Both papers had pieces on Pitt’s football schedule. The story by Paul Zeise had more from Coach Wannstedt.

Wannstedt said one thing that will make the schedule tougher is that he has a young team and Pitt doesn’t get any breaks in September. There are only eight scholarship seniors, not including kickers, and the majority of the defensive backs will be sophomores or younger.

“There will be a lot of pressure on us to get it right in training camp,” Wannstedt said. “We don’t have any exhibition games, any ‘give-me’ games coming out of the blocks. Virginia is a very tough game, especially for an opener. We have young players, but they have talent and we’ll work hard to get them ready. These guys will respond to the challenge and we’ll be a lot better prepared for the beginning of the season this time through it.”

Wannstedt said the early non-conference games are a challenge, but he also expects the Big East to be much tougher. He noted that there were no coaching changes in the conference in the offseason and that most teams relied heavily on underclassmen last season. That means there is more stability than last season when there were three new teams and two teams with new coaches.

“A lot of teams were like us — five I think to be exact — in that they were in some stage of transition last season,” he said. “Now every one has settled in and there were a lot of great young players in the Big East who are now going to be leaders.”

Okay, we have about 6 months to brace ourselves for the slew of inevitable cracks regarding Groh and Wannstedt matching coaching wits. If it wasn’t for the fact that Pitt is involved, we’d probably be slinging as well.

I was surprised in the notes, that OL Coach Paul Dunn interviewed for another job. Unless it was in the NFL or for an offensive coordinator position, that seems strange. I realize there is an argument that he was trying to make chicken salad with chicken s–t on the O-line, but he didn’t exactly distinguish himself his first year on the job.

Now on the subject of Pitt not playing the Backyard Brawl on Thanksgiving, but instead the week before, I’m not that upset. Yes, I suppose I should be since it was an ESPN move to get the bigger college name (hat tip, Chris) — and ACC/BE defectors no less, but it’s not like there was a tradition for the Brawl to be on Thanksgiving. That could be kind of funny. It’s not like the Orange Bowl is packed during most games for Miami. What will happen with a Thanksgiving Day game?

Selfishly, I like it because I’ll be able to make the game for the first time since 2001. If I’m not mistaken, this will also be the first Thursday night home game (not on Thanksgiving) for Pitt since 1997 — when Pitt beat Miami. I guess the only thing that really bothers me is that it isn’t the season finale. The place a good rivalry game deserves to be when it is in conference. Instead, both teams have games afterwards.

One other thing, over at Sportsline.com, they rank the top-10 football-basketball schools:

Why not both? Broaden your horizons as an increasing number of schools have done. In other words, it is possible to be good at football and basketball at the major-college level. All it takes is a few million dollars, a couple of good hires and a little bit of dedication.

It’s important because the two sports bring in the most money at most schools. The list used to be small enough to jot on a cocktail napkin. Now it’s a full-blown bar argument.

No Duke, Stanford or Michigan on this list. See if you agree with this group, based the latest accomplishments at each school:
…
9. Pittsburgh: Hard to believe, but Pittsburgh is not just about the Steelers. We swear.

Walt Harris brought the football program back to a BCS level. Dave Wannstedt was disappointing in his first year but is destined to win a Big East title before he’s through.

Howland and Jamie Dixon have the basketball program back to an elite level. Great accomplishments in an urban-campus setting.

Hey, it’s the off-season for football and post-NLI time. Optimism should abound for football.

So, Pitt has played 9 conference games so far and is 6-3. That means conference only stats are approaching relevance and usefulness.

Here are the overall conference numbers to this point.

Overall (9) – FG% — 3FG% —- 2FG% —– eFG%
Pitt ——— 42.9 —– 33.3 —— 46.6 ——- 47.6
Opponents — 42.4 —– 35.2 —— 45.8 ——- 48.0

Kind of interesting to see how close things really have been in conference, yet Pitt is 6-3. I’m going to split things up:

Home (4) — FG% — 3FG% —- 2FG% —– eFG%
Pitt ——— 46.4 —– 44.3 —— 47.1 ——- 52.1
Opponents — 42.5 —– 34.0 —— 47.2 ——- 48.6

Away (5) — FG% —- 3FG% —- 2FG% —– eFG%
Pitt ——— 40.0 —– 25.6 —— 46.2 ——- 43.9
Opponents — 42.2 —– 36.8 —— 44.4 ——- 47.5

There is only one difference between what Pitt does at home versus on the road: shooting 3s. Everything else is not noticeably different. Even on defense. But the variation between Pitt’s 3-point shooting on the road as compared to home is huge.

