’s his confidence that his next shot is going in.

Mandel at SI.com likes what he has seen as Pitt has gotten healthy with Fields back.

Suddenly, they’re one more win from doing it again — and they’re almost certainly headed for a higher seed in the NCAA tournament (No. 5?) than they had in their own conference tourney.

“I don’t think anybody really knew what to make of our team with all the injuries,” said Dixon. “This is a team that had to change in midstream three, four times.”

One of the biggest, if unnoticed impact of the injuries came not in games, but in practices, where for much of the season Pittsburgh has flat-out lacked the bodies to go full-throttle. Dixon said that Fields only began practicing again the week leading up to their regular-season finale against DePaul.

As they’ve begun to return to their more customary, “rugged” practice style, there’s been a noticeable improvement in their defensive performances. The last time the Panthers faced the Cardinals, a 75-73 home loss on Feb. 24, Louisville shot 57 percent; on Thursday night, they hit just 37 percent.

“Practice is where it starts,” said guard Ronald Ramon. “We weren’t able to go after each other, do the ‘aggressive drills,’ as we call them. But now that guys are healthy, we’re able to go five-on-five, get after it. Now when we go on the court and play games, the chemistry’s there.”

Even Luke Winn is giving Pitt a shot.

If Pitt can knock off Georgetown tonight — a scenario that seems entirely plausible — the Panthers have a legitimate case for a No. 5 seed. They were considered an 8 or a 9 heading into this week, but they’re making a push based on these facts:

• Momentum. Winning seven of its final eight regular-season games, with two of those victories coming over Louisville and Georgetown, would make Pitt look rather attractive in the eyes of the selection committee.

• The Negative Momentum of Current Fives. Vanderbilt (with its opening-round loss to Arkansas in the SEC tournament) and Indiana (which lost a stunner to Minnesota on Saturday) are slumping into the dance, and neither team has much of a non-conference resume. Whereas Pitt has a win over Duke.

• The Levance Fields Argument. The Panthers only have two bad losses on their resume — at Cincinnati on Jan. 19 and against Rutgers on Jan. 26. Both of those happened while Fields was hurt. There’s no doubt the selection committee will take this into consideration.

Everyone has been focused on the chaos of the bubble. Arguably, seeding will be a bigger mess. Seeds for lines 3 through 7 are incredibly unclear to me. That’s going to be the big talk coming out of selection Sunday. Not the bubble teams that got screwed, considering how badly so many of them did at the end to hardly make the case. The stories will be about what the selection committee was thinking when they seeded the teams.

To recap, Pitt loves playing at MSG. While it is unprecedented in Big East history for one team to play in the BET Championship game 7 times in 8 seasons, the fact that Pitt has only won it once is still an issue.

Given the way that Pittsburgh wins at the Garden every March, it’s understandable that people say the Panthers own the Big East Tournament. But really, it’s more like a lease. Pitt is always giving it back on the final night.

Georgetown has looked very good, but it turns out John Thompson III is a superstitious one.

Funny how after a big win everyone has the glass half-full.

They entered a team near disarray on defense and on the glass. They’ve emerged as a punishing and pressuring group who fights for every carom and dives for every loose ball.

There must be some magic in Madison Square Garden for Pitt.

Thursday’s 76-69 victory over No. 13 Louisville in overtime marks the seventh time in eight seasons thePanthers (24-9) advanced to the semifinals of the Big East tournament. They’ve been to the finals six times.

One theme from the stories is that Pitt plays well at MSG.

Nothing that happens at Madison Square Garden should surprise anybody anymore.

It is the site of some of Pitt’s greatest victories, the place where Levance Fields shocked Duke.

“We always play pretty decent here,” Sam Young said. “We always have good games.”

Or simply that Pitt ups its play in the Big East Tournament. This link has Coach Dixon talking with Pete Thamel of the NYTimes about playing well at MSG — treating games there as home games, right down to the routines.

And so it goes.

The Panthers go to school in Pennsylvania but they clearly go to work in New York City.

Pittsburgh put on another stunning performance at the Big East tournament, where they have advanced to the championship game six of the last seven seasons. The seventh-seeded Panthers got another step closer Thursday night when they upset second-seeded Louisville 76-69 in overtime.

“This is our home away from home,” Young said.

Another theme concerned Louisville losing 3 straight to Pitt in the Big East Tournament.

Louisville’s athletic director, Tom Jurich, likes to consider Louisville the sixth borough of New York because of Coach Rick Pitino’s many ties to the city. The Pittsburgh team feels so at home in Madison Square Garden that it goes through home-game rituals when it plays here.

By knocking the Cardinals out of the Big East tournament for the third consecutive year, Pittsburgh showed Louisville, a relatively new Big East team, that it has a long way to go before it will be annexed by New York City.

That theme of course meant that the “relatively new Big East team” has media that hasn’t overused and abused those Pitt puns yet.

The Big East Tournament always ends in the pits for the University of Louisville men’s basketball team.

Pittsburgh, that is.

That’s a rib-splitter.

God, love the NYC media. They have no problems taking shots at Pitino.

Afterward, Pitino bristled when asked if he’s concerned about his two-game losing streak.

“Obviously, you don’t know basketball very well,” he told a reporter. “Because if you think it’s bad to lose to Georgetown at Georgetown and a hard-fought game to Pittsburgh in overtime, you don’t follow basketball very much. … If that’s a concern for you, it’s not a concern for me. You worry about it – I won’t. Go home and lose a lot of sleep over it. Promise?”

A bit sensitive, don’t you think?

It was nice, though, to read about some other local media complaining about guard play.

“I thought our frontcourt played well,” Pitino said. “Then they started taking away our frontcourt, and we threw it out and had difficulty scoring from that point on. Generally we don’t.”

Generally, Pitino has enough guys to throw out there that somebody will be on. One night Andre McGee, another Jerry Smith, maybe Edgar Sosa. Or maybe Terrence Williams will have a good perimeter night.

Last night nobody did. Sosa made ill-advised drives into traffic. Williams tried runners and leaners and bangers on his way to 2-for-10 shooting. After two particularly bad shots on back-to-back possessions in overtime allowed Pitt to get some distance, Pitino had seen enough and pulled Williams.

U of L doesn’t have a single perimeter threat who is a lock to deliver night after night. It relies a lot on hope — the hope that somebody in the crowd will be on.

Wait. You mean having superior athletes and height doesn’t guarantee consistency and reliability? Upside and potential is one thing, delivering on it is something else. Really, that’s been the hardest thing for Louisville fans. Outside of Padgett and maybe Palacios, the Cardinal players have been very inconsistent in effort and output for a couple years.

There’s stories with love for the young players.

This has to be at the top of that list: Freshmen DeJuan Blair and Gilbert Brown played under the Madison Square Garden lights — the brightest in college basketball — as if they’ve been doing it all their lives.

Freshmen? No way.

