Haven’t been home much the past week or two. Went down to Atlanta last week for the USA Volleyball Junior Olympics. Getting recruited by colleges for sports (although smaller [D-III] schools in my own personal case) is quite an experience. Today I just got back from Penn State (gasp!) for another volleyball trip. I spent enough time in Happy Valley to last me until I die. Talk about always looking for something to do, you talk about State College. No wonder they can attract 105,000 a few Saturdays every year for a football game.

Thankfully I didn’t miss anything too important, but we’re beginning to see the light at the end of the offseason tunnel. There are some points that need to be mentioned though.

Firstly, on tonight’s Sportscenter they did a segment on college football. The question: “Which team will have true freshmen making an impact?” The answer: your Pittsburgh Panthers. Most notably the fact that Pat Bostick could be our starting QB and that Dave Wannstedt feels comfortable starting a freshman in the Big East, even more so than he did starting a rookie in his NFL coaching days. Add in McCoy and a handful of others and we’re going to have a solid number of freshmen seeing action.

Wannstedt might have a player leaving him scholarship behind. Rumor has it that tight end Kyle Hubbard wants released from his scholarship and Wanny will allow it. Hubbard is a 3 star recruit from Lakewood, OH.

More football — the Washington Redskins signed H.B. Blades, their 4th 6th round pick. He’ll be set to go for training camp which begin next week. Football season is quickly approaching…

And if you want some very detailed coverage of some summer league hoops, read the comments posted by Stuart here.

Sorry about the sporadic posting. Lots of little things in the real world, including hitting the road tomorrow and more travel plans for next week. There are days when being a one-man global content provider can be a bit tricky.

You know, as bad as Pitt had been in the 90s, at least the local papers knew enough to send someone to cover the Media Days.  Cinci gets to a bowl, has their team selected by the media for 5th in the Big East this season (Pitt, 6th), has season ticket sales actually getting a noticeable bump, and they still can’t  get the local media to care to even spare the cash to send a beat writer to the event. — really pissing off new coach Brian Kelly.
Hell, the Altoona Daily Mirror actually sent a reporter to do a piece on Derek Kinder and Pitt along with a more general Big East overview.
Discussion with Pitt is muted, unless you consider getting tips on how to eat lobster from Dave Wannstedt vital news. This bit is worth chewing over (sorry).

When asked how many freshman players would be contributors for the Panthers this season, Wannstedt replied, “Seven guys will play for us right away.”

Hmm. Maybe McCoy, Jacobson,  DeCicco, Hargrove, Caragein, Jones… and who else?

Some more from the basketball camps as Coach Dixon shuttled from Akron to Philly for the camps. On Monday he was at the Rbk U camp watching Ashton Gibbs. Not to mention Travon Woodall and Eloy Vargas. Vargas finished the camp strong.

Ashton Gibbs was also the subject of a lead story out of New Jersey.

“I think I fit in well there,” Gibbs said in between games at the elite Reebok University showcase. “They told me I would be a Ronald Ramon-type player — play the one and two, play tough defense and try to get some buckets on the offensive end. I think I can run up and down, but Pitt slows it down and they’re physical. That’s definitely my style of play.”

Like the gritty Ramon, Gibbs is a quintessential combo guard. He is neither a true point nor a pure scorer, but he can fill either roll on any given possession.

At the three-day Reebok Camp, which features 120 of the best players in the county, Gibbs ran the point in scrimmages and was one of the few guards who made an effort to set up a half-court offense.

With Pitt coach Jamie Dixon watching from the front row of bleachers, he also buried jumpers when the defense sagged.

“He’s very steady and he knows how to make his teammates better,” NJ Hoops publisher Jay Gomes said. “It’s funny because earlier in his career he was more of a ball-handler than a shooter, but he’s become a very good shooter.”

Nice.

Dealing with the present, Darnell Dodson is indeed qualified this year and is already taking summer classes at Pitt. ‘

Another incoming player this season, Bradley Wanamaker, did not qualify for the US Men’s Under-19 team.

I suppose, part of why I’m still a bit more focused on basketball is that the I’ve been putting a way too early FanHouse BlogPoll  together and posting the teams this week. Pitt came in at #18, and I had to give objectivity a shot in discussing them today.

Got an this in the inbox tonight, thought I’d pass it along.

Happy Fourth of July from PantherDigest.com.

Beginning today through July 4th, premium content is free at PantherDigest.com.

This means you can check out all our past and current player feature stories, hot news,and the entire Scout Player Database, and there’s absolutely no cost to you. You will have access to the entire PantherDigest.com site (with the exception of premium message boards, audio and video) as well as the entire Scout.com Network!

No credit card is required. Some areas may require you to register, but it’s fast, easy, and costs you nothing!

Visit the following link to get started:

http://pittsburgh.scout.com/?refid=7148

Thank you,
PantherDigest.com and Scout.com Staff

Enjoy!

