I definitely would prefer Pitt gets in the Coaches vs. Cancer Tournament, but it may not be as sure a thing.

Giles also said that the Duke, UCLA and Michigan are set as three of the four hosts for the Coaches vs. Cancer. The other host will likely be either Pittsburgh or Rutgers.

The third preseason event that Giles organizes is the Legends Classic. If Pittsburgh isn’t in the Coaches vs. Cancer, look for Jamie Dixon’s team to play in the Legends.

I guess I could see them choosing Rutgers as a way of nearing certainty of having a Duke-UCLA Final.

Assistant Coaching rumors continue. This time with Orlando Antigua.

Sources with knowledge of the situation have told CBSSports.com that Calipari is considering completing his staff — now missing Derek Kellogg (new head coach at UMass) and Chuck Martin (new head coach at Marist) — by hiring from a group of candidates that is headlined by Pittsburgh assistant Orlando Antigua and Georgetown assistant David Cox.

I could see Antigua leaving. Yes, he’s a Pitt alum and is comfortable. At the same time, he has ambition to be a head coach one day. He will need to have broader experience at other schools and working for Calipari would be a big building block.

As for Cox. He’s become a fast-rising name in just a few years. He spent one year at Pitt as Director of Basketball Operations before Thompson III hired him as an assistant a couple years back.

Ashton Gibbs was a big performer at the IS8 Playoffs.

Best individual performance of the day: Guard Aston Gibbs, a Seton Hall Prep star and Pitt recruit, went off for 41 in a 105-93 loss to the powerful Gauchos, making nine straight 3s at one point.

Travon Woodall was also playing and did well.

Pitt has apparently offered NJ PG Isiah Epps.

“Tommy Herrion told me that after he saw him work out,” [Plainfield High School Head Coach Pete] Vasil said Saturday by phone. “They’re offering him a scholarship.”

The 6-2 Epps already holds offers from Maryland, Rutgers and Seton Hall, with Maryland head coach Gary Williams telling Vasil he’s targeting Epps as his guard of the future out of the Class of 2010.

Epps is apparently a rising prospect. The ESPN.com/Scouts, Inc. profile (Insider subs.) puts him in the Juan Dixon mold (which would explain why Maryland is pursuing him).

Epps is lightning quick, shifty with the rock and just flat out explosive at both ends. With range on his 3-point shot and a tremendous amount of body control in the lane, Epps is a nightmare to guard. His will to win is never questioned, has ice water in his veins and has earned the nickname Mr. Big Shot.

He’s also a lefty.

There’s also a write up on an AAU Tournament in DC with some Pitt targets.

I think some cautious skepticism about the football team is still warranted. It’s hard with so many pieces starting to look like they are coming into place.

The defense looks strong overall — even if there are some areas with thin depth. The defensive line appears to finally be a point of strength. The linebackers have a hard-nosed, aggressive guy in the middle with more depth than at any point in years. Safety, while not deep, has talent.

On offense there is a stud running back. The receiving corps while not flashy is deep and talented. The QB situation looks a bit better. Even the offensive line has some hope with players coming back from injury, a center that looks like a great find from JUCO ranks and a blue-chip freshman who should be able to grab a starting job immediately.

The coaching staff was overhauled, and seems to be on the same page.

Add in the strong finish from last year that raises the optimism. As further proof of how close Pitt might be, I have seen many cite that Pitt lost 4 of its games by 7 or fewer points. That just a couple bounces, a couple less injuries (or better officiating *cough* Rutgers *cough*) and Pitt would have been at least 6-6 or even, possibly 8-4. Suggesting how close Pitt might be.

On the flip side, though, Pitt also won 3 games by 7 or fewer points. Meaning that a 3-4 record in tight games suggests Pitt was very close to where they should have been, record-wise.

I was thinking about that as I kept coming back to this look at the Big East and team’s schedules.

Two things struck me right away. First, how unsure people are about the Big East after the assumption that WVU will be good and Syracuse will suck. Second, upon reflection I can’t disagree.