“What have we played? 33 games? We’re not freshmen anymore,” Blair said outside the happy Panthers’ locker room.

“We’re sophomores now … no, we’re froshmores.”

Whatever.

What they were for Pitt last night was terrific.

…

Which is what the kid does all the time when he’s ballin’, by the way. You would smile a lot, too, if you had his ability.

By the way, seeing Ron Cook use “ballin’ ” in a column was incredibly awkward to read. Visualizing the hefty, bearded, 50-something Cook saying anything like that inspired a slight giggle fit.

DeJuan Blair, especially had a solid bounce back performance after what happened the night before with Cinci.

“I had to keep my head up,” Blair said. “I had a tough game (Wednesday), but it was over. I had to worry about (Thursday).”

Pitt coach Jamie Dixon boldly predicted that Blair would have a big game Thursday, despite evidence that Blair’s production has been slipping other than a 22-point effort against DePaul and despite the opponent having Padgett and Derrick Caracter, two formidable post players.

Maybe it was motivation. Maybe it was complete faith. But Dixon saw his young star fulfill his responsibilities, set aside his previous faults and prove fatigue wasn’t the reason for his poor play Wednesday.

Dixon, though, had this warning for Blair after Thursday’s game: “He’s got in some foul trouble and he’s got double-teamed. There’s some things he’s going to get used to, and it’s happening more and more the better and better he gets.”

In other words, coach said there would be days like this. The key is how you overcome them and respond.

Dixon deserves a lot of credit for the way he managed the team in the Louisville game. From the way he carefully put Benjamin and Fields in the 1st half after both had 2 fouls very early. Then there was sticking with Gilbert Brown in the second half over Brown even in the OT. Starkey gives Dixon the love.

Dixon, who is 4-2 against Pitino, said he made several defensive adjustments from the first matchup. One was obvious: He ordered fast and aggressive double teams on Padgett, usually with Sam Young joining Blair.

Dixon also played on his players’ pride. He drilled into them how badly they’d been cut up in the first game against Louisville.

Last night, as he sat at the post-game podium with Blair, Ronald Ramon and Young – Dixon said, “We held them to 37 percent (shooting).” He then turned to his players and said, “What did they shoot last time, guys?”

Blair laughed and said, “57 percent.”

Levance Fields got lots of love from Digger Phelps on ESPN after the game, and got some in the rest of the media as well.

But it was neither. Panthers coach Jamie Dixon saw the change in his team a week ago, when junior point guard Levance Fields returned to practice. He’d missed 14 games with a broken foot, and it was only after Pitt’s regular-season finale that Fields could participate fully in workouts.

“I don’t think anybody really knew what to make of us, because of all the injuries,” said Dixon, who lost senior Mike Cook and freshman Austin Wallace to season-ending injuries before the new year began. “We’re finding ourselves.”

Fields especially. He picked up two fouls in the first 6:37 last night and missed most of the first half, leaving senior Ronald Ramon to try to break Louisville’s difficult full-court press. Fields contributions were varied: Six assists to just one turnover and 6-of-6 free throws in overtime, during which the Panthers (24-9) made all 10 of their foul shots.

Mike DeCourcy isn’t sold on Pitt getting too deep in the NCAA Tournament, but he likes the difference in the team with Fields healthy.

They will not get back small forward Mike Cook, who injured his knee at Madison Square Garden back in December. So they’ll never be quite the same. But Thursday night, in a 76-69 Big East quarterfinal victory over Louisville, they again began to play like Pitt.

That’s because the Panthers got back point guard Levance Fields. He had appeared in eight other games since returning from a 13-game absence because of a foot injury, and he’d produced some OK numbers, but his performance against the Cardinals served as a confirmation that he still could grab a basketball game by the collar and refuse to let go.

In a Big East notebook from the Hartford Courant, the focus was on Pitt and what they have done (and haven’t).

Howland put the program on the national scene, but he could never get past the Sweet 16 and neither has Dixon. He has taken Pitt there twice.

And that’s not enough for some Pittsburgh faithful who think it’s time for the Panthers to go further.

“You see people around the city and even before the season starts they’re saying, ‘Good luck,'” said junior Sam Young, who had game highs of 21 points and 12 boards. “Then they say, ‘But you guys better get further than the Sweet 16.’ It’s amazing. I’m like, ‘Can we start the season first and qualify for the tournament before we start talking about that?'”

Well, we can start talking about it now because the Panthers have qualified. And Pitt’s chances of going further appear to be pretty good. Why?

Because the Panthers are as healthy as they’ve been all season.

Everyone is familiar with the Panthers’ injury situation early on. At one point, they didn’t have enough players for a full scrimmage. No one expected them to get this far in the conference tournament, let alone do any damage in the NCAAs.

The column then leaps into message board speculation that Coach Dixon could be hired away by another program — USC or Indiana. Then he says he doubts it.

That’s it for the recap. Next up is Marquette. Our friends at Cracked Sidewalks are wondering (hoping?) if Pitt will be tired from an OT game. I would be worried normally, given Pitt’s up-and-down performance in games a couple days after another. What Pitt did last night, makes me a little less concerned.

It’s a good thing Syracuse Coach Jim Boeheim doesn’t give in to hyperbole or anything. Starting in upstate NY, there was an admission that Pitt never quit — and it was impressive.

What Brown did Sunday was drain two 3-pointers in the final three minutes of the game to thrust a dagger deep into the pulsing postseason hearts of the Orange men.

Brown was hardly alone in providing the Pitt heroics.

His teammates poked away balls from Syracuse dribblers or clamped them in a trap. Levance Fields sank eight free throws in the final 3 minutes and 30 seconds. Pittsburgh smothered Syracuse shooters and forced SU to seek supporting Orange men to make plays.

And suddenly, a Pittsburgh team that trailed by 11 with 3:49 left in the game, had beaten the Orange 82-77 in a breathless, bewildering final few minutes.

Jim Boeheim was a moody fella after the game. He took 30 minutes after the game before showing up for a press conference. At that point he spoke for all of 98 seconds and walked away.

“It’s the most disappointing game I’ve ever been involved with. To play that well — we really haven’t played well in a long time — and to play that well against a very good defensive team was a tremendous accomplishment,” Boeheim said.

“But the entire game we kept turning it over and at the end when we had the lead and just had to take care of the basketball we made three just unbelievable turnovers and that’s the game. There’s nothing more to say.”

There was more. He did not mention getting a technical foul which made it a two possession game after Fields sank those FTs along with the two he sank after grabbing the missed shot. You know, doing his part to kill any chances. He also put the blame on his players and their “youth.”

Young guys are going to make mistakes. They knew we had timeouts. Donte Greene didn’t call it when he threw the ball to Ramon. He had timeouts and plenty of time to make the call.

As the Syracuse blogger noted, it’s not like Boeheim was prohibited from calling the timeout. Is he saying he didn’t recognize his team was in trouble there?

