Apparently North Carolina jumped the gun on the ACC Men’s Basketball schedule. Not the exact dates yet, but the home and aways, and cross-overs.

Pitt has its two annual home-and-homes of Syracuse and Louisville. This year the other two are Clemson and NC State.

The schedule with home-and-aways, dare I say is actually rather good for Pitt. Among the top half of teams in the ACC, Duke, UNC, FSU and ND all have to play at the Pete. The only truly tough ACC road games are Virginia and Miami.

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There was just no way I was doing any basketball posting last week. Wasn’t sure I would squeeze anything out this week, but it’s got to happen.

The ACC finally released the men’s basketball schedule, which means Pitt’s basketball schedule is finally complete.

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Just best to stay out of Reed’s way when he’s rolling like this.

So, just to note that while the full schedule of dates, times and TV appearances have yet to be released; ESPN did announce their Big Monday schedule. Pitt gets two appearances on the ACC slate.

January 19, 7pm at Duke

February 16, 7pm at Virginia

Disappointing not to get a home Big Monday game, but Pitt is featured in 2 of the 8 ACC Big Monday games. The same number of appearances as Duke. UNC and Virginia each have three appearances. Louisville and Syracuse make only one appearance each. Not too bad for a team that will be considedred 6th to 8th in the ACC preseason polling (some combination of Virginia, Louisville, Duke, UNC and Cuse will be most prognosticators top-5).

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The ACC released the match-ups in basketball for the next two seasons yesterday.

Here’s what Pitt looks like in graphic format:

Syracuse and Louisville are Pitt’s permanent “rivalry” games. That works for me. Both very good teams. I like that Big East connection and history. Yes it means Pitt will always have a tough ACC schedule, but that isn’t a bad thing.

The next pair are the home-and-homes for the season. I assume that they are planning on rotating the pairs to some degree. Which means it could well be five years before we see a UNC or Duke home-and-home.

The next group of five are the home ACC games. Then the last five are the road games. The ACC knows Duke and UNC are still the glamor programs that will draw the crowds. Every ACC team has UNC and Duke split as home-away each year.

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Sure, Pitt. I get it. You don’t leak. Not like FSU. Not like Duke. Not even Syracuse. No. You have to keep it under wraps until the 3pm time. Fine. You don’t want to share early. I get it.

You miss that early bounce and overreactions. Let people wait, only knowing that Pitt will go down to Miami for Thanksgiving weekend.

So we waited. The interminable minutes ticked by.

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If you don’t want any basketball notes at this point, then stop and skip to the football posts. News must be noted.

With the demise of the old Big East, the new Big East cutting a deal with Fox and the American not having much in the way of marquee basketball names after UConn and Cinci; well the ACC is now taking over the spot on Big Mondays on ESPN.

ESPN has released the Big Monday schedule. The bad news is that Pitt only puts in one appearance. The good news, not only is it a home game but it is the big one: Duke-Pitt on January 27. UNC and Virginia (??) have 3 appearances. Duke, Syracuse, Maryland and ND get two. Pitt and FSU each with one shot.

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Hope you weren’t thinking that you will see FSU visit Heinz Field more frequently than once a decade or so. The ACC released the football home and away crossover match-ups for the next ten years on a nice color coded PDF.

Pitt will face division opponents in the Coastal every year. Those teams are Virginia Tech, Miami, UNC, GT, Duke and Virginia. In addition, Syracuse will be Pitt’s cross-division annual opponent. Or “rival” I suppose. That covers seven games. After that it’s a rotation through the other six teams in the Atlantic division.

With Notre Dame rotating through five games against ACC teams per year, there is no way that the ACC will be moving to a 9-game schedule. That’s what makes the decision to stick with a permanent cross-division opponent so questionable. It is clear that it was done for the benefit of keeping FSU-Miami as an annual match-up. Not to mention placating NC State for not being in the same division as UNC and Duke with an annual UNC game. Otherwise there makes little sense in having permanent cross-over games.

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Actually, “nicely” is understating it. The schedule the ACC put out there for Pitt is outstanding.

2013 ACC Home Opponents
Florida State
Miami
North Carolina
Virginia

2013 ACC Away Opponents
Duke
Georgia Tech
Syracuse
Virginia Tech

Couple that with home non-con games that include New Mexico and Notre Dame, and Pitt has a schedule that includes two top-10 teams from this season. Not to mention Miami and even UNC. I have no idea what to expect from Virginia.

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The ACC is having some meetings up in Boston. Interesting tidbits:

Because of scheduling agreement w/Notre Dame, ACC will only play 8-game conference schedule, sources told @espn

— Brett McMurphy (@McMurphyESPN) October 3, 2012

Cue outrage from Clemson and FSU fans over this decision, because, well at this point it seems that whatever the ACC does they feel they are being screwed by it. They complained about the ACC schedule and the non-con scheduling headaches. Then when they went to 9, it was about how they were losing money from not having the extra home game. So, I’m sure they will still find reason to complain.

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It was a very busy day for Pitt yesterday, which is why I am only getting to this now.

The actual dates still need to be set. The home, away and home-and-home opponents are announced.

Home only games:

UConn, Notre Dame, Seton Hall, USF and Syracuse

Road only games:

Georgetown, Louisville, Providence, Rutgers and St. John’s

Home-and-home games:

Cincinnati, DePaul, Marquette and Villanova

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The Backyard Brawl is set for 7pm on Friday, November 25 on ESPN.

I’m sure it will be a sedate and relaxed crowd for the game.

Here’s something I did not expect — for the rest of the season. A Pitt game that isn’t a Saturday nooner.

The storied River City Trophy game will be a 7pm game at Heinz Field. That’s right. An evening home game. Extended tailgating. Probably cold and wet. If you will be home, the game is on ESPNU.

Can’t wait.

I suppose it is typical of the Big East. Only a couple days before the start of college football season… and it is time to release the Big East schedule for basketball.

The full schedule from Pitt will be released after 1pm.

The Big East and ESPN, though, have their TV schedule out.

Pitt has two Big Monday appearances this year. Bad news, both on the road. At Syracuse on January 16 and at WVU on January 30.

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With the exception of a few non-cons that are already set, the Pitt basketball schedule is still an amorphous blob. We know a lot of the teams Pitt will play. We just don’t know when — and up until yesterday: where.

That is no longer the case with the Big East announcing the match-ups for all the teams.

Thanks to the NCAA-record 11 BIG EAST teams that played in the 2011 NCAA Championship, this year’s schedule includes an unprecedented 131 games — or 91 percent of the conference ledger — that will feature at least one NCAA tournament team from last year. Sixty-seven games — 47 percent of the schedule – will be between two of the conference’ s NCAA tournament teams.

Each of the 16 BIG EAST teams will play either 12 or 13 conference games against NCAA tournament teams.

The conference schedule will once again include 144 regular-season games as each of the BIG EAST’s 16 teams plays 18 conference games. Each team will face 12 opponents once and three opponents twice. All 144 regular-season conference games will again be televised, either by CBS Sports, the ESPN family of networks or ESPN Regional Television.

The decisions regarding repeat opponents are based on natural interest, geography, rivalries, television contractual obligations and competitive balance.

And here’s what Pitt has to look forward to in 2011-12:

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Well a 3d straight night game was probably out of the question.

It will be a noon start which sucks for tailgating. That said, no excuses for the place not to be packed. To decide whether Pitt goes BCS bowling or not.

The good news for those who can’t attend, is that it will be a true national game. ABC and apparently no split map crap.