The eyeballing of schedules where you pick out almost certain losses or wins for the Big East teams yields a lot more toss-ups than usual. In large part because the teams in the Big East have improved and there is more parity.

UConn had a great season last year, and they didn’t lose much. USF and Rutgers have shown stability and are establishing themselves as consistent top-25 or right around there teams. Cinci is on their way there with Kelly as coach and especially if Mauk gets that 6th year at QB. Louisville is just a big question mark — they could implode with all the JUCOs brought in or could gel like a K-State team.

Then there’s Pitt.

This might be the strongest Panther team yet under Dave Wannstedt, but the schedule could make it a challenging year. There’s a chance for a big start with a home win over Iowa in mid-September, but the Big East slate starts out with two road games against Syracuse and South Florida. Going to Navy and Notre Dame will make it four road dates in a five-game span, and then there’s the finishing kick. After getting a mid-November week off, the Panthers have to play at Cincinnati, West Virginia, and at Connecticut. That could be just tough enough to ruin Big East title hopes.

They don’t give Pitt any “Likely losses” but after the two MAC warm-ups there are also no other “near certain wins” either. And I can’t argue too hard against that. Even the Syracuse game being in Syracuse does make that closer to a toss-up than a lock right now.

As per Andy Katz at ESPN.com (Insider sub., hat tip to Matt O.), Pitt appears to be one of the participants in the 2K Sports College Hoops Classic supporting Coaches versus Cancer.

Matchups for the Coaches vs. Cancer and CBE tournaments will be determined soon. But one juicy rematch could occur in Madison Square Garden next November.

If the four hosts advance to New York for the CVC, the likely semifinals could be Duke vs. Pitt and UCLA vs. Michigan. Duke is scheduled to play Michigan a week later, so that would detract from a Duke-Michigan semifinal and set up a likely Duke-Pitt rematch of a dandy game last December at MSG. Assuming UCLA wins, then you’d either have a classic UCLA-Duke final of the event with two of the best name programs in the game, or a UCLA-Pitt game, which pits two top 10 teams and two best friends in Ben Howland and Jamie Dixon of UCLA and Pitt, respectively.

The CVC is run by the Gazelle Group. They don’t list this year’s participants yet, but the “Regional Rounds” (read: campus locations of the 4 favorites) are scheduled for November 10-14. Everyone will be in fear of being “Gardner-Webbed” this go round.
The Semifinals are at MSG on November 20, with the Championship on November 21. The site has a sign-up page for e-mail updates and to enter to win free tickets.

Be ready.

Trying to catch up to things.

I guess it was a little unrealistic to assume Pitt would just flow immediately with the return of Fields. Even Louisville struggled to get things right when David Padgett returned. They lost to Cinci in Freedom Hall in his return, but were lucky enough not to not to be playing the best of the Big East to get things together. UConn had a stretch losing 3 of 4 including a 12 point loss at home to Providence when Calhoun was not on the bench for half the time because of the flu. I guess that’s why I’m not too freaked. There’s still time. The only thing that this is costing Pitt is seeding and some pride. They aren’t on the bubble.
The defense had been huge for the team while Fields has been out. It hasn’t been up to snuff the last few games, but it is much more correctable.

This is only the second 3-game losing streak in 5 years under Dixon. Pitt had been the only team in the Big East not to lose at least 3 games in a row in the past 3 seasons until the Louisville loss.

Jay Bilas joins with Pitt fans in wondering “what if” for this year.

Pittsburgh: It is impossible for me to watch Pitt without thinking about Mike Cook, and just how good Pitt could have been with him and a healthy Levance Fields for an entire season. It is a real tribute to that team and program that the Panthers will be in the NCAA Tournament, but the injuries have really affected what could have been a truly special season.

And in another year, only Pitt fans will remember the whole “what if” aspect.

Card Chronicle had a good recap of Louisville perspective of the win. He’s right about the number of open looks for both teams.

