Well with Indiana’s Mike Davis making it official that he is a lame duck, the speculation jumps the tracks about where coaches will go and what will happen.

Andy Katz at ESPN.com writes of the trend this year to be coaches at other schools not wanting to have their names dragged around in advance.

Questions will be asked of prospective candidates, who will then predictably deny any interest. Athletic directors will posture to show they can keep their own head coaches. And of course plenty of coaches will play the game of Job Search that will ultimately land them a hefty raise.

But the overriding theme for these three high-profile gigs (and they may not be the only ones that pop up) is the reluctance of big-name candidates to be part of a formal coaching search.

For example, if Indiana wants Iowa’s Steve Alford, then the Hoosiers will have to go get him, according to a source close to Alford. Alford isn’t about to do a dance with his alma mater and go through a formal interview process with three or four other candidates. A coach at a rival school can’t afford to do that.

The same would be true if Indiana were to go after Marquette’s Tom Crean. He can’t afford a slow waltz with a school only to risk not being chosen. Nor should he have to dance.

This unwillingness to join the search process will be seen throughout the country at places like Wake Forest, where Skip Prosser could be contacted by Cincinnati. West Virginia’s John Beilein, a highly coveted coach, can’t simply flirt with breaking his deal in Morgantown. He would have to do it and go, not waffle over whether to stay or bolt.

Geez name coaches not wanting to be attached to searches, where are the Bobby Petrinos of college basketball coaches?

Greg Doyel takes the coaching change potential to a tongue-in-cheek extreme for the potential turnover and dominoes. Pitt and Jamie Dixon are included in the game.

Arizona State: This job belongs to Rob Evans — for now. When he goes, the Sun Devils will pursue Pittsburgh’s Jamie Dixon. And Dixon, a West Coast guy with the confidence and ability to wake this sleeping giant, will say yes. Dark horse pick: Lon Kruger, who’s getting the message that UNLV isn’t what it’s cracked up to be. And whose son, Kevin, will be an ASU senior guard next season.

Pittsburgh: By replacing Ben Howland and winning just as big, Dixon demonstrated that successions can work. Next in line at Pittsburgh is associate head Barry Rohrssen, who helped stock the program with talent and would be an even more devastating recruiter in the Northeast with the words “head coach” on his business card. Dark horse pick: Bucknell’s Pat Flannery, a nearly lifelong resident of Pennsylvania, can X-and-O with anyone.

He also lists NC St. assistant and former Pitt great Larry Harris as the darkhorse for the Duquesne job. I’m not sure Duquesne is going back to the Pitt well for a coach after Darrelle Porter didn’t work out for them. Like I said, definitely has a tongue-in-cheek feel to it. I wouldn’t read much into it at this time.

Hopefully this is just coincidence and not a negative reflection. Either way, I hope the Big East got its money from XM up front for the broadcast rights.

XM Satellite Radio Holdings Inc.’s losses soared in the fourth quarter on higher costs for marketing and acquiring subscribers, and a director quit over disagreements about the company’s direction, warning of a looming “crisis.”

Investors punished the shares of the Washington, D.C.-based company, sending them down $1.27, or 5 percent, to close at $23.98 in very heavy volume Thursday afternoon on the Nasdaq Stock Market. They reached a 52-week low of $22.94 earlier in the day.

Of particular concern to investors was the unexpected departure of Pierce J. Roberts Jr. from XM’s board of directors, who said in his resignation letter that he was “troubled” by the company’s current path. Roberts, the former chief telecom banker at Bear Stearns, had served on the board’s audit, compensation and nominating committees. He had been a director for five years.

“Given current course and speed there is, in my view, a significant chance of a crisis on the horizon,” Roberts wrote in the letter, which the company disclosed in a regulatory filing. “Even absent a crisis, I believe that XM will inevitably serve its shareholders poorly without major changes now.”