Not only is Pitt missing more 3s on the road, it is taking more 3s. Pitt has shot 27-61 at home (6.75-15.25/game) and 22-86 on the road (4.4-17.2/game).

Still that doesn’t full explain the 3 losses. After all, Pitt shot only 28.6 (4-14) versus Rutgers but hit 35.3 (6-17) against Georgetown.

There’s one other component missing when Pitt goes on the road — and especially in the losses. Free throw shooting. I’m not talking about the number of made shots. I’m talking about the number of attempts. Look at this:

Home (4) — FTA — FTM —— FT%
Pitt ——— 127 —— 75 ——– 59.1
Opponents — 48 —— 28 ——- 58.3

Away (5) — FTA — FTM —— FT%
Pitt ———- 98 —– 71 ——- 72.4
Opponents — 100 —– 71 ——- 71.0

Pitt is actually shooting free throws significantly better on the road. The problem is, they aren’t getting to the line enough. Over half of Pitt’s FTAs came in just 2 games (Louisville and RU).

In all but one of Pitt’s wins (Marquette), the Panthers attempted at least 24 free throws (average of about 30.5, but skewed a bit because of the D-OT game with ND where Pitt had 46 FTA) . In the 3 losses, Pitt averaged 14 trips. The high was 18 (UConn) and the low 10 (Georgetown).

How does a team get to the free throw line? Either by getting the other team to foul a lot (creating bonus situations early — DePaul) or by being fouled while shooting (aggressive play to the basket).

When Pitt plays good games it is passing the ball well, and taking good shots. The team isn’t settling for jumpers and shying away from contact. There is penetration (like against Syracuse). When Pitt is taking more 3-point attempts, they are not penetrating as much and/or just passing along the perimeter (St. John’s). They are avoiding contact, and if the shots aren’t falling, it isn’t creating more opportunities inside or space to make the pass for a player to drive to the basket.

Okay, that is kind of a strange factoid. In the 169 or 168 times that Pitt and WVU have met, Thursday’s game will be the first time both teams are ranked at the same time.

Most of Pitt’s basketball success has come in the past 30 years or so. The AP ranked Pitt for the first time Jan. 14, 1974. After the ’74 season, the Panthers didn’t get ranked again until 1986 and spent most of the next five seasons in the national rankings. They have been a consistent presence in the AP poll since early January 2002.

West Virginia, on the other hand, enjoyed some of its best years in the 1950s and early 1960s. The Mountaineers were consistently ranked from 1950-1963, including a No. 1 ranking for eight weeks in 1957 and ’58. After ’63, the Mountaineers got ranked for one week in 1971, but didn’t get ranked again until 1982. Until this season, the Mountaineers were ranked only 21 times from 1989-2004.

Those are some big gaps.

And in case you just haven’t gotten enough of the Steelers:

Pitt is in the preliminary stages of putting together a ceremony to honor the Steelers for their victory in Super Bowl XL. School officials are trying to work to get Steelers players to attend for a pregame or halftime ceremony.

It won’t be the Providence game (Feb. 25) since that one will be the “Centennial Team” honors. Probably couldn’t pull it together in time for tomorrow night’s game. That leaves either this Saturday’s game against Cinci or the final game against Seton Hall (March 3).

Pitt comes into the game losing 2 straight while WVU hasn’t lost in BE play and has won 15 of its last 16 games. Both teams played over the weekend, with WVU beating Cinci on Saturday and Pitt lost to G-town on Sunday.

The big match-up issue will be the presumed one between Aaron Gray and Kevin Pittsnogle. I’m not so sure. Pitt might consider a different match-up given Pittsnogle’s ability to shoot from outside. It has to at least be considered to let Kendall and Young give up some size to be able to come out on Pittsnogle.

An article claiming that Patrick Beilein is WVU’s biggest trash-talker? I’m just going to let that go.

Game notes for Pitt and WVU (PDFs).