Generally, the Louisville view is that this was a big win especially because of how well the offense looked. Nevermind that Pitt — as we all know — has been struggling defensively in the past week, and that Pitt wasn’t bothered by their pressure defense and picked them apart. I’m not saying they shouldn’t feel good about being the first team to beat Pitt twice at the Pete, but they’d be foolish to read too much into it right now.

Overall, Pitt just needs to get more from the guards. The backcourt is a struggle.

Young and Blair each scored 20 points for the Panthers, but the guards once again failed to do their part from the outside. Pitt was 6 for 21 from 3-point range and is 14 for 57 from behind the arc in the three-game losing streak.

“I’m shooting bricks,” said Fields, who was 4 for 13 from the field and 0 for 4 from 3-point range. “I couldn’t make any shots on the perimeter. [Young and Blair] did everything they were supposed to do down low. They gave us everything we needed to win this game. As a point guard, I didn’t come up big for them down the stretch.”

Reality and stats collide.

When an opponent shot better than 40 percent from the field against Pitt in previous seasons it raised some eyebrows. Now it has become a common occurrence. Ten of the first 14 Big East teams have shot more than 40 percent.

Um, last year opposing teams shot .407 versus Pitt. This year it is .416. Oh, and in 11 of 16 Big East games, the opposing teams shot more than 40% (PDF).

The players aren’t happy about losing. Go figure.

— The game against Notre Dame is the only kickoff time known right now because NBC has exclusive rights to ND games.

— December in Connecticut will be cold.

— The Backyard Brawl is set for Friday, November 28, the day after Thanksgiving. I wouldn’t mind this game to be played on this day normally, except it could end up being a noon or afternoon game. It’s on ABC, which previously had Texas/Texas A&M in the afternoons for the past few years, but they’re moving that game to Thanksgiving night on ESPN. I’m not really too high on the idea of an afternoon Brawl. Also, it’s always odd not finishing the regular season with WVU.

— The WPIAL championship games will likely be played on Saturday the 29th of November, the day after the Pitt game. Therefore the Friday night game won’t take away from any high school games, plus Pitt would be playing before the field gets torn up by the HS games.

— The game against South Florida comes just five days after playing up in Syracuse. Between traveling across the country and a short practice week, it should be interesting to see how the team responds.

— Following the USF game, Pitt has a a bye week before Navy. That’s an 18 day(!) break. So we have five days off before one game then 18 before the next…something seems weird.

— On both August 30 (Bowling Green) and September 20 (Iowa), the Pirates play a 7:05 pm home game. Expect a noon start (ugh). Remember: a good Pitt team will be forced to play at a bad time because of a baseball team that has had 14 losing seasons and will be out of contention by mid-May. Oh, and I’m still a Buccos fan.

Updates: WPIAL finals will be played the weekend before Thanksgiving.

Pitt-WVU is a noon kickoff on ABC.

Yes, this is probably just the “exception.” That there are no WPIAL games (probably) or such. Whatever. It didn’t take long for ESPN and the Big East to force Pitt back into a Friday night home game.

Pitt’s annual Backyard Brawl rivalry game against West Virginia will be played on Friday, Nov. 28, at Heinz Field and will be televised by ABC.

Unlike last season, when Pitt upset West Virginia 13-9 on Dec. 1 to put the Mountaineers out of the national title game, the game will not end each team’s regular season. On Dec. 6, Pitt finishes at Connecticut, while West Virginia plays South Florida at home.

Pitt and West Virginia also played on the Friday following Thanksgiving in 1997, 1998 and 2000, with the 1998 and 2000 games at Three Rivers Stadium. Pitt staged a 41-38, three-overtime upset at West Virginia in 1997.

The conference schedule was announced by the Big East.

Date Opponent Time

Aug. 30 Bowling Green TBA

Sept. 6 Buffalo TBA

Sept. 20 Iowa TBA

Sept. 27 at Syracuse* TBA

Oct. 2 (Thurs.) at USF* (ESPN) TBA

Oct. 18 at Navy TBA

Oct. 25 Rutgers* TBA

Nov. 1 at Notre Dame (NBC) 2:30 p.m.