Now from the comments, there have been some good ones. Jamie H. did a better job than I did in trying to explain why it was good for Pitt that St. John’s beat Rutgers:

… if you are familiar with the Seeding Sheets the Selection Committee uses, they break down your schedule into records vs teams ranked 1-25, 25-50, 50-100, 100-200 etc in the RPI. So it is better for us to keep St. Johns’ RPI as high as possible, so that we dont have any losses to sub-100 RPI teams. We beat Rutgers, so their RPI moving below 100 wont hurt us. Losing to sub-100 RPI teams looks bad, and the Committee will dock you for it. Regardless of your overall RPI (which isnt affected by the Rutger-Johnnies game).

The oft-cited (by me) Ken Pomeroy has a breakdown on his RPI page so you can get a better visual.

Speculation about Aaron Gray is also a speculative discussion. Eric R. essentially sums up my view.

If the Panthers make a strong run in the post season (i.e. Sweet 16 on), there will be a plethura of national stories about Pitt. You can bet on a lot of those stories focusing on a number of individual players, including Gray (assuming he continues to put up consistant numbers). That would certainly raise Gray’s stock and put him, possibly, in the NBA. If however, the Panthers get knocked out early, the possibility of Gray returning increases.

Bottom line: Wait until the end of March and it will be easier to tell.

My feeling is more that Pitt has to get to the Elite 8 or better for the attention on Gray to reach a point where the buzz pushes him higher. At the Sweet 16, there are still enough teams and players to diffuse the stories. I think more like what happened with Dwayne Wade at Marquette. The talk about him was there, but it was still an undercurrent until he became unstoppable against Pitt and then Kentucky. If Pitt had beaten Marquette, Wade may not have been a lottery pick.

It’s an interesting conflict Pitt hasn’t had to wrestle to this point. The better Pitt does, the greater the chance Gray leaves early. Considering last year was supposed to be the year it all came together for Pitt, and what happened, I will happily wish Gray well in the pros if Pitt gets past the Sweet 16.

Looking to the next game, I’m really hoping for a Marquette win over Georgetown tonight. The last thing I want is Pitt to go into the Bradley Center against a desperate, but good team, that has lost 3 straight.

The normal box scores are here and of course the advanced numbers.

Pitt

Poss 71.9 Pace Moderate
O-Rating 118.3 D-Rating 107.1 (Eff. Margin +11.1)
eFG% 59.8 PPWS 1.25
A/TO 1.3 TO Rate 18.1% A/B 56.7%
Floor Pct 56.5% FT Prod 32.1

Providence

Poss 68.9 Pace Moderate
O-Rating 111.8 D-Rating 123.4 (Eff. Margin -11.6)
eFG% 53.7 PPWS 1.17
A/TO 0.6 TO Rate 23.2% A/B 36.0%
Floor Pct 54.3% FT Prod 35.2

Both teams were scoring, but Pitt more efficient. Especially in the second half when Providence had 10 turnovers. Pitt was less sloppy with the ball.

3-point shooting recovered a bit in the second half for Pitt (3-9 1st, 4-9 2nd). It was nowhere near as pathetic as it was against UConn, St. John’s or Rutgers. Still it was noticeably lower than when Pitt is at home. Ramon, who was precise the last two home games was only 2-6 last night. Krauser struggled as well. In fact the guards were only 4-14. It was at the forward position where the 3s were falling — 3-4 from Benjamin, DeGroat and Kendall — to bail out the overall numbers.

Aaron Gray had one of the prettiest lines you could hope to see from the big man

  --------------------- FG    3pt  FT   Reb
                 Min  M-A   M-A  M-A  O-T   A F S TO BLK Pts Aaron Gray         30   9-9   0-0  4-5  3-9   1 2 1  2  2   22

Keith Benjamin not only got it done on the offense with his 15 points on 6-8 shooting, but on the other end of the floor as well. He was very aggressive on defense — leading to 4 fouls — with 2 steals. He grabbed 4 rebounds (2 at each end). He was out there for 23 minutes.

Pitt in fact favored the forwards as far as playing time over the guards. Pitt decided to exploit the size and strength advantage in the second half, by going with two guards. Graves and Fields played 12 and 16 minutes in the game, but only a total of 8 minutes in the second half. John DeGroat actually played more minutes in the second half (6) than either guard. Tyrell Biggs actually saw a couple minutes of action in the second half