Joining with other top-25 lists following the results of who returned to school. Jeff Goodman at FoxSports has Georgetown #6, Louisville #8, Marquette #10, Pitt #12, Villanova #21 and ND #24

Sure, the Panthers will lose 7-foot senior Aaron Gray. But Jamie Dixon still has a pair of experienced starting guards in Keith Benjamin and Ronald Ramon — as well as Mike Cook on the wing and Sam Young at power forward. The key will be whether Tyrell Biggs can step in and replace Gray in the middle. Big freshman DeJuan Blair will also help ease the loss of Gray.

He also adds Syracuse in the “10 on the verge.” I think the ‘Cuse are getting lowballed a bit after writers let Boeheim convince them that Paul Harris was going to blow up as a freshman. Syracuse has a lot of incoming talent, but still lost a lot of leadership and upperclass starters.

Andy Katz at ESPN.com also has his list. Georgetown #5, Louisville #6, Marquette #13 and Pitt #14:

The Panthers lose big men Aaron Gray and Levon Kendall but add Dejuan Blair, who might be another under-the-radar superstud coming to Pitt. The Panthers return the core of their perimeter as well as their wings and Jamie Dixon quite simply doesn’t lose too often. This team will move quicker, play defense perhaps a bit tighter and will not lose too many, if any, home games. Expect the Panthers to be in the thick of the Big East race.

It’s going to be hard to claim Pitt is being disrespected going into the 2007-08 season at this rate.

In the last GrayWatch post, I noted that Aaron Gray went out to Vegas for a specific conditioning program and 1-on-1 service. The intense (and expensive) program really made a noticeable difference. Reducing his body fat and making him look more defined. Joe Starkey did a column on Gray’s draft status and condition that takes a slight shot at Gray being in great condition.

Pitt was hoping Gray would whip himself into that kind of shape for his senior year, after eschewing the 2006 NBA Draft. It didn’t happen.

See, he didn’t directly say he expected Gray to be in this kind of condition for the past season. Nor did he make a direct allegation that Gray was out of shape. Just that others had hoped that Gray would be able to get to this kind of condition, and maybe implying that because Gray wasn’t in NBA draft shape he wasn’t in shape. He’s merely taking note of what others hoped.

For example, the rest of the article is simply a rehashing from other stories on Gray’s draft status, the Orlando camp, and quotes from other papers and web sites. At that point I could say something like, “a more paranoid blogger would think Starkey merely skimmed the links and quotes from prior posts to do his own article.” That way I’m not actually saying I think he did it. Merely making an observation, and making it appear like a slimy action of stealing my work.

In all honesty, I think Starkey probably did. And that’s good. There’s nothing wrong with that. That means he’s reading (considering the daily referrer logs contain hits from Trib computers I already knew some were reading) and taking advantage of one of the things I do with this blog — aggregating the information.

Plus Starkey added some quotes from Gray’s agent doing a bit of spinning on Gray’s conditioning.

“He’s finally healthy,” Zanik said. “Nagging injuries didn’t allow him to condition properly. Also, he can concentrate on basketball every day now. It’s not anything Pitt didn’t do, it’s just having more time to focus on conditioning. I’m excited to see what he’s going to look like six months from now.”

Pretty much what you would expect the agent to say.

The impact for Panther Digest, remains to be seen.

I’m kind of surprised about this. When Fox Interactive Media (FIM) bought Scout.com nearly 2 years ago, I thought it meant Fox was gearing up for more competition with ESPN across platforms on college sports. With deep pockets behind them, they seemed more stable. Especially as Rivals.com seemed to be looking for a buyer or their own media support.

Instead, it seems that things have gotten very strained. Scout.com has suffered a series of embarrassing losses of affiliates in the last couple of weeks and months. Ohio State’s affiliate left, as did Florida, and then USC. Today, Oklahoma left. These are some of the biggest of the fanbases and subscriber groups. Gone.

You can likely add Texas to that list real soon. The Texas, OSU, Oklahoma and Stanford sites filed a suit against Scout.com and FIM (PDF) in May seeking class action status over the accounting and financial practices.

So the problems at Scout.com is not about a new corporate attitude that stifled the freedom and creativity of the publishers, editors and writers of the sites. It’s about the  money. It’s always about the money.

Looking over the suit, the team sites that will most likely be interested in joining and/or head for independent status will be the big sites. Sites that have their own magazine (ex, Michigan, Nebraska, Penn St. and Alabama), since there are some heavy allegations of big accounting irregularities with the allocation between magazine and site.

Scout.com has the financial support to fight and perhaps even successfully defend the lawsuit. The problem is that they will still lose some of their biggest network affiliates. Even as they build new affiliates in their place, they will face increased competition.

More changes a-coming.