The coach wasn’t willing to take any blame or talk, but a sophomore stood up for the Orange. Paul Harris has always been a guy willing to take the blame when his team doesn’t do well, and this was no exception.

“No, I wasn’t fouled,” said Harris, certainly one of the straightest talking players you’ll ever run into. “I take the blame. I’m not going to blame anyone else. I panicked.”

Damn shame the kid picked Syracuse over Pitt. His friend and point guard for the Orange was rather candid about how hard this loss was for the team.

“This is going to be a hard one to get over,” said Syracuse guard Jonny Flynn, who tied his career-high with 28 points. “I’m not going to say we can get over this one right when we leave the locker room. This is a game that we had. We had this game won.”

The Orange had the game won because of Flynn’s 28 points and six 3-pointers. Because of Harris’ 18 points and six steals. Because of Greene’s slump-breaking 23 points on 10-for-18 shooting.

Instead, the final 3 minutes and 30 seconds will go down in Syracuse lore along with Vermont, Richmond and “Manley Field House is officially closed.”

That’s some great company in the annals of painful Syracuse losses. Pitt has now beaten Syracuse 4 straight times at the Carrier Dome. The only other team to do that was Villanova from the 89-90 season through the 92-93 season (PDF).
The box score is something. Outside of Green, Flynn and Harris the rest of the Orange took 6 shots for 8 points — Onuaku had 5 of the shots and 7 of the points.

Pitt had 5 players score in double digits — Young (19), Benjamin (17), Fields (13), Ramon (12) and Brown (12) — plus Blair had 8 points.

The Pitt players don’t deny being a bit stunned that they pulled it off.

“That’s probably the best comeback I’ve ever been involved in,” Young said. “We were down 11 with three minutes on the clock. That’s incredible. It shows the confidence we have in each other. Coach says to play all 40 minutes, and we did.”

…

“I don’t think we did everything right for 40 minutes, but we did for the last three minutes,” Dixon said. “We seemed to do exactly what we wanted to do.”

Coach Dixon didn’t even pretend that he expected the Pitt comeback.

Pitt coach Jamie Dixon called it perhaps the “most unconventional or most unforeseeable” victory he’s ever witnessed.

“There haven’t been many endings like that,” Dixon said.

Ron Cook lauds this Pitt team for still winning games despite all of the injuries.

“Coach Boeheim was telling me he’s never had a season like this in his 32 years because of their injuries,” Dixon said. “But we’ve had twice as many guys hurt. We’ve had four [including reserves Austin Wallace and Cassin Diggs]. And the list of injuries we have that guys are playing with is endless.”

Dixon said Keith Benjamin wouldn’t be playing with an infected finger if Pitt’s bench wasn’t so short. He also said Brown and Ronald Ramon probably are looking at shoulder surgery after the season. He didn’t even mention Blair, who has a bad shoulder and a bad knee.

“Coach Dixon told us that other coaches told him he should just pack it in this season and think about trying to get ready for next year after Mike and Levance went down,” Benjamin said. “But he and our other coaches never stopped believing in us. The guys in our locker room never stopped believing …”

And then when they lose, we question their heart and toughness.

Bradley Wanamaker has taken a lot of criticism in his limited minutes. I suppose it’s because there were more expectations for him.

Q: I have been very disappointed in the play of Brad Wanamaker thus far. I thought he was a heralded point guard. I find his play to be quite sloppy and his shooting to be atrocious, especially at the foul line. He has shown minimal improvement. For next year, how do the incoming guards look to back up Levance, and who would be the shooting guard?

FITTIPALDO: Wanamaker was a shooting guard in high school. Pitt coach Jamie Dixon tried to make him into a point guard in the early part of the season, but Wanamaker struggled and that experiment was aborted.

If Wanamaker finds a niche at Pitt, it will be at shooting guard. Wanamaker and incoming freshman Nasir Robinson (Chester, Pa.) will likely battle for the starting job at shooting guard next season. Another incoming freshman, Travon Woodall (St. Anthony’s, N.J.), is likely the backup point guard.

Sometimes, the light goes on later rather than sooner for players. Wanamaker has struggled this season, but he came to Pitt as a top 100 player. I’m sure the coaching staff is hoping that his freshman year is an aberration because the Panthers have a big hole to fill at shooting guard next season with the departure of Keith Benjamin and Ronald Ramon.

First impressions last. I’ve mentioned the Antonio Graves comparisons. Not in terms of talent. I’m talking about development and I might as well throw in perception. Some never forgot Graves as a raw, nervous freshman forced to play because of no depth at the guard spots. Wanamaker will be up against that as well.

I did expect more from him, but I also see flashes and hints of what could be. It’s just not going to be this year.

Of course, he is going to face competition from Nasir Robinson who gets the usual positive reviews that include “tough” and/or “gritty” every time he competes in something. This from the “Primetime Shootout” in Philly.

Nasir Robinson is headed to Pittsburgh next year to play for Jamie Dixon. Nasir has a motor that never stops. He plays hard every time he hits the floor and is an undersized combo forward. Nasir brings that Philly toughness to the floor every night. He dominates on the inside grabbing up everything around the rim. Nasir has a nice feel for the game not only does he play strong on the inside, he sees the floor and makes the big play when needed.

Eric Hall at the Beaver County Times hits a rare daily double with two pieces in a week that state the obvious, even if the answer isn’t: Pitt needs to make free throws and shoot better. Throw in Ron Cook’s piece about Pitt needing to score more points, along with the shooting slump story. The problem is, that there isn’t a good answer. I’m reasonably certain that the coaches and players are aware of the issue, and would like to provide a solution.

Think Pitt and Coach Dixon will get to escape silly coaching carousel speculation this year? Think again.

No more John Brady at LSU means LSU needs a new coach, and the first place the school will look is Southern California’s Tim Floyd. It’s no secret LSU has always been Floyd’s dream job because he’s from the area. But living in Los Angeles — and coaching in the new Galen Center — is kinda dreamy too, and the early word out of Baton Rouge is the school might not be willing to pay the type of money it would take to lure Floyd from the sweet situation he’s enjoying.

If LSU won’t pay, Floyd probably won’t move — in which case some obvious targets are Virginia Commonwealth’s Anthony Grant, Ole Miss’ Andy Kennedy and Washington State’s Tony Bennett. But for the sake of argument, let’s pretend Floyd does move to LSU because that’s when things could get really silly.

Would Pittsburgh’s Jamie Dixon then take the Southern California job?

(Perhaps. But I’m not sure he’d want to battle UCLA’s Ben Howland).

Would Xavier’s Sean Miller then move to Pittsburgh?

(Definitely. He would move to Pitt in like 1.2 seconds)

So yeah, the speculation is endless and head-spinning and tiresome.

Sigh.

Things that I just haven’t gotten around to linking or posting.

Bruce Feldman at ESPN.com lists 10 teams he expects to take a big step forward in wins.