Nov. 8 Louisville* TBA

Nov. 22 at Cincinnati* TBA

Nov. 28 (Fri.) West Virginia* (ABC) TBA

Dec. 6 at Connecticut* (ESPN/ESPN2) TBA

Don’t expect a lot of late starts. ESPN Regional will likely pick up a bunch of the games.

So, yes, at long last, Pitt fell out of the top-25 in both polls. A week of doom to be sure as it’s the first time in 43 consecutive weeks that Pitt wasn’t ranked. Oh, well.

In the Q&As Fittipaldo points out a good reason for struggles in February.

Q: Coach (Jamie) Dixon always talks about continually getting better, yet Pitt seems to hit a wall every February. I was hoping this year would be different because the freshmen would improve, but they seemed to have regressed over the past few weeks. Why does this continue to happen?

FITTIPALDO: Pitt is 2-2 this February. The Panthers were 5-2 last February, 4-3 in February of 2006, 4-4 in February of ’05 and 6-2 in ’04. The only year the Panthers might have regressed at the end of the season was ’05 when they lost four of their final six games and were knocked out in the first round of the Big East and NCAA tournaments.

You might be noticing that Pitt does not win as many games in February as January, but there is a reason for that. The top teams in the Big East are desired by the television networks for marquee games with other top teams. The TV networks begin to televise most of their better games in February and March, when more people are more inclined to tune in. CBS and ESPN do not want to compete with the NFL playoffs. If you noticed, the first half of Pitt’s schedule featured many of the bottom-rung teams in the league. The second half of the schedule features teams competing for NCAA tournament berths. That’s because the networks dictated which games they wanted to televise.

Good point, but it never stops sports writers from talking about how Pitt is struggling at the end of the season.

An article on Jermaine Dixon that is at least somewhat reassuring.

A Baltimore native, Dixon is one of the leading candidates for Player of the Year in the Panhandle Conference, regarded as one of the most competitive Juco conferences in the nation.

“Basically, Jermaine is a big, athletic guard who can go from A to Z very quick,” Tallahassee CC coach Eddie Barnes said. “He’s a good kid. He’s very coachable. He loves to compete. He’s going to compete at the highest level (in the Big East). He’s a dream guard. It’s going to be hard for me to replace him.”

The left-handed Dixon averages 21.0 points and about 7.0 rebounds and 4.0 assists per game.

His work ethic on the court doesn’t seem to be in question and he is apparently one of those high-motor players. Anyone familiar with what the Dixon boys have overcome should want to root for his success.

There’s more Pitt recruiting stuff here.

Recruiting never ends. What about 2009?

“Compared to last year, it’s going to be off,” Metro Index scouting director Joe Butler said. “You’re not going to have the number of national recruits, but more Mid-American Conference-type recruits, which is still really good football. Last year, we had an unbelievable number of high-end talents. There’s not as much high-end talent, but there are a couple kids that are exceptional.”

That’s no surprise to WPIAL coaches, who realize that ’08 wasn’t your typical recruiting class. Of the 31 Division I-A recruits, 22 signed with BCS programs. Pryor, named national player of the year by PARADE, was one of four WPIAL stars to play in the U.S. Army All-American Bowl. Three others also played in national all-star games.

“I don’t know if there will ever be another group like this past group: You’re looking at five kids nationally ranked in the top 100 by some service or another, then having the No. 1 kid,” Gateway coach Terry Smith said. “I think there’s a chance for two or three kids to be in the top 100 this year. It may be as strong a group from A to Z, but not top end.”

It’s only fitting that recruiting analysts believe the top three prospects in the WPIAL are players who were overshadowed this past season by star senior teammates: Gateway linebacker Dorian Bell and receiver Corey Brown and Montour all-purpose back E.J. Banks.

Dorian Bell is a top-20 recruit nationally. Bell and Brown already have offers from Pitt. Looks like Pitt is going to have look harder at the rest of the state and outside Pennsylvania to pull in a recruiting class comparable to this past one. Winning a lot more games would definitely help that process.

