If you need something to do after the West Virginia game (take note that it starts at 7:30, not the usual 7:00 weeknight time) then this might be something to tune in to.

Thought that Pitt football fans would find this interesting. Tonight on the Nightly Sports Call on Pittsburgh’s CW (10:35 PM/Channel 15/Comcast), they plan on doing a show dedicated to National Letter Of Intent Day and will concentrate heavily on Pitt’s Class of 2007. Someone from the show tells me that parts of the show will include live interviews with Pitt head coach Dave Wannstedt, a live interview with Pitt’s #1 recruit QB Pat Bostick, interview with Pitt’s #1 local recruit offensive lineman Chris Jacobson and Mike White of the Post-Gazette will appear on the show.

Did you know that every time you watch the Pitt Panthers, you might actually be seeing…a NFL team coached by a guy who died over 30 years ago?

“It’s always hard preparing for Pitt because they do such a great job,” said Mountaineer coach John Beilein. “It’s like the Vince Lombardi teams. You know a bit of what they’re going to do but you just can’t stop it and it’s hard to score on them. What this team continues to have is more and more experience playing every single day as a unit with very unselfish players. That’s made them special.”

Jamie Dixon and Vince Lombardi. I’ve never made that connection before. But seriously, Beilein makes a good point. We’re going to try to get it into Gray if they’ll let us but if they want to put extra defenders on him then the guards (Levance and Graves) will do what they’ve done previously: make shots. So in that sense, the ‘Eers know what we want to do. Our execution (mainly making shots) is the key though and it’s usually very good.

They mention WVU’s surprising 18-4 record, something I looked at yesterday.

Each team takes very good care of the rock in the offensive zone and neither team tries forcing the ball through passing lanes that are either too small or don’t exist at all.

Both teams have been extremely adept at handling the basketball. For the style that they play, Pitt has a terrific 435-276 assist-to-turnover ratio. West Virginia’s is nearly as good at 386-253.

“To think that there are two teams that play so well handling the ball and passing the ball it’s pretty unique and rare and doing it in different ways with different styles of play,” said Dixon.

WVU is somewhat downplaying the importance of the game.

“Yes it’s Pitt and it’s a league game,” he said. “But we’ve just got to keep going and plodding through like we have been all year and not put any more importance on one game than another.”

Does Coach Beilein sense a loss and doesn’t want his young team getting too low if they lose to a rival? Actually, the same can be said conversely; if they were to upset us then he doesn’t want his players getting too high going into a non-con game against UCLA on Saturday.

We are less than 48 hours from Wednesday, National Letter of Intent Day. Chas averaged the class rankings from Scout.com, Rivals.com, and Scouts, Inc./ESPN.com and came up with this ranking of the Big East teams:

1. Pitt
2. West Virginia
3. Rutgers
4. Louisville
5. Syracuse
6. South Florida
7. UConn
8. Cinci

Along with that was this small breakdown of Pitt’s ranking.

Pitt: Ranked #10 by Scout.com, #23 by Rivals.com and #28 by ESPN.com/Scouts, Inc. They’ve had the best recruiting class in the conference last year as well. They’ve yet to do anything with it.

As we knew coming in and have seen from the verbal commitments over the past few months, Dave Wannstedt knows what he’s doing when he goes into the homes and school of these player’s. We can only hope he starts finding out the right way to make the players work on the field as well.

Maybe sometime soon we’ll be ahead of Georgia Tech, WVU, and Nebraska on the field instead of just in recruiting polls.

The four teams directly behind us in the Big East standings (Marquette, Georgetown, WVU, and Louisville) are going to be gunning for us in the next few weeks in order to knock us off from the top of the standings.

If Pitt is going to win the Big East Conference regular-season championship for the second time in four seasons, the Panthers are going to have to travel the most difficult road of any other team in the conference.

No. 7 Pitt breezed through the first half of the conference schedule, with the only hiccup coming at home against Marquette. The Panthers have seven Big East games remaining, including five games against the four teams directly behind them in the Big East standings.

Every team we will play during the rest of the regular season (and don’t forget that non-con game against Washington) has a record of better than .500 and the team knows they are going to always be set up playing the top teams twice. Because of TV deals and Pitt’s great record over the past few years, we’re always going to be playing great teams and the Big East, even in a down year, is still an above average conference.