2: Pittsburgh

All hail the ‘stache! The Panthers emerged from a four-game losing skid to upset No. 23 Cincinnati and finished off the season by wrecking the title hopes of West Virginia in Morgantown. Pitt will return many of the leaders of the nation’s No. 7 defense as well as one of the country’s top young running backs in LeSean McCoy. They also hope to get back smooth WR Derek Kinder, an All-Big East pick in 2006, who underwent season-ending knee surgery during training camp. QB Bill Stull, another former starter, also will return from injury, and he will try and beat out Pat Bostick, the talented true freshman who finished the season as Pitt’s starter. DT Gus Mustakas, a rugged inside presence, missed the final 10 games of the season after knee surgery and also should be back, as will tackle machine Scott McKillop. I think the Panthers’ patience with Dave Wannstedt will pay off with a return to the Top 25 next season and maybe even a Big East title.

A few individual honors. The Eastern College Athletic Conference (ECAC) — which is essentially the Eastern schools from UConn, BC, Syracuse, PSU, UVa, WVU and such — named LeSean McCoy the rookie of the year (PDF). In addition to McCoy also being named to the all-star team, Jeff Otah, Greg Romeus and Scott McKillop were also named to the squad.

Romeus and McCoy were also honored by being named to the Football Writers Association of America All-Freshman team.

A couple days ago, I noticed a slew of hits from a premium WVU message board. Oddly enough, they concerned a post that had nothing to do with them and was 18 months ago. The issue was Charlie Taaffee who served as a Pitt assistant in 2006. Taaffe left to go back to being a head coach in the CFL. He had a disasterous first year back, but there was nothing to suggest he was leaving. He had even hired some new assistants.

Turns out he was big in the rumor mill to be hired as offensive coordinator at WVU. Those reports later turned out to be false and recanted.

Therefore, if the reports are credible, recently fired O-line Coach Paul Dunn is now a candidate for the job in Morgantown.

I have a bunch of links that I meant to post before the Cinci-Pitt game. Just going to clear them out now.

How about an article on how Cinci wanted to cut down on the number of penalties they commit? Whoops.

Puff pieces on LeSean McCoy and Jeff Otah.

Pitt didn’t sell all of their allotment of WVU tickets for the 100th Backyard Brawl.

Paul Zeise has done a good job with his daily Q&As. Actually enjoy them more than the chats, where he seems more guarded and defensive since he has to respond immediately.

Panther_Rants: If, as some people have insinuated, there are coaching changes at the end of the season, who do you expect will go? Rhoades? Cavanaugh? Dunn?

Paul Zeise: No offense, but I’d rather not get into that. I think we all know where the deficiencies are on this team and there is no need to rehash it every Thursday.

…

ilivedinmemphis: Why are you always so negative?

Paul Zeise: Negative? If you listen to the fans of your rivals I am a homer! And explain to me how you write about a team that has lost nine of ten games versus I-A opponents, who consistently has gotten beaten around by any team with a pulse, who gets blown out at home by Connecticut and then loses at home – and looks completely overmatched in doing so — to Navy — and be flowery and positive all the time?

ilivedinmemphis: Can’t you say something positive?

Paul Zeise: Conor Lee kicks the ball real good.

ilivedinmemphis: Why do you never quote recruiting analysts or national broadcasters in your stories?

Paul Zeise: Because recruiting “experts” are usually self appointed and what, other than perhaps recommendations on where to get good hair spray, do national broadcasters have to say that I couldn’t get out of some former coaches or players in the area who might actually have a clue as to the subject matter with which I am writing about? I think the practice of quoting people just to quote them is bad journalism.

Like I said, I generally enjoy the Q&As more. There are more things that slip in there.

Q: I know Pitt has a lot of young players, but are the Panthers just falling apart? Do you think the coaching staff should just write off the season and play as many freshmen and sophomores to get the team ready for next season?

ZEISE: I’d say by the looks of it that yes, the Panthers are falling apart. They have lost four in a row and with consecutive games against Cincinnati and Louisville coming up, it’s probable that the losing streak will grow to six. But this is college football and a lot can happen in a short period of time and teams are quickly able to change the direction of their season, for the good or the bad. If Pitt could beat Cincinnati this week, perhaps they gain some confidence and it grows and they finish strong (strong being 3-3 with three close losses over the next six). It doesn’t look likely, but it could happen. Which brings me to the second point, Pitt needs to put the best 22 players on the field regardless of their class, their age or their experience. The 22 guys who best give the team a chance to win a football game THIS YEAR because that’s really what the focus should be.

[Emphasis added.]

That actually seemed to happen in the Cinci game. Pitt played the best players, not the most experienced.

This one had the issue of a teeth-grinding cliche.

Q: Dave Wannstedt stated that he has a young team that is a “year away” from really competing. Do you really think a team that is a “year away” would be struggling this much? The last time I checked teams that were a “year away” could win seven games and get to a bowl. See Cincinnati (2006) and Rutgers (2005).

ZEISE: Of all the things coaches say, the one that usually makes me cringe the most is “we are a young team”. That is usually code for “we aren’t winning and we want you to give us more time to figure it out.” Teams with young players have found ways to win games in the past, so the excuse is used too often as a reason things aren’t going well. While I understand if you are young in certain areas – like the line on both sides of the ball – it is indeed tough to overcome, but there is never any excuse to lose on your home field to Navy, or get blown out by the likes of Connecticut or Virginia…

He then backtracks a bit in the case of Pitt because of injuries.

Of course, then Zeise could be accused of a little bit of bias in this response.

Q: At some point in the not so distant future, the Big East is going to have to make a change and add a team. Either that or some essential Big East team will escape to the Big Ten. Besides the unlikely possibility of adding Notre Dame to the football line-up, what are some other likely cases? What might be the best situation for Pitt football? I suppose this is something the new athletic director might have to think about during his tenure.
Zeise: The Big East had a built-in answer to its scheduling problems — Temple — and chose to throw it away because of some pettiness. Had they kept Temple — and really should have once it was clear it was going to have to lose itself — it would have a ninth football team, in a large market that makes sense geographically and every team could have four home and four away games every year and there’d be no talk of adding teams. And the beauty of it was Temple is already in a conference for its other sports, so you wouldn’t have had to go to 17 teams in basketball. As it is, finding another team willing to accept football membership only will be next to impossible so the Big East will continue to be a league that is rumored to be in transition because of the scheduling problems its current make-up presents.

Zeise got his Masters at Temple. He is ignoring a lot of reality here. The long-term is that the Big East will split. When has become a little more nebulous but it will still happen. The last thing the football conference wanted was having to deal with Temple. The program is a drag on finances (sharing bowl money) and academic standings (they are struggling badly to make the APR). There is the lack of fan support. The administration has never made any effort to really bring them up to modern standards or put money into them. Major media market or not, they aren’t a factor in football there.

Anyone remember when plenty of programs dreamed of luring Wannstedt back to college?