I had been unaware that new Linebackers Coach Joe Tumpkin was actually hired by Central Florida in January. Barely a month on the job before he got a better offer and a chance to work with his old boss.

Well, it’s not like Pitt could avoid playing 1-AA teams for too long. New Hampshire will be coming in 2010 for a $300,00 pay out.

Mark Schlabach at ESPN.com has a revised, way-too-early top-25. Pitt clocks in at 22.

After beating West Virginia 13-9 in one of the biggest upsets of 2007, the Panthers finally seemed poised to turn the corner under coach Dave Wannstedt. QB Pat Bostick and tailback LeSean McCoy both played remarkably well as freshmen, and the defense showed some bite at season’s end. If the Panthers can learn to win close games — they lost four games by seven or fewer points last season — they might be one of the country’s biggest surprises.

How about just blowing some teams out, so it becomes a moot point?

Suddenly the reports are that Fields might be ready by the middle of the month.

Junior point guard Levance Fields is expected to return to practice today when the Panthers begin preparations for the Providence game Tuesday night at the Petersen Events Center. Fields was cleared by team doctors Thursday afternoon to resume basketball activities.

Well, practice turned out to be delayed a day, but Fields did take part in shooting drills. He’s definitely not going to be playing on Tuesday. That just strikes me as Dixon refusing to put any timetable — moved up or back.

The win moved Pitt up to 5th in the Big East and WVU slid to 9th. So, naturally that means it’s time to worry about the NCAA Tournaments and conferences getting enough of their teams into the show.

What really matters, is how does Pitt look as the selection time is a month away?

“Look around the country and try to find me a team that doesn’t have a bad loss,” Parrish said. “They are almost nonexistent. Tennessee, the No. 1 RPI, lost to Kentucky (11-9). North Carolina lost to Maryland at home. UCLA lost to USC (at home). And those are the No. 1 or 2 seeds. Those losses aren’t as bad as Rutgers. But those are the elite teams.”

“At this point, Pitt isn’t going to be a one- or a two-seed anyway, so only one bad loss on your resume (Rutgers) is going to be fine. … I would suspect on Selection Sunday that Pitt will get a better number than most people would think. The committee is not going to forget about Levance.”

All of this assumes, of course, that Pitt qualifies for the NCAA Tournament for the seventh consecutive season.

The Panthers seem to be a good bet, provided they go .500 or better over their final eight games. That would give them 10 conference wins.

Does 10-8 in the Big East make Pitt a lock? Yes.

Yippee.  Of course that means going at least 4-4 with games that have a rather rough stretch looming. After Providence it is at ND, at Marquette, Louisville, at Syracuse (unpredictable) and at WVU before finishing with DePaul. The

I just haven’t had time to post about Pitt’s announced non-conference schedule for this season.

Aug. 30: Bowling Green

Sept. 6: Buffalo

Sept. 20: Iowa

Oct. 18: at Navy

Nov. 1: at Notre Dame

As a home schedule, it’s pretty good since there will be conference home games with Louisville, WVU and Rutgers.  No 1-AA teams this year, so that’s nice. I will be curious to see how the Big East schedule is integrated into this, with Pitt having 2 open weeks in September. It will be odd to have at least one off-week in September. Then another one in October or November — I’m assuming the WVU game will be on November 29.

The one thing that bothers me is that Pitt has agreed to a 4-year home-and-home with Buffalo. This was apparently set up by former AD Jeff Long, and that just blows my mind. A 2-for-1, fine. A 3-for-2 I could have stomached. That’s horrible. Unless this includes maybe 2 or 3 more home-only MAC games, I’m just stunned.

Still, it could be worse. It looks like nearly 1/3 of the ACC will have two 1-AA games on their schedule this year — FSU, GT, Clemson and probably VT. Yeah, I don’t think any schedule bashing should ever come from the ACC again.

The NYC media finds its two themes for the game tomorrow.

There is the previously discussed: Blair and Kennedy are close friends and played together at Schenley.

Then there is the Pitt has battled injuries, but keeps winning.