“It’s a fair trade,” Dixon said. “I really believe that. Our conference is built on television. One thing I like about our conference is we admit it. We’re very free to admit that. I think that’s why our conference has been the best conference over the years. Without question, the exposure has been great for our team, our program but most importantly our school.”

By the way, this is Rivalry Week for the WWL and the Pitt-West Virginia match up fits in nicely to that. With WVU graduating their entire team last year and a somewhat down year for them, ESPN has the game slotted on ESPN FullCourt which means FSN Pittsburgh for people in the ‘Burgh.

Let’s see, Pitt comes in at #8 on ESPN.com. In the voting this week for ESPN.com Pitt ranged from #3 (Fran Fraschilla) to #16 (Doug Gottlieb). Mostly Pitt was in the 6-9 range.
Luke Winn for SI.com moved Pitt to #9 and focused on the Gray puff piece from the Allentown paper. Seth Davis has Pitt as a #2 seed for the NCAA.

Jay Bilas writes about various teams that could get to the Final Four beyond Wisconsin, UCLA, UNC and Florida. He leads with Pitt (Insider subs.)

Why? You have heard the Panthers talked about in this rarefied air before, but Pitt has always seemed to sputter earlier in the NCAA Tournament than we expected. This Pitt team is different. No Pitt team in the past six years has scored with the ease of this team, and no Pitt team has had the quality depth on the perimeter. This Pitt team guards well like most Pitt teams have, but Pitt ’07 is one of the most efficient offensive teams in the nation — and a very good 3-point shooting team with multiple threats. The ball is not dominated by any one guard, and the Panthers are an outstanding passing team whose big men pass it almost as well as their guards. Most good shooting teams are good passing teams, and this team’s shooting opportunities are set up by very good passing and unselfishness.Why Not? Pitt does not shoot free throws well at all as a team, and down the stretch in tough games, the free-throw issues could make the difference.

Most Indispensable Player: Aaron Gray. The big man is a walking double-double who plays angles well and is an outstanding post passer who commands double-teams and opens things up on the perimeter.

Other teams he lists are Kansas, Ohio State, Oregon, Texas A&M and Marquette (“Why Not? The Golden Eagles are not consistent shooters, and in a tournament setting, the percentages suggest that will catch up with them. This is an outstanding offensive rebounding team, but in a one-game scenario, Marquette is held hostage by how it shoots the ball more than any other team on this list.”). Air Force and Notre Dame (???) are listed as “dark horses.”

I’m going to have to conserve on the posting. Pitt’s off until WednDavesday. Good god is that going to be a crazy day. NLI day starting in the morning. Then the basketball team in Morgantown that night. Great. Just great. Well, at least they didn’t schedule Pitt to play on Superbowl Sunday again.

Aaron Gray made the cut-down for the Wooden Award. He has no chance at it, but it’s nice he made it another round.
David Aldridge has a story on Jamie Dixon and remembering his sister. Hey don’t forget, David’s brother was a Pitt player if you can remember Andre Aldridge.

Dave Jones at the Harrisburg Patriot is bummed that Villanova hasn’t proved itself yet, and envious about Pitt.

Last night’s 65-59 loss to No. 7 Pittsburgh at the Wachovia Center was another in a string of second-half fold jobs against key opponents that has to have ‘Nova fans wondering.

…

For Pitt, it was just another win in a game where they had substantial stretches of the uglies. You don’t often shoot 8-of-27 and commit 11 giveaways in the first half on the road and come out smelling this sweet.

Pittsburgh came out much steadier at the outset of the second half, got better shots and still fell back by eight.

“I sensed some frustration during a timeout there early in the second half,” said Pitt coach Jamie Dixon. “I said, we’re getting good shots, we’re doing the right things. I think we’re in good position to win.”

Sounds like a team that knows it’s going to win, one way or another.

The story is the same, since it is about Villanova making little mistakes. Actually, the only thing about the story worth seeing, is one of those good old predictable play on words headlines. “IT’S THE PITTS” Just good to see it not being applied by Pittsburgh papers.

Looks like this place wasn’t the only blog to discuss the game as it went. Cinci Post beat writer Josh Katzowitz has a Bearcats blog and had insights of his own. Media riot when the food ran out early. UC students getting on Kendall. Good stuff.