Coach on the outbound train: Pittsburgh’s Dave Wannstedt. He’s gone from NFL coach to being offered $20 million in 2001 to coach the Hurricanes, to getting fired by the Dolphins and going home to Pitt. Now, his team (2-4) has lost four straight, including 34-14 to Connecticut and 44-14 to Virginia. Cincinnati, Rutgers, South Florida and West Virginia are left on the schedule. When Wannstedt got the Pitt job, an NFL coach said he’d turn it into Rutgers, pre-2005.

I thought the rumored quote used Temple, not Rutgers.

Too tired, too limited in time, too pissed and too frustrated to do much right now.

Here are the links for the day.

A couple stories in notebooks on honoring Dorsett, Martin and Starbauch from the Trib. and P-G.

Zeise at the P-G’s story (boy, you think his chat today will be fun or what?).

The Panthers’ defense began the second half reeling again but the Midshipmen made their first mistake of the game on the opening drive of the second half and it turned out to be a crucial one. Navy appeared to have converted a first down on a 2nd-and-6 run but was penalized for holding, pushing the ball back ten yards and putting the Midshipmen in 2nd-and-15.

That was a big break for Pitt because, the triple-option offense is not designed to convert long down-and-distances and sure enough, the Panthers held and forced the Midshipmen to punt for the first time.

Pitt then took its first lead of the game –and its first lead since the second game of the season in a win over Grambling –when McCoy capped a seven-play, 54-yard drive with a 2-yard touchdown run.

Since Grambling? I really didn’t need to know that.

Kevin Gorman at the Trib. Reads like a straight recap of the scoring which isn’t too shocking considering when this game ended and the story needed to be filed.

The good in the game was QB Pat Bostick and the offense getting a boost of confidence. The great, LeSean McCoy.

On a night when Tony Dorsett was an honorary captain for the Pitt football team, the Panthers’ latest fantastic freshman tailback, LeSean McCoy, stirred memories of the former Heisman Trophy winner.

McCoy ran for 32 times for 165 yards and three scores, but it wasn’t enough as Navy pulled out a stunning 48-45 double-overtime win Wednesday night at Heinz Field.

McCoy has nine rushing touchdowns this season, which is three shy of Dorsett’s freshman mark set in 1973.

The disaster, of course, the defense.

Pitt had 10 days to prepare for Navy, 10 days to decipher an offense that’s so darned unpredictable that it runs the ball 84 percent of the time, 10 days to ponder the implications of two Navy slotbacks whose combined weight does not equal that of starting Pitt tackle Jeff Otah.

Swear to God.

So it took only two hours after the opening kickoff last night for the Panthers’ “defense” to accomplish what could definitely be called a stop of the Midshipmen, aided though it was by an offensive holding penalty. For the record, it was Joe Clermond, the senior defensive end, who sacked Navy quarterback Kaipo-Noa Kaheaku-Enhada, the Hurryin’ Hawaiian, on a third-and-10 from the Navy 27 on the first series of the second half.

10 days was the theme of the column.

Had it ended there, it would merely have been a disgraceful performance by Pitt’s defenders and, more pointedly, its defensive coaching staff. As it was, Navy put up another 17 points in a 48-45 double-overtime victory that was, from Pitt head coach Dave Wannstedt’s tortured perspective, well, indefensible.

“I was very confident,” Wannstedt said of Paul Rhoads’ defensive game plan. “We spent more than 10 actually, although it probably didn’t look like it. We spent time in the summer, talking to different people about [Navy’s] offense.”

The Middies’ crisp execution of the allegedly antiquated triple option makes for a nice nostalgic theme for press box antiquarians who might believe the game has long since become hopelessly over-coached, but this isn’t necessarily what the Panthers bargained for on a night soaked with nostalgia.

At least one columnist made mention of the DC being responsible for the defenses’ game plan. Collier’s column puts the blame on the defense as he notes so much attention will go to the OT playcalling on offense. The defense’s performance was indefensible.

It has to be pointed out, for example, that when Wannstedt and his staff have more than a week to prepare for an opponent, Pitt’s record is 2-8. In the same situation, by damning contrast, Navy coach Paul Johnson is 17-7 given the same advantage.

“We went for it on fourth down a lot more than I was comfortable with out there,” Wannstedt said, effectively illustrating the desperation Pitt brought to the field last night. “That was not normal football.”

No, not at all.

Normally, football teams with the size, speed and recruiting advantages Pitt holds over the Naval Academy cannot be outfoxed by an offense that hasn’t been operating at the elite levels of the sport in 20 years. They can sometimes be fooled by a play or an inspired series, but not for 45 minute and 32 seconds, which was Navy’s time of possession last night. The Panthers spent so much time chasing Kaheaku-Enhada, trying to pull down Navy’s bullish fullbacks, trying to spot its whippet slotbacks, that when slot back Reggi Campbell swept out of the backfield on a pass pattern toward the left flank of Pitt’s defense, veteran safety Mike Phillips just let go.

“Guy just ran right by him,” Wannstedt said. “He thought he was gonna block him.”

Starkey, by contrast did mention the defense sucking. Funny thing, however, no mention of the DC by name or direct blame.

The Midshipmen spent the rest of the first half torturing Pitt with its triple-option. Pitt’s defensive linemen wore shin guards in practice to prepare for Navy’s cut-blocking. Maybe they should have worn chest protectors, because Navy’s fullbacks spent the better part of the evening stomping over them for big gains.

Didn’t that fullback dive play show up on film study?

Navy quarterback Kaipo-Noa Kaheaku-Enhada (spell check just exploded) also had more yards passing in the first half (96) than he’d had totaled in three of his first five games.

Not that any of this was particularly surprising. The Panthers haven’t stopped an option attack of any kind in years.

I eagerly await the next defense of Paul Rhoads needing more time.

Baltimore Sun sportswriter blogs a bit about the game (and thanks for the link).

In the first OT, Pitt hammered out a touchdown and Navy answered with a single strike 25-yard pass from QB Kaipo-Noa Kaheaku-Enhada to Reggie Campbell. In the second OT, the Middies went on offense first and settled for a 29-yard field goal by Joey Bullen. Then, Pitt comes storming back. The Panthers had second-and-goal from the 3-yard line. Second down: running play for one yard. Third down: incomplete pass (illegal motion penalty declined). And with the game on the line, Wannstedt goes for the win on fourth down and the Panthers go incomplete on a jump ball in the right side of the end zone. In western Pennsylvania, they want to back up the truck and load up the whole coaching staff.

Yep. Pretty much.

Attendance was officially listed at a bit over 30,000. Looked like less on TV.

Well, I mowed the lawn, did grocery shopping, cleaned the garage up just a bit. Generally just wanted to put this off. I mean, what can be said? Pitt looked, played and was absolutely pathetic and incompetent. I only got about halfway through the Dave Wannstedt press conference on video before clicking it off in disgust. I don’t know what I was expecting him to say that would make me feel better about things, but that wasn’t it.