Good news during the slow news time. College football previews are getting released. In the last two weeks, Lindy’s and Athlon have been released. This week could be the big one. Phil Steele’s college preview might hit the newsstands.

So far, Pitt has been “ranked” at #60 and 55 in the two pubs that have been released. In other words, lower half of the BCS teams and middle of college football overall. Not too surprising there.

Pitt is being picked for 6th in the Big East behind Cinci. Now that just hurts.

There are very few fans that would be against a return to the script Pitt and colors from Pitt’s better days. There’s been plenty of discussion about it and I don’t care why we’re not wearing it, whether it be something legal or someone just making an executive decision about it — I just want to see a return to those colors.

Are we going to see that soon? Well, there are some seemingly small changes being made according to Sitting Ringside.

The “PANTHERS” across the chest will be replaced with “PITT” and blue pants will return for the first time since 2003, when they were worn against Virginia Tech.

It seems like we’ll never get to the point where we see the same jerseys that we wore against Youngstown State in that throwback game. Thankfully I picked mine up in that auction of the game-used jerseys because we might never see them on a Pitt team regularly for a while.

Pitt baseball got about as much media coverage they’re going to get this week for making it into the Big East Tournament. Not only did they get the rare mention here, but the local papers, radio stations, and TV news also had their stories on the team. They excited me enough that I pulled up the live GameCast from the Big East website and checked on in every few minutes when they played against USF.

What a way to kill everything you had going for you. On Tuesday they managed to put six (six!) errors on the scoreboard and yet only one run — not a recipe for success. USF’s pitcher was unreal though.

USF senior right-hander Danny Otero worked a complete game and limited the Panthers to just three hits, while walking just one batter.

Going into Wednesday’s game I figured we could at least pick up one win at the tourney. I wasn’t nearly as quick to pull up the GameCast for this one though. Playing the worst seeded team in the tourney, UConn at #8, we managed to leave the bases loaded in the bottom of the ninth.

Connecticut lefty Mike Tarsi worked eight innings, struck out seven and allowed just two runs as he collected his sixth win of the season. Junior lefty Matt Karl came on in the ninth inning and recorded his team-best 11th save of the season. The Panthers loaded the bases in the top half of the ninth inning with no outs, but were not able to take the lead en route to being eliminated from the championship.

I’m willing to bet that these two pitchers just happened to have the games of their lives against Pitt. Either that, or the Panthers need a new hitting coach. Maybe someone to tell them how to work their gloves, too.

By now you’ve heard that Joe Paterno has decided on a punishment for his football team after some inexcusable behavior: have the entire team clean the stadium after a game day and give all of the money earned to the club teams which use such income to fund their sports. Sounds pretty good, right?

No doubt Paterno is a smart man, at least in some sense. Not smart enough for a few people to see right through his punishment though.

If you peel back the warm and fuzzy blanket, it’s as much a preemptive strike at the University’s Office of Judicial Affairs as it is corporal punishment for the players.

Consider the timing of the announcement. It comes before the Judicial Affairs folks begin their hearings into the incident.

In the pecking order of justice, the legal system is first, then Judicial Affairs and finally, Paterno’s court.

It is also a calculated move to undercut the Judicial Affairs office by taking matters into his own hands and meting out his own punishment. That will make anything Judicial Affairs decides to do look like overkill and further advance the perception that Judicial Affairs has some vendetta against the football team.

Yes, Joe Paterno is smart, but Ron Bracken is just a step ahead.

I’ve always been mildly intrigued by fan-created websites that call for the firing of a coach. It started with sites like FireRonZook.com which gained all kinds of attention from media outlets including SportsCenter and Pardon the Interruption. Zook ended up getting fired from Florida and the idea was put into every fan’s mind that they could oust a coach by buying a domain name and putting up a website. There’s even a “company” out there that sells some of these domain names.
There is, in fact, a FireDaveWannstedt.com — in operation since his days as head coach of the Miami Dolphins.

OK Pitt’sters— ya gotta agree with me that this year is kind of a little tiny watershed year for your boy Dave. All I heard the year before is how Pitt had one of the greatest recruiting years in the history of the planet. oooooK. Well–as someone once said— “It’s the Coach Stupid!”

As always—I wish you guys the best of luck…I’m sincere in that because I feel that were kind of brothers—much the way Bears fans are Brothers with us Phin fans. Sitting with a Bear fan in a bar is a hoot because boy oh boy we have something in common. I suspect that someday I’ll be throwing back a few with some Pitt fans and I’m pretty sure we’ll be ranting in harmony. Wouldn’t be a riot if a Bears fan joined us?

If you think you’ve had enough of Wanny and want to turn in into a protest of his time here at Pitt, feel free to buy it. Only $1,000.

