One of the worst things I’ve found about the offseason for college basketball is not nearly enough from Ken Pomeroy. He has to be the top of the heap stats/numbers blogger.

This latest looks at the myth of the intensity of the home crowd as affecting the outcome of games. He takes the conventional wisdom and calmly beats it down with reality.

Okay, this set comes from another Michigan blog, Straight Bangin’.

Which unheralded player on your team will be the hardest to replace? Which seemingly inconsequential player could make the biggest impact?

Right. Pitt didn’t lose that many starters or key role players that stand out. Rob Petitti and Tyrone Gilliard were not unheralded players who graduated. The field is kind of limited so I’d say the hardest player to replace for Pitt that hasn’t gotten much attention is Center Justin Belarski. Replacing a center is always worrisome. I know the line last year wasn’t that good, but Belarski was very solid and was very reliable in protecting Palko up the middle.

Joe Flacco, back-up QB. At this point we still don’t know if he’s transferring or not. If he goes, Pitt will only have true freshmen backing up Palko. I realize as Palko goes, so goes Pitt this year, but if it is just for a game, series, quarter or whatever you would like to have someone go in there with some real familiarity with the players and who has had more than just the training camp to learn the system — even if it’s a new one. Also, the potential risk of moving Tight End Darrell Strong back to QB to provide some depth. Strong is a great athlete and the last thing anyone should want to see is it wasted the way Penn State has wasted and jerked around Michael Robinson.

Which regular-season game that won’t feature your team would you pay the most money to see this season? Why?

Well now that they won’t be selling beer in the Coliseum for USC games, I’ve kind of lost interest in attending those games.

I was thinking about the South Carolina-Tennessee game. Pro, not hearing TV announcers go on ad nauseum about the history between Spurrier and Fulmer. Con, missing the continual cut-away shots to the facial expressions on both coaches during the game. I’ll stick with TV, I can always go to mute.

I guess I have to go with the Oklahoma-Texas game. A bitter rivalry game, expected to be big, lots of drinking and trash talking by the fans before, during and after. When there is a continual threat of violence between factions at any moment, I want to be there. Added bonus, the chance to start rumors about the coaches to see what happens.

To Texas fans: “Hey, I heard that Mack Brown was treated by the team doctor last night for a major panic attack. He was hypervenilating, getting the dry heaves. It was brutal.”

To Oklahoma fans: “I understand that the Seahawks and Paul Allen are prepared to give Stoops all the money and power he wants to take the Seattle job.”

If your team were a rapper, who would it be and why?

#$@%$@#$*&*^$!

Look, I’m in my mid-30s, white, grew up in a rural part of Pennsylvania, and missed the whole hip-hop thing. I have as much street cred as Joe Biden at a rave. I’ll leave it to my readers to pick that one.

For a band analogy just to have an answer, I’ll say the Kinks. Everyone always talks about the Stones, Beatles and the Who. The Kinks have this great history, library of fantastic songs, and are totally underappreciated when discussing the British Invasion.

Greg Doyel at Sportsline, has notes from the Nike Camp and on the best dunks, observes that “Pittsburgh recruit Gilbert Johnson looked to be walking on air as he finished off a two-handed reverse.” Um, it’s Brown, not Johnson.

Now as for Paul Harris, the kid who is down to either Pitt or Syracuse, might choose neither for a year — prep school. It’s a shame, because he was doing something at the ABCD Camp that few others were doing. Playing defense.

While most of the players at the ABCD Camp senior game in Hackensack were content with allowing fast breaks and alley-oops, the 6-5 senior from Niagara Falls, N.Y., was the most energized and determined defensive player on the court. Oh, yeah. He also led all scorers with 34 points, winning co-MVP for the Blue team.

“He works extra hard out there,” said St. Patrick’s of Elizabeth star Derrick Caracter, who played against Harris yesterday and earned co-MVP of the White team. “That’s what makes him so rugged.”

Harris said he would likely attend prep school, but is considering Syracuse and Pittsburgh.

“A lot of people can score,” Harris said. “Not everyone can defend. To be different (in an all-star game) you have to lock some guys up.”

Imagine that. A top high schooler in the country who wants to play some defense.

At SI.com, Stewart Mandel is impressed with the way Coach Wannstedt has worked quickly.

So, looking ahead two to three years from now, where do you think Pittsburgh’s Dave Wannstedt will fall?
–Josh, Columbus, Ohio

If the early returns are any indication, Wannstedt could ultimately wind up being one of the best hires of any school this offseason. Wannstedt, a Pitt alum and Steel City native, has wasted no time flexing his muscle on the local recruiting scene, already securing 12 commitments for next year, 11 of them in-state. Not coincidentally, Penn State, which has made a common practice in the past of loading up early, has just two verbals, neither of them from Pennsylvania. The Panthers’ commitments are no slouches, either. One of them, Dorin Dickerson, is rated as the fifth-best receiver in the country by Scout.com. Another, Jason Pinkston, is ranked No. 11 at defensive tackle.

I still think Walt Harris got a raw deal when he was basically shoved out the door last year despite significantly boosting the program — which was 15-41 in the five years before his arrival, 39-23 in his last five years there — but at the same time, he had pretty much maxed out his capabilities. Many Pitt fans still cling to the belief the program can return to its mid-’70s level, when it won a national championship, and while I’ve always felt that was largely unrealistic, Wannstedt may be the one guy who can do it. He wasn’t exactly an overwhelming success as an NFL head coach, but neither was Carroll or Groh. He’s always been considered a solid defensive mind, was a major part of Jimmy Johnson‘s success at Oklahoma State, Miami and with the Dallas Cowboys, and it may be that his background and personality are better-suited for the college game, particularly his alma mater.

We are ready to drink the kool-aid.

Now, notice that Mandel noted that Penn State has been slow out of the box in getting early commitments as opposed to their historic practices. So this article, ostensibly about Penn State’s latest recruit, engages in a little revisionism.

Penn State’s only three verbals by mid-July is not particularly out of the ordinary for Paterno-style recruiting, but it does raise eyebrows when examined in the context of intrastate recruiting rival Pittsburgh. First-year coach Dave Wannstedt has already locked up 12 solid verbals, including Rivals.com four-star athlete Dorin Dickerson of West Allegheny High School.

[Emphasis added.]

Now, I’m just trying to figure out the context of this.

“I don’t really want to rag on Pitt, but they kind of were all about western Pennsylvania,” McEowen said. “I don’t know if they got the best players from PA that they could have. They got 12 guys, but I don’t know if those are going to be as good as those seven or eight guys that Penn State might get.”

McEowen stressed that he “can’t say anything bad about any of the schools that recruited me” — he chose Penn State over Boston College, Florida, Georgia, Louisville, Maryland, North Carolina and Virginia — before he shared his thoughts on why Pitt has raked up more early recruits than his new school.

For the record, 10 of the 12 Pitt recruits are from Western Pennsylvania.

I don’t really want to rag on McEowen, but I suspect the question he was responding to was about whether Pitt tried to recruit him. It would appear Pitt did not seriously pursue him and he almost seems hurt by that. It just doesn’t seem that he would just volunteer those thoughts. As for the other part, what? Would you expect him to say that Pitt is going to outrecruit Penn State?

Still, interesting to suddenly have Penn State recruits being asked how Pitt fit in their decisionmaking.