Oh, hell, let’s get to the Virginia side of this.

Fan and media dissatisfaction with Al Groh was rising after last season and the season opening loss to Wyoming really raised it. Now, UVa is 4-1 and the complaints are a little more muted. Yet, there is noting that the opposition hasn’t exactly made it difficult.

Pliable Pitt did its best to render those questions all but moot. So inept were the Panthers in the first half, the visitors gave away the ball as easily as they gave in to U.Va.’s offense.

Against Pitt, Jameel Sewell, who was so clueless against Wyoming, looked like a left-handed Vince Young, standing poised in the pocket and adroitly moving around rushers to carry the ball on foot.

It was the biggest crowd at Scott Stadium this season, but Shayne Hale and Cameron Saddler from Gateway didn’t make it to the game for their recruiting trip. Small comfort, since they Hale already had Pitt off his list. More useless information, this was the third straight game for Groh and Virginia against teams with former NFL HCs (Butch Davis — UNC and Chan Gailey — GT).

Virginia QB Jameel Sewell obviously looked good against Pitt. Imagine that, a mobile QB looking good against Pitt.

Aside from that fumbled punt return, Vic Hall for Virginia had a good night.

Virginia fans were able to return to their tailgates early and in a good mood last night.

A half-filled Scott Stadium with four minutes to play means one of two things.

The late-game reaction of Virginia’s players, some that coincided with handshakes, hugs and high-fives, proved the reasoning without forcing a fan to peek into the night toward the stadium’s scoreboard.

Of course, many of those seats were still vacant when Virginia raced out to an insurmountable lead during the first 14 minutes of the game.

The quick start – Virginia scored 27 in the first quarter – coupled with a fourth-quarter resurgence, lifted the Cavaliers to an expected win over Pittsburgh by an improbable margin, 44-14, in front of a season-best crowd of 60,888.

…

“They were ready to jump in with both feet. This isn’t a stick-your-toe-in-the-water team,” Virginia coach Al Groh said. “They were very ready to go tonight.”

The game was over quickly, even to Virginia fans.

Here’s how bad it is for Pitt, the game isn’t being taken for a deep meaning in Virginia.

Sometimes you don’t ask questions or explore too deeply. You simply take what the football gods and a generous opponent provide and say, “Gracias.”

Virginia had one of those nights. How else to explain a game in which the Cavaliers essentially delivered the knockout blow before the first north end zone, hillside human tumbleweed.

To be sure, there were a few anxious moments in the second half of the Cavaliers’ 44-14 victory against Pittsburgh. After all, this is Virginia we’re talking about, not Southern Cal or LSU.

And U.Va. coach Al Groh’s decision to execute a fake field goal for a touchdown with less than six minutes remaining in a 23-point game sure didn’t appear professionally courteous, especially for a couple of ex-NFL paisans. But we’ll leave that for Chairman Al and Pitt coach Dave Wannstedt to hash out behind the snack bar.

You know what, I don’t care about that. It may have been a bit bush, but so what? It was up to Pitt to stop them.

Moving to the Pittsburgh media, with the Steelers playing in Arizona, the columnists won’t be getting to this until maybe Wednesday. That’s okay, the beat writers jumped in for the deserved criticism of this team.

When Pitt hired coach Dave Wannstedt after the 2004 season, he promised to take the Panthers back to the Johnny Majors Era. So far, it looks as if he has delivered on that promise.

The only problem is these Panthers are starting to look a lot more like the 1990’s version during Majors’ second stint as Pitt’s head coach than the team that won the national championship in 1976.

That’s not a good thing as that second Majors stint marked one of the darkest periods in the university’s 117-year football history.

Yet for the second consecutive game, the Panthers (2-3) did their best imitation of those dead-teams walking…

Hard to really disagree.

Gorman went with the white flag from the opening play position.

Just when its 20-point loss to visiting Connecticut last week appeared to be a low for the Pitt football program, the Panthers (2-3) plummeted even further with its third consecutive loss and second in embarrassing fashion.

“The way we played does not mesh with how I feel, but I don’t believe we’re as bad a football team as what we’ve showed in the last two weeks,” Wannstedt said. “But – and that’s a big but – we are where we are right now. We haven’t given ourselves a chance, in my opinion, to show what type of team we are or what type of team we can be.

“I have been on one-win teams in college and the National Football League. I have been on undefeated teams in college and Super Bowl teams. We are doing everything in practice and preparation that championship teams do. Our kids are working as hard as any team I’ve been on.”

Well, then it is on the coaches.

This one wasn’t about being overmatched. Pitt was simply sloppy, committing costly turnovers and 11 penalties for 139 yards, which has become a recurring theme this year.

Worse, the Cavaliers (4-1) came in allowing more points (19.8) than they were scoring (19.2), but managed to score four touchdowns in the first 21:08 on drives consisting of only 39, 51 and 26 yards.

That rendered the debut of quarterback Pat Bostick and tailback LeSean McCoy in same starting backfield essentially meaningless. Virginia led 27-0 before Bostick, making his first career start, even attempted his first pass.

Gorman has some more stuff on his blog.

“They were executing. That was what they were doing all game. All the credit goes to them. They picked us apart,” McKillop said. “On our end, we’ve got to step up. When we go to the sideline, we’ve got to listen to coach Rhoads’ adjustments and we’ve got to go out there and apply them to the field.”

It’s not that Pitt has a poor game plan, just that the Panthers aren’t executing. At this point, the Panthers coaches ought to distance themselves from the word, especially with talk of putting them on the firing line.

Wait, someone is claiming that Rhoads understands the concept of adjustments?

And, based on McKillop’s comments, it already sounds like the Panthers are tuning out their coaches. Or, at least, they are starting to wonder if this season is a lost cause.

“There’s definitely going to be some doubt with our team, but the most important is we have leaders on our team who are going to have to step up and not have separation on our team, people forming groups and having a mutiny against everybody,” McKillop said. “We’ve got to stick together as a team. Everyone’s got to come in and push through this adversity.

“Right now, there’s been no finger-pointing with this team. We’re sticking together. Coach Wannstedt is preaching what he’s always preaching: ‘Trust. Accountability. Desire.’ We’re sticking to that.”

Well the players may be wondering. The fans pretty much have accepted this has become a lost season.

The Dave Wannstedt Press Conference today, in anticipation of the Virginia game should be an interesting affair. Today’s media discussion seems to be centered on the multitude of problems for Pitt. Not to mention waning media backing of Wannstedt. If you lived in Miami or Chicago, you will recognize this as the second sign of trouble for Wannstedt.

The first line of this article, however, gets to the bottom line.

The list of embarrassing losses continues to grow, while the number of wins over quality teams remains at zero.

Good god, who would have believed Syracuse and Greg Robinson would do it first?

Joe Starkey lists some of the good and much of the bad from what he saw of the game on Saturday.