There is no “Fire Jamie Dixon” website out there except this petition (that looks like it’s from a few years ago) that was signed by all of 51 people. If someone were to make a Dixon-based site, they’d have to be pretty crazy. You don’t call for a coach’s head over the internet when he’s put up this kind of record. You can say he’s not coaching at the level we want him to but he’s definitely not reached his coaching potential yet. In 10 years if we still haven’t made it past the Sweet Sixteen then we can start talking about said website.

As far as I know, there’s somehow not a “Fire Paul Rhoads” page out there and yet more people seem to be against him than any other coach on either the football or basketball staffs. FirePaulRhoads.com is still availible — I know there’s someone out there who wants to buy it.

One thing that the Pitt Athletic Department has yet to do it take a page from Iowa and buy the domain name to fire one of their own coaches. Not a bad idea to help spare your coaches a little.

Well, Rivals has it’s initial basketball Rivals 150 list for the 2008 recruiting class. Keep in mind, that these rankings will change (see also, Blair, DeJuan). The power forwards and centers dominate the list as this seems to be a strong class for that. Present verbals Nasir Robinson and Travon Woodall are at #86 and #121 respectively. Robinson is considered the 15th best small forward in the country. Woodall is the 21st best point guard according to their rankings.

Considering Pitt’s needs were not pressing at the power forward and center position for this recruiting class, it’s not surprising that, they won’t be highly ranked right now.

One of Pitt’s main targets for the 3d scholarship, Eloy Vargas, is a power forward and ranked 46th. PF Samardo Samuels (St. Benedicts where Dan Hurley coaches), who Pitt may still have a shot at (despite competition from UConn, Florida, Louisville and UNC) is the #6 prospect overall.

This article from Gary Parrish at CBS Sportsline was somewhat amusing about the fans and message boarders obsession about the next great recruiting class and players.

Fans are similar to the rest of us, really.

They enjoy talking about the future more than the present.

Just like we enjoy talking about the future more than the present.

The only difference is fans spend their time talking about recruiting and the next wave of prospects, and we spend our time talking about our next car, our next house, our next job, our next anything. Either way, it’s the same principle at work, lesson being it’s better to dream than live, better to imagine than enjoy.

…

“Recruiting gives fans an opportunity to brag and say ‘Look what our program is able to do,'” said Oklahoma’s Jeff Capel. “Fans are able to brag and get on message boards and pick on other fans. It’s very, very odd. It really is. But I’d rather have a top 10 team than a top 10 recruiting class.”

Yeah. I’ll give him that about looking to the future. He loses major points, though, for falling back on what has become the latest sportswriter convention: quoting from message boards as anecdotal evidence to make his point. That point, when it comes to using fan message boards is to “prove” fan expectations/beliefs/views or simply the fans are insane. It’s there, someone posted it, the point is made by their own words.

Such a lazy act. When a sportswriter does it, it’s like he’s announcing that he’s either mailing it in or just needs to fill out column space.

ESPN.com has a list of the top-10 most underrated basketball programs. Pitt makes the list at #7.

Maybe several of these programs are more “underappreciated” than underrated, but all 10 stay true to one central theme: Regardless of size, budget, league or absolute performance, all of them have delivered on the court in a fashion that surpasses the general perception of the programs.

…

Jay Bilas’ description of the Panthers is fairly apt — they are one of college hoops’ equivalents to the “best golfer never to win a major.” Under Ben Howland and now Jamie Dixon, though, this program has had a lot of recent success in a very tough and deep conference. This season marked Pitt’s sixth straight NCAA Tournament appearance, during which the Panthers made the Sweet 16 four different times (2002-04, 2007). The Panthers also claimed at least a piece of three Big East titles from 2002-04 and won the Big East Tournament title in 2004.

The individual ballots are here.

It’s fair to say that, despite the large number of wins, tournament appearances and runs in the Big East Tournament, Pitt is still not going to be a name at the top of most people’s list when it comes to top programs in the country. That’s fine for now.

You don’t change that general perception in one year or even just one decade. Especially when you consider the number of years (decades?) Pitt basketball has been a virtual non-entity. Even when Pitt eventually breaks through to the Elite Eight and Final Four, that still doesn’t make change the perception. It takes sustained success, achievement — and more people burned in their brackets for believing Pitt will go deep, not be the early upset victim.

Reminder that I will be doing a segment or two on The Sports Contraption with Dave Dameshek tonight on 93.7 The Zone. It should be sometime after 7:30. As of this time, Dave’s wife has not gone into labor. The appearance will be live, but hopefully with a bit of a 9 second delay in case I release an expletive deleted. Yes, I tend to keep it clean on the blog, but as my friends can attest, I am not nearly so good in conversation.

Dave’s even got his own entry on Wikipedia where you will learn about his extensive relationship with Jimmy Kimmel and Adam Carolla projects.

I’m looking forward to it. Hopefully I won’t provide too many dead air moments or um and ah too much.