After losing two more players who play minor roles, and the Panthers’ roster reads like a sign-up sheet in the emergency room. Yet Pittsburgh has pushed ahead behind Dixon’s optimism and his mantra of no excuses, even though the extenuating circumstances are plentiful.

“Even when guys went down, he believed,” Ramon said of Dixon. “He believed in guys who hadn’t done this before. He kept teaching and put his trust out there and believed in us even more. He didn’t say we’d just do the best we can.”

There have been adjustments, which only add to the tale.

The team’s practices have become more finesse than physical, with the fear of losing another player being far too real. Dixon even had to bring aboard a Division II transfer, Ryan Tiesi, who scored 4.2 points a game for Bellarmine University last season, just to have enough bodies to practice effectively.

Dixon said that other coaches, friends of his, told him that he might as well forget about the rest of the season. “But I had seen our guys in practice and knew we had answers,” Dixon said. “You have to go with your heart. I felt we had the players to make it work.”

Pitt does need a road win. Beating USF hardly counts, and no one wants to lose two in a row.

Pitt, stinging from a 62-59 loss at Cincinnati, is 1-2 on the road in Big East games. The Panthers will need a victory at St. John’s to avoid losing two games in a row for only the sixth time under Dixon, spanning 153 games.

“This is a great time to show people that we can win on the road,” said Benjamin, averaging 16.0 points per game since moving into the starting lineup for injured Levance Fields. “You have to win games on the road and this is a good time to win one.”

Also, schedule and record-wise, this and the Rutgers games are must wins. Pitt is heading for a brutal second half — ‘Nova, @UConn, WVU, Providence, @Marquette, @ND, L-ville, Cinci, @Syr and @WVU. Even at full strength it wouldn’t have been outrageous for Pitt to lose 3 or 4 of those games.

I’ve had this in my bookmarks since back in late December and I’m finally getting around to it now. What is this map with seemingly random markers on it? It’s the locations of Pitt football’s away football games since 1998. MapGameDay.com posted maps for all of the FBS teams and made them sortable by teams and conferences. The Wizard of Odds then compiled all of the data and made fancy graphs from that.

According to this, the farthest we’ve traveled in each compass direction.

North: @ Syracuse (’98, ’00, ’02, ’04, ’06) in Syracuse, NY
South: @ Miami (’98, ’00, ’02) in Miami, FL
East: @ Boston College (’99, ’01, ’03) in Chestnut Hill, MA
West: @ Nebraska (’05) in Lincoln, NE

Our amount of travel compared to other Big East teams?

And as a whole, the Big East travels less than every other conference except the ACC and SEC. Of course, the fact we only have 8 teams in our conference might lead to that.

6:40: Family (huge Duke fans) from North Carolina are here for Christmas and I’ll be watching the game with them tonight. I am prepared to win or lose excessive amounts of money tonight depending on the outcome.

6:50: On PTI today, Tony Korheiser gave Pitt a 4% chance of winning and Michael Wilbon gave us at 25% chance. Jay Bilas says on SportsCenter that Duke is also built more for the postseason. It’s still December…

7:02: The team looked fired up in the pregame.

We have tip-off. Go Pitt.

7:05: The clocks at MSG are performing about as well as the Knicks have this year. Still waiting…

7:08: Finally we’re actually going to play. DeJuan Blair gets an early 2 on a nice move. Already we’re seeing the Duke screen plays at the top of the key lead to a wide open lane. Can’t expect Blair to switch on a pick to cover a quick guard. Duke is picking up the defense at about 3/4 court, much earlier than we’ve seen from any other team this year.

7:11: Maybe Blair should have dished it to Fields for the break, maybe he shouldn’t. Oh well. Four offensive turnovers already — ouch.

7:16: Sam Young with a horrible missed dunk.

I feel like on at least two occasions, Ronald Ramon was maybe going to shoot a 3 but was confused by the NBA three-point line.

Stuart makes a good point in the comments: “Duke seems to have a good plan with making Ramon bring it up – its taking Fields out of the game and causing Ramon to turn it over way too much.”