I swear, this time for sure. The final thing (I hope) regarding the Marquette game and the officiating. The one thing that hasn’t been resolved is why the hell Coach Jamie Dixon got a technical foul (Insider subs.)?

What’s up with the inconsistencies in calling technical fouls on coaches? Pitt’s Jamie Dixon was given a T after Tim Higgins, according to Dixon, didn’t like the look on his face. Huh? And then did you see Mick Cronin’s reaction to a no-call at the end of regulation of the Cincinnati-West Virginia? It was akin to when Mike Davis went mad during an Indiana-Kentucky game in Louisville.

Cronin went running wildly down the baseline and had to be restrained by his assistants. No call was made. Once again, calling a T on a coach shouldn’t be a subjective move by an official. Yet, that appears to be the case more often than not, depending on the mood of the official.

Glad, there was a good reason at least. Oh, what the hell. A little more from the same.

So what was Marquette’s Dominic James thinking when he went for a drive with seven seconds left in overtime against Pitt on Sunday? Well, James said he actually was reacting to what the officials told him. James said Monday that the officials who called a foul on him at the end of regulation said that he hit Ronald Ramon’s hand. So, James took that advice, knowing that the officials were going to call it tight, and went right at the Panthers. He was right. He got hit and he got the call with under a second remaining in the game.

Can’t fault James for being smart enough to know what to do with the way the game was getting called.

Speaking about the Big East race, Andy Katz got that question in a chat.

Andrew (Milwaukee): After these last four games for Marquette (at UConn, dismantling West Virginia, at Louisville, and then the HUGE win at Pitt) what do you think their chances are for taking the Big East? They only have 3 more road games (Georgetown, DePaul, Notre Dame), and they get Pitt again in front of a CRAZY Bradley Center crowd.

Andy Katz: As well as Marquette is playing those three road games you mentioned could all be losses. Georgetown could pose plenty of problems with its size and Notre Dame will be up for the Eagles and is fully capable of winning. DePaul is the wackiest team in the Big East this season. Ultimately I say Pitt wins the Big East by a game over Marquette.

We’ll see. Not sure why Georgetown (and even Villanova) seem to be being dismissed when there is still plenty of time left in the season and the standings very close.

Finally, Pat Forde likes what Pitt will and can do on the road in the Big East.

Pittsburgh (17) — Big East road record: 2-0, with victories over Syracuse (RPI 47) and DePaul (63). Road ahead: Tough. Cincinnati (140), Villanova (21), West Virginia (54), Seton Hall (105), Georgetown (36), Marquette (26). Count on at least a couple of losses in there.

I’d settle for just a couple losses in that mix.

Three meetings don’t seem like enough to create a rivalry. And yet, the few times we’ve played the Marquette Golden Eagles have been great games with all kinds of twists and turns and now we might be witnessing the formation of yet another “new” rivalry.

Yet after torching Connecticut, West Virginia and Louisville, one thing remained clear: Marquette is Pitt’s biggest threat for Big East supremacy this season.

In this age of an expanding Big East, we rarely see a head-to-head clash of this magnitude more than once — nor do we see one that heads to overtime like Sunday’s. Luckily for college hoops fans everywhere, the two programs meet again March 3 in Milwaukee, Wis.

“We are definitely looking forward to playing them at their place,” Pitt guard Antonio Graves said after Sunday’s loss.

So as both teams continue to stockpile talent and develop the programs, meetings like this will continue, manifesting themselves only every so often. And one thing became certain Sunday: Every ensuing contest between Marquette and Pitt will be a rivalry showdown — a must-see matchup at that.

We’re just finalizing the UConn-Pitt basketball rivalry in terms of both teams becoming great for a long period of time after playing them in all of those Big East Tournament finals. Pitt and Marquette are not anywhere near that stage so I’m not going to call this a rivalry quite yet.

Sorry to go dead yesterday and to date. Had to drive to Pittsburgh to pick up a new futon couch at IKEA. I might get it assembled this weekend. The wife decided it was what she wanted, and I know better than to argue with a pregnant woman. That essentially wasted most of the day. Things just seemed to conspire to keep me away from the computer that evening. Let me clear a few things off the browser as I spend the entire day immersed in basketball (and beer).

The Seth Davis piece on talking to scouts was interesting.