But if you hold Long even partially accountable for Pitt’s precipitous drop in football, remember that chancellor Mark Nordenberg and executive vice chancellor Jerry Cochran pull the athletic department strings and had a heavy hand in hiring Wannstedt.

I still say Wannstedt deserves 2008 to prove himself — and I saw some positive signs from Bostick — but Nordenberg and Cochran might want to compile a list of coaching candidates not named Charlie Weis, just in case.

And the current coaches might want to keep their best player on the field.

Zeise focuses on the problems on offense.

• The offensive line.
• The wide receivers.
• Eliminating mistakes.
• Establishing an identity.

Through four games, the offensive line has yet to play well. It has been consistent at three things — missed blocking assignments, untimely penalties and failure to create openings for the Panthers’ running game.

…

The wide receiver corps has underachieved badly. The unit was supposed to be a strength and was supposed to help carry the young quarterbacks through the early part of the season. Sophomore Oderick Turner was being counted on as the group’s leader, but he has dropped a number of key passes and against Connecticut had several ill-timed, pre-snap penalties that killed what seemed to be a promising drive.

Pitt is also mistake-prone. It had six turnovers and eight penalties against Connecticut. The week before, in a 17-13 loss to Michigan State, it had 10 penalties and turned the ball over three times. Overall, the Panthers are a minus-9 in the turnover margin and 34 of the 51 points they have allowed are a direct result of turnovers, including 14 points on two interceptions that have been returned for touchdowns.

…

As for the identity problem, Pitt coaches have talked about playing conservative because of the quarterback situation and have wanted to build around a solid ground game. The Panthers have a talented back in freshman LeSean McCoy, but he did not start the Connecticut game and carried only 11 times. Still, he was productive, rushing for 70 yards and a touchdown.

So far, McCoy has 65 carries for 417 yards (6.4 yards per carry) and five touchdowns.

He split time with LaRod Stephens-Howling against Connecticut and Wannstedt said the reason was because both players are productive and deserve to play. However, Stephens-Howling has 99 yards on 25 carries, an average of 2.5 yards per carry less than McCoy.

Working backwards. LaRod Stephens-Howling is a good back, but he needs an opening. A hole. Something from the O-line to get yardage. McCoy is special. He can and has been doing it with minimal help from the O-line. I don’t think that Stephens-Howling can get much playing time while the O-line continues to be no better than cardboard cutouts.

Mistakes and turnovers. The former is on the coaching. Steadily increasing it seems, suggesting it can’t just be on “youth.” Especially considering who the players are that are making the mistakes and penalties.

Wide receivers is showing that while the talent is there, the loss of Kinder is hitting harder than believed. The lack of maturity and discipline at the spot is glaring. Kinder was a team leader and one of the hardest working players. The guys there right now are relying on their talent and not much else.

The O-line deserves its own post and they have been discussed many, many times.

A bit of an interesting split from Kevin Gorman. His standard news piece focuses on Bostick being the starting QB — and off-limits for interviews — overall a rather soft piece. His blog post, was a long and far more critical of what is happening with Pitt.

In his third season, Wannstedt is still looking for his first signature victory. Pitt players bit their lips Saturday night when asked if they were getting frustrated.

“It’s not really getting frustrating,” middle linebacker Scott McKillop said. “That’s one of the three key words Coach Wannstedt is stressing: Trust. We’ve got to trust that our offense is going to go out there and play well and do their job. They’re not performing as well as they should, but we have faith in them that they’re going to turn around. We’ve got to keep having faith and trust them.”

Sophomore tight end Nate Byham went so far as to defend the coaching staff without anyone asking him about Wannstedt or offensive coordinator Matt Cavanaugh.

“I think we’re pretty productive when we get the ball in our hands, but I also believe coach Cav calls the plays and he knows what he’s doing. He’s not the coach for no reason. He knows what he’s calling,” Byham said. “Coach Wannstedt knows what he’s doing, for all the people who are doubting my coaches, I don’t know what to say to you guys. I have a lot of faith in my coaches. My coaches are great guys. The game is over. We’re going to start game-planning for Virginia, start practicing for Virginia.”

Byham did admit to being frustrated, though, that Pitt can’t seem to get its offense, defense and special teams to perform on the same page – which is a direct reflection on the coaching staff.

“It’s very frustrating, actually,” Byham said. “It’s frustrating for all three phases. Last week, our defense played great. This week, there were plays where we were driving and our defense was stopping them. In the second half, they were stopping them and we couldn’t do anything.”

Byham is one of the guys Wannstedt recruited. This isn’t about whatever remaining holdovers from Walt Harris’ time getting disgruntled. It’s becoming a teamwide issue.

It’s hard not to write this season off on so many levels.

You know what makes this game so truly humiliating? (Well, lots of things but this really sticks out for me.) UConn only bothered to play offense for the first half. They rolled up 234 first half yards and ended the game with 289. Once again, the defense couldn’t actually get off the field as UConn was 5-9 on 3d down conversions in the first half. Don’t look at the total stats, they are very deceptive for this game.

UConn could essentially just sit on the ball the entire second half. During halftime, my friends and I discussed the likelihood of a comeback. Sure it was 27-7, but there was another half. Then, I asked a question, “Has Pitt comeback from any game in the second half under Wannstedt?”

…

“No.”

That was deflating and took a lot what little hope we had and crushed it under the heel of reality.

Even LeSean McCoy was limited by the coaches (not playing him much) and by an O-line that can’t block or do much that is good. McCoy had 70 yards on 11 carries, but 43 of the yards came on 2 carries. The other 9 carries went for 37 yards.

Moving on to media recap.

Coach Wannstedt put this loss on everyone.

The Panthers lost, 34-14, to the Connecticut Huskies last night before 40,145 at Heinz Field in one of the low points of the Dave Wannstedt era.

Pitt had six turnovers that contributed to 17 Connecticut points, was penalized eight times for 57 yards, converted 4 of 17 times on third down and allowed three sacks. It was exactly the kind of performance the Panthers (2-2, 0-1) could not afford in their Big East Conference opener. After the game, Wannstedt apologized for the way the team played.

“Speaking from my heart, I take full responsibility for that disappointing game,” Wannstedt said. “The fans came out and it was disappointing that we could not muster up a more effective attack. We have to be accountable for that and it starts with me.

“We started off with a couple of foolish penalties, we were late getting plays into the huddle, some formations were not what they should have been and then we turn the ball over a couple of times. I mean, with six turnovers, we’re lucky this thing wasn’t 60 instead of 34.”

1/3 of the way through the season and this team still has no clue and neither do the coaches.

Kevan Smith showed that it was the Grambling game that was the aberration not the Michigan State game with absolutely no clue or confidence as a QB. I believe his elbow problem is legit, though, I’m not sure if it happened in the game or if he was jumped on the sideline by teammates to force the change.

That led to the attempt in the local stories to try and find the silver lining because Pat Bostick showed at least signs of being able to throw the ball.