7:28: Gil Brown has knocked down a jumper and blocked a shot which lead to Blair basically getting tackled. Both teams look sloppy — Pitt more than Duke, though. Duke is up 3 with 9:20 left in the half.

7:35: Even more turnovers. Traveling, stepping out of bounds, offensive fouls, bad ball handling…

Dixon takes his first timeout of the game after Paulus nails a three.

7:41: Duke is just a team of tall white dudes who know how to flop. The refs are starting to lean towards Coach K and we haven’t scored in about 5 minutes. The double teams on Blair are starting to work and he’s getting trapped in the lost post without a place to pass it to. On defense it looks like Pitt has never seen a team use a screen and Duke has all kinds of open shots and drives. The Duke family members have taken over my basement.

13 turnovers and counting.

7:55: So that was a pretty ugly half of basketball. We have no leader on the floor and the entire team needs to collectively calm down. Not at all impressed with Ramon, which makes me realize how much better I felt with Antonio Graves last year. If Ramon isn’t even going to hit his three pointers (0-3) then why does he even play? Sam Young and Mike Cook need to both settle for less jump shots and drive more. Too much of the offense is happening very far from the basket, which is a combination of Duke’s good defense plus Pitt’s offense which is playing like crap. The “help defense” being played on Blair has been working very well for Duke and ‘m sure we’ll see plenty more in the 2nd half. Oh, and hitting some free throws would be nice too.

Halftime: Duke 34 — Pitt 22
(more…)

Trends are funny things. Oklahoma State hasn’t won a true road game since February 11, 2006. A span of 13 games. At the same time, they have beaten Pitt 3 straight times. Oklahoma State Game notes (PDF).

Pitt is at home and has only lost one home non-con game at the Pete since it opened. Winning 26 straight home non-cons and 54-1 overall at the Pete in non-conference games. Pitt Game notes (PDF).

Interesting how Pitt got the game at home in exchange for playing in Oklahoma City rather than Stillwater last year. Seems a bit of good negotiating, leverage and ESPN helped make it happen.

In previous years, All-College games played in Oklahoma City have been returned in similar venues, like last year’s game against Tennessee in Nashville.

“I think Pittsburgh bargained last year that the All-College needed a quality team and they leveraged ‘Hey, we’ll come play, but we want the game on our court coming back,’” OSU coach Sean Sutton said. “I said, ‘We’ll do that if you start a series with a quality opponent that starts in Gallagher.’”

ESPN, therefore, owes OSU that game next season, Sutton said.

Not Pitt’s problem, though. Really, what could Pitt have offered that would have been equivalent? The closest would have been a tournament with Duquesne at the Civic Arena or something with Penn State up in Erie. Just not seeing it.

There seems to be some confidence that Pitt will win this game over at ESPN.com. This week’s Power 16 has Pitt at #9.

Like Texas, the Panthers are a “Ewing Theory” candidate, as the replacement of Aaron Gray with DeJuan Blair has made this a much more athletic and flexible team. We’ll find out a lot more about the Panthers (and Duke) next Thursday at MSG.

Already skipping ahead to Duke.

Andy Katz in his chat was asked a couple things regarding Pitt (Insider subs.).

Brian (Pittsburgh): Andy, Any thoughts on this weekends Oklahoma State/Pitt matchup?

Andy Katz: Pitt handily.

…

Fosheezy, Pittsburgh: Andy: I love your work. You are the best college basketball mind on ESPN. Does Pitt and Duke go into their matchup next week both undefeated? Pitt has a tough one against Oklahoma State this Saturday. Who do you like in the Pitt-Duke game?

Andy Katz: I didn’t know I had relatives in Pittsburgh. I do think Pitt and Duke will be undefeated going into the game. I’ll stay away from a prediction at this point but I will say that I’m looking forward to seeing how the Blue Devils guad Sam Young and how Pitt defends the Duke 3-point shooters.

There was also the weekly chat with P-G beat writer Ray Fittipaldo. It seems everyone already wants to look ahead to the Duke game. Hopefully the players aren’t. Oklahoma State still offers enough of a challenge.