On Aaron Gray, Pittsburgh senior center: “I know a lot of people don’t like him, but I do. People don’t give him credit for his skills. He’s not athletic, but he’s really big. He’s a legitimate five.”

On the Pittsburgh players outside of Gray: “I don’t see any definite pros there. Maybe Sam Young in a couple of years, maybe Tyrell Biggs. Maybe [Levance] Fields, though he has to address his body. I talked to a coach who played them, and he said they’re really good but they just don’t have that one perimeter guy that puts the fear of God into you.”

I see Gray a lot like Chris Kaman of the Clippers when he gets to the NBA. It’s true, though, there is no one guy.

Luke Winn moved Pitt to #8 in his power rankings. I don’t take Winn’s rankings personally. At least he’s trying to look at the rankings with at least an eye on statistics and not just traditional teams.

An article on Barry Rohrssen in his first season at Manhattan. I admit to not following the Jaspers too closely after they dropped some early games. Turns out they are challenging for the MAAC title in what was supposed to be a transition/rebuilding year. Lots of credit in the story to being from the Howland/Dixon/Pitt coaching tree.

The University of Pittsburgh has some more Big East titles to win and maybe some Final Fours to get to before it feels truly comfortable in the most elite class of college basketball. But, clearly, the 17-2 Panthers are getting there.

Along the way, they’ve made a name for a coach or two. Or perhaps, it’s time to say three.

…

Rohrssen worked under both of them. And while he’s at a different level, with different talent – the Jaspers obviously won’t soon be in the Top 10 with Howland’s Bruins (No. 3) and Dixon’s Panthers (No. 6) – the similarities are striking.

“If you look at the practices at UCLA, at Pitt and here, from Day One all the way to the last day of the season, everything is the same,” Rohrssen said. “The letter is the same, you just have to change the letterhead.”

Dixon isn’t surprised.

“He had such a firm grasp of what we were doing and we figured he’d stick to the things he knew best,” Dixon said of Rohrssen. “We talk, but there’s no advice being handed out. He knows the system, feels comfortable in it, and he’s turned it around there.”

Moon Township Guard Brian Walsh saw his stock soar at the basketball shoe camps this past summer.

St. Joseph’s coach Phil Martelli, West Virginia’s John Beilein and Pitt’s Jamie Dixon are just a few of the dozen or so coaches who have ventured to Moon High School with hopes of luring the three-star prospect. Brian has 15 scholarship offers, highlighted by full rides to Maryland, Pitt, St. Joseph’s, West Virginia, Xavier and Memphis.

So you can expect Mike Rice, Jr. to be at a lot more of his games as he has hit the ground running in recruiting for Pitt.

“My first year is going well because of the assistants and head coach, the previous 7 to 10 years, have been successful,” Rice said. “It’s easy to sell the University of Pittsburgh nowadays.”

Rice combines with assistant coach Orlando Antigua to give the Panthers another formidable recruiting tandem. They replaced Rohrssen and Joe Lombardi, who took head coaching jobs at Manhattan and Indiana (Pa.), respectively.

“We’ve always had good assistants,” Pitt head coach Jamie Dixon said. “They’ve both done a very good job.”

National scouting services are taking notice. The first recruiting effort, the Class of 2007, is ranked among the top 20 in the nation. The early commitments for ’08 put Pitt tied for No. 5 among all recruiting classes.

On Thursday, Rice did something that no other coach — head or assistant — has accomplished in three decades at Pitt. He convinced a player from St. Anthony in Jersey City, N.J., to play for the Panthers. The 6-foot, 185-pound Woodall, considered one of the top junior point guards in the East, will be the first from the national prep power to commit to Pitt.

Let’s hope Pitt can end a very good homestand on and off the court with that final win on Sunday.

So much to discuss and so little time. There’s recruiting in both football and basketball, game analysis and just some media matters on the game. I’ll start out easy – media matters. Especially since it gives me a chance to mention that I’ll be gone for most of the day tomorrow. In a sign of true strangeness, I’ll be on a panel discussion at the City Club in Cleveland talking about journalism and media criticism. The City Club usually has podcasts of these things up a few days later. A local station also airs (and streams) the things the next day. I still shake my head when I think that there are people that actually think I know what I’m doing.