Pitt might have found a quarterback in true freshman Pat Bostick, who completed 27 of 41 passes for 230 yards in the second half, with a 21-yard touchdown pass to Oderick Turner. But Bostick threw three interceptions, including one that was returned 51 yards for a touchdown by linebacker Lawrence Wilson.

Wannstedt said Bostick will get the start next Saturday at Virginia.

Of course the O-line is a complete wreck. Again. Chris Vangas might as well hike the ball and curl into a ball. At least then, he might trip the defenders as they run straight up the middle. As it is now, they just go around him. Jason Pinkston is still out and Joe Thomas has looked clueless all season. McGlynn simply hasn’t been very good. Aside from Jeff Otah, there are no other bright spots on the line. The fact that no one behind them on the depth chart can or has moved up is probably more terrifying. It’s hard to imagine that the guys behind them are worse.

So how long Bostick lasts back there until he gets carted off is a legitimate question.

Bostick, who coach Dave Wannstedt announced as the starter at Virginia Saturday, completed 27 of 41 passes for 230 yards and a touchdown. Bostick did throw three interceptions, one which was returned for a touchdown, but appeared to grow more comfortable with each throw.

“Pat’s confidence, you could see it grow greatly,” tight end Nate Byham said. “I talked to him after the first two drives, I told him to calm his nerves a little bit, and he did and he started making great plays. That touchdown pass he threw was a great play, it reminded me of Tyler [Palko] last year.”

Hopefully he’s as durable as Palko. That Palko never got hurt playing behind the Pitt O-line is a true oddity.

As bad a loss this was for Pitt, it was big for UConn as they notched their second career Big East road win since becoming a full member in 2004. That year was also the last time they won a conference road game.

It was the first road victory in the Big East for UConn (4-0) since beating Rutgers on Thanksgiving 2004 and could be considered the biggest victory for the program since the victory over Toledo in the 2004 Motor City Bowl.

Yes, that’s right. One of their biggest wins. That theme got repeated in various Connecticut stories.

This was UConn’s most significant win since Dan Orlovsky’s last game against Toledo in the 2004 Motor City Bowl. Fittingly, the 27 points the Huskies ran up on Pitt in the first half are the most they have scored in a half since that game.

“As good a half since I’ve been here,” said coach Randy Edsall.

This win ranked among the handful of most important victories since UConn dared enter major college football. The shocker at Iowa State in 2002 … the only previous Big East road win, which came at Rutgers on Thanksgiving morning and led to a bowl berth … the Motor City bowl itself … that Big East win over the Panthers under the lights, on national TV, at Rentschler Field …

This one probably fits right in after those four. The Huskies are babies in terms of big-time football, but at the same time it had been 33 months since anybody could really go, “Wow, let’s sit up and take notice of them.”

“We walked in last Sunday and there was a sign in the training room that said we hadn’t won a road game since 2004,” quarterback Tyler Lorenzen said. “I went, `Wow, that’s a while ago.’ I was a freshman at Iowa State.”

The loss to UConn in 2004 helped chase Walt Harris out of Pitt, and this one is the kind that has got to make the seat of Wannstedt’s boxers hot, too. Including that double overtime win last year at Rentschler, UConn is 3-1 against the Panthers. The rest of the Big East has had UConn’s number, but, man, the Pitt administration must be shivering, wondering how Edsall has been able to exploit them.

Boos, mock cheers, emptied stadium. It was a horrible night for the home team at the confluence.

This kind of loss to this kind of team will have that effect on the home crowd.

It was the most lopsided UConn win in the Big East since beating Syracuse 26-7 in 2005.

This bit depressed the hell out me. It was probably the harshest write-up on the game regrading Pitt. It seems warranted.

It’s been a season-long slump for Pitt’s offense. Through three quarters against Connecticut, the Panthers made six first downs but they did convert a third-down attempt for the first time in 23 tries. That amazing streak of ineptitude stretches back to the second half of the Grambling State game.

“That’s horrible, horrible, horrible,” Wannstedt said. “We can’t win that way. You should be 40 or 50 percent. I think we were 0-for-21 before we converted one.”

The defense wasn’t much better.

Huskies quarterback Tyler Lorenzen looked like Pat White the way he ran through the Panthers. Take away sacks and Lorenzen had 50 yards rushing, most coming on third-and-longs that he turned into first downs. He also threw for 174 yards.

“Two scrambles killed us on third-and-long situations,” Wannstedt said.

The numbers weren’t staggering – Pitt actually outgained the Huskies, 349-289 – but Connecticut’s offensive effectiveness was impressive. Then again, any time an opponent uses the spread against Pitt, it works.

“I can’t understand it,” Wannstedt said. “We’re playing hard and banging around. We’re going to face it every week and face a lot more athletic guys.”

Gee, regardless of personnel or head coach, Pitt hasn’t handled the spread offense. What has been the consistent thing. Hmm. Let me think. Oh, yeah. That’s right, DC Paul Rhoads. Funny, no comments could be found from him after this performance.

Pitt helped Lorenzen look incredible in the first half. (Wonder if Rhoads will claim it just happened to be another career day for a UConn QB against Pitt.)

Lorenzen was 7-of-7 for 116 yards on those two drives as the Huskies took control with a 24-7 lead. They weren’t done, however. With less than a minute to go in the first half, Julius Williams sacked Smith and forced a fumble with Lawrence Wilson recovering at the Panthers’ 30-yard line. Ciaravino capped the spectacular first half with a 39-yard field goal for a 27-7 advantage as time expired.

Lorenzen’s numbers weren’t eye-opening, but he made all the plays he needed and managed the game almost flawlessly. He was 10-of-14 for 149 yards in the opening half.

In the second half, when UConn was just killing time, Lorenzen was only 2-11 for 29 yards.

Some quick things from the papers. Then it’s time to let the what ifs go, before some of you make yourselves crazier.
The defense was good, but gassed in the 4th quarter. Go figure. That little time of possession issue.

“She ran calling wildfire.” Ur, what?  I mean more about the wildcat formation. Funniest quote:

“I actually love that offense,” [Kevan] Smith said. “I’m out there blocking for the first time in my life, so I felt like everyone was doing their job. The offense was productive for us.

“Hopefully, we use that down the road.”

That’s too easy and the kid had a rough enough weekend.

Zeise’s Q&A was all about wildcat and QBs.

Coach Wannstedt didn’t quell the issue of who will start at the QB on Saturday. Is it really a controversy when it is simply trying to figure out which back-up is less likely to hurt the team until Stull gets healthy? Here’s the thing, if they are seriously considering putting Pat Bostick in there. It will make it impossible to shield him from the media and interviews. The coaches have been able to do that, because he hasn’t played much. If he gets in there for significant time, he will be talking a lot more. Is he, are they ready for that?

Partial transcript of Coach Wannstedt’s press conference. LaRod Stephens-Howling is apparently better. Pinkston isn’t.