Let’s start with Jim Calhoun. What can I say, I love prickly, acerbic, sarcastic coaches. They provide great quotes. Guys who over time can say anything and people look for the backhanded swipe, and in a press conference can merely arch an eyebrow and people look for the meaning. The Pittsburgh media isn’t used to it. They aren’t used to a guy who seems more critical of his own team at times than complimentary of the winning foe. Most never have and never will forget the “I don’t think they’re the most talented team in the league, but I do think they’re the best team in the league.” comment.

Last night, Calhoun again labeled Pitt the best team in the Big East but added he was sorry the Huskies only play Pitt once during the regular season.

“I wish we’d play them in February and have (7-foot-3 freshman center Hasheem Thabeet) healthy,” Calhoun said.

That left you wondering just how impressed Calhoun was with the performance of Pitt center Aaron Gray, who had 22 points, 19 rebounds and four blocked shots.

See to me, that’s as much about the confidence that Calhoun has in his own team to keep getting better and improve. I don’t take that as much of a slight. Come February, the team will be improved and much better. Plus, it seems Thabeet was never quite right the whole game.

Thabeet took an inadvertent elbow to the nose from Pitt’s Mike Cook while he was trying to grab a rebound just a minute-and-a-half after the opening tip. The freshman big man was stunned and had to be helped into the locker room but returned with 6:48 left in the first half.”That was the third hit he got,” said Calhoun, adding that Thabeet’s eyes wouldn’t stop watering. “I think the idea was to take it right to him. I don’t mean intentionally, but take it right at him and see if he can block shots.”

Jonathan Mandeldove filled in admirably for a time, but the Huskies clearly missed their shot-blocker.

“I got dazed. I couldn’t see. I lost my vision,” said Thabeet, who didn’t attempt a shot in 21 minutes of action. “Even when I came back, a couple times I lost my vision.”

You can always find the disrespect. Calhoun, to the Connecticut media was actually quite willing to praise Pitt.

Jim Calhoun isn’t shy to talk about how good he thinks Pittsburgh is.

The UConn men’s basketball coach seems to embrace this rivalry, which has grown into one of the Big East’s biggest in this decade. The close competition, combined with a commitment to both playing a physical style, has also led to similar interests on the recruiting trail.

He was frustrated more about the performance of his team.

“Every team that loses games finds a reason to be happy,” UConn coach Jim Calhoun said. “I haven’t got one damn reason to be happy, to be honest with you. What should I be happy about?”

…

Asked what Thabeet might learn from a game like this, the coach offered, “Duck.”

It was fitting of a night that ended with Calhoun finding himself short on explanations or information worth holding onto. He was brief with the media, even briefer with his players and looked to be running low on tolerance.

“I’m not taking anything away,” Calhoun said. “I don’t want to find new ways to lose.”

In the rivalry thing, you could argue that Gray took a swipe at the present UConn players when asked about the UConn players that left.

Pitt center Aaron Gray was asked how it is not seeing those guys anymore.

“It’s kind of a relief,” he said. “They had so many good players go through and so many players that could do so many different things. Obviously, through the draft last year, you saw how good they really were.”

It wasn’t actually a swipe at the present UConn players — especially with their potential — but it could be construed that way. As if they don’t measure up to the talent before them.

Long drive back yesterday from the family in Central Pennsylvania. Now it’s all about catching up on things and unfortunately the real world has to come first — especially if I want to have time to watch the game tonight (and I do).

So, I’m going to do this quick-hitter style.

Three themes are prevalent for this game. Stop me if you’ve heard this one: the battle of the big men.

For Thabeet, though, Gray will present a situation like no other this season. The Pitt center is leading the Panthers (16-2, 4-0 Big East) in scoring on a team with the best assist-to-turnover ratio in the country. Also, for the second straight game, Gray will face another 7-footer after limiting Georgetown’s Roy Hibbert to 11 points in 30 minutes Saturday.

“You can’t go in expecting him to play better than you,” Thabeet said. “The coaches here have challenged me. Now, he’s (Gray) going to be another challenge. But I like challenges.”

The theme is repeated a few times. Tip for the Oakland Zoo about Thabeet’s family. The family already has money and from in Tanzania (though I think the family now lives in Senegal). His father is actually part of the World Bank in Africa. Consider the e-mail scam regarding the secret bank account theme.

Thabeet had been struggling — especially against Marquette last week — but had a great game against St. John’s. Sure, it was St. John’s but, um, when it comes to the Red Storm, Pitt should never look down on them. Heck, UConn actually went zone on them.

Somewhat related, but a little broader is the UConn is now young theme. I’ve mentioned this elsewhere, and tonight, you can expect the same Jim Calhoun interview clip from the Big East Media Day to be shown — again. Though, credit Coach Jim Calhoun for his honesty about the young UConn team and struggling:

“No one feels bad for us,” Calhoun said. “I tell the kids that you are making a lot of people happy by doing this.”

The other big theme — the UConn-Pitt rivalry.

After all, nobody else in the Big East — not Syracuse, not Georgetown, not anybody — has strung together more championships and more victories over the last six years than UConn and Pittsburgh.

The two teams have combined for 10 Big East championships: seven regular-season titles and three Big East Tournament crowns. They also boast nearly the same, sparkling conference records during that run: UConn is 64-20 and Pittsburgh is 63-21.

From Taliek Brown’s 30-foot heave in UConn’s double-overtime victory over Pittsburgh for the 2002 Big East Tournament title, to Chevy Troutman’s bruising performance against the Huskies for a 76-66 victory at Gampel Pavilion in 2005 for ESPN’s launch of College GameDay, there’s never been a lack of drama in this series.

There’s also no longer any pretending this isn’t a big rivalry game from Calhoun as in years past.

“There’s been some great, great games between Pittsburgh and Connecticut,” Calhoun told a roomful of reporters and TV cameras at the Petersen Events Center. “It’s been a terrific, terrific game. I would expect our kids to hold up their end. I know Pittsburgh will.”

The fact that there have been so many tough, great games between the two has made it a rivalry that the folks in Connecticut are now happy to acknowledge how much this matters. Pittsburgh media and Pitt have been on that for a while. Great point, early in this story about how rivalries can change in college basketball much faster.

Rivalries come and go over the years. Games that once defined Big East basketball for a generation are now just other games on the schedule. No one blinks an eye anymore when St. John’s plays Georgetown, for example.

But, in the past six years, no rivalry in the Big East can compare to Pitt-Connecticut.

It’s, of course, been the measuring stick for Pitt in the past and in a way it still is this time.

First off with the basketball related news and notes, one of which applauds the Panther’s assist-to-turnover ratio. Simply put, we have the best ratio in all of the nation.

Depending on how long the season lasts, Pitt could finish with near 700 assists. No other team in the program had even 600 in one season.

Through 18 games, Pitt has 353 assists and 203 turnovers.

They’re also on pace to become only the third Panthers team in 29 years to finish with fewer than 400 turnovers. Take care of the ball and you get more shots, leading to more points, and eventually to more wins.

There were a few times when Mike Cook didn’t want to dish it off; instead he just wanted to get to the hoop and score on Georgetown’s DaJuan Summers after Summers said something to Cook.

“He kept elbowing me and kept talking to me,” Cook said. “I just tried to stay cool and stay calm. But he went a little bit too far. He really got me into the game. From that point on, I just tried to go at whoever they put on me.

I’d take Mike Cook driving to the hoop anytime but an angry Mike Cook is the only thing better. Seeing anger and aggression from our players is something that I appreciate and enjoy. Now all we need is Aaron Gray to get fired up a little bit more. An angry Gray might be as good as any other big man in the country.

Finally, Kevin Gorman over at the Trib does a final wrap up of the College Gameday events. The whole thing put the school, the team, and the fans in a great light. Now, the Oakland Zoo is up there with the best student sections in America.

Over on the football side of things, a story from The Patriot News claims that LeSean McCoy won’t confirm reports (which have come from every major recruiting website) that he’s chosen Pitt.

“I haven’t given a definite verbal,” McCoy told The Patriot-News yesterday afternoon. “I’ll make my decision either Tuesday or Wednesday. … It’s between Pitt and Penn State.”

…

Scout.com, a recruiting Web site, reported yesterday that McCoy informed Pittsburgh football coach Dave Wannstedt he would play for the Panthers.

Rivals.com, another recruiting Web site, also lists McCoy as a Pittsburgh commitment.

National Letter of Intent Day, the first day a recruit can sign for his scholarship, is Feb. 7.

First off, this story comes from a newspaper that is obviously under the brainwashing old man known as Joe Paterno. Secondly, as pointed out in the comments section, this might all be a little ploy by McCoy to make his official press conference a little more interesting. Everyone likes a little more attention.

Hey, let’s start this a little early since the College Gamenight will be at the Pete.

I’d be live-blogging, but I’m visiting my folks and my computer just won’t go on their wireless for whatever reason. Plus, I’m banished to another room while everyone watches the Eagles-Saints game. I’ll still be popping out to read comments and post some thoughts when I can.

9:18: Pitt has withstood a hot shooting start from the Hoyas. Green is shooting really, really well. Nice to see the Pitt big men really going inside. Could someone tell Dick Vitale to stop bringing up the Florida Gators BCS championship with Erin Andrews.

Honestly, surprising to see this much offense. I like the chances for Pitt in that kind of game — if it keeps up. 17-16 Pitt under 11 minutes.

9:27: Interesting to see Biggs playing PF with Gray. A mew wrinkle and Biggs seems to be responding well to it. Cook has been quiet so far.

9:36: Did I say Cooks was being quiet? So much for that. Loved the woofing with Summers as well.

Pitt’s keeping the pressure on Georgetown and running a lot more than expected.

35-29 Pitt, 4:19 ’til the half.

9:45: Cook and Young on consecutive possessions missed 7-foot open jumpers. Always unnerving.
Young and Biggs already have 3 fouls. More pressure on Kendall to step up this game.

Gray with a slam on the feed from Fields who came in on the drive to end the half.

41-32 Pitt at the half.

Pitt had 15 assists on 17 16 assists on 18 baskets.

Dixon at the half time interview heading in the locker was only a little concerned about overcommitting on some somethings.

A solid first half. Gray really looks happy when Hibbert is the only one on him. I expect the Hoyas to zone and go smaller in the second half. The only problem with that for G-town is Hibbert is a bigger part of their offense, and they do need to score points.

We’ll see.

10:08: Nice start by Pitt. 47-34 in the first two minutes and still more passing. Heck, the bucket they gave up came from maybe too much passing.

10:10: Pitt with 49 points still doesn’t have anyone in double digits.

10:23: Georgetown won’t go away. This is an intense game. Pitt up 55-45, Ramon going to the line to shoot 3, with under 12 minutes. I get the feeling that if Green or Wallace for G-town get hot, this game can change. Pitt is playing very, very well but so are the Hoyas. Don’t think I can emphasize that enough.

10:35: Georgetown has gone smaller against Pitt and is making the comeback. Hibbert is sitting during this run by the Hoyas. Pitt lead now only 60-53, 7:38 left.

10:40: Vitale with another good point regarding Pitt’s penetration by the guards. Georgetown is not doing a very good job against it. I think a lot of that has to do with having to respect the 3s from Pitt. Pitt hasn’t had many open looks at the 3 and that’s why they have only taken 8 so far. They are getting the space to go inside.

10:58: Pitt wins 74-69 as Sapp hit a meaningless 3 at the buzzer.

Gray in post game with Erin Andrews. About the unselfish play, it is all about the players wanting to win first.

Patrick Ewing, Jr. came off the bench and nearly sparked the full comeback for G-town. Because of the tremendously accurate shooting from both teams, there weren’t nearly the rebounding opportunities. Gray, Cook and Kendall tied the lead for Pitt with 4 boards each out of some 20+. G-town managed something less than 20 (official stats not out yet, so I don’t trust the accuracy levels).

The rematch on February 24 should be something.

Cook led Pitt with 18 points (7-11). Gray and Graves each had 11 and Ramon had 10.

Went down to see the College Basketball Gameday broadcast today and sat in the first row of the upper seating. Saw myself on the tube a few times after coming home and reviewing it on my friend’s DVR. Overall it was very fun time this morning (and I was able to procure a few Rollabanas).

We also stayed down there to see the #23 women’s team end up losing. A loss to a 4 win team with the biggest crowd of the year in attendance…not a very clutch game by the ladies today.

The Georgetown game starts in about T-minus 3 1/2 hours and I think we’ve looked at that game about as much as we can and I really have nothing more to add.

Don’t look now but Virginia Tech, Big East defector, is about to upset the #1 ranked UNC Tarheels on ABC.

Enjoy the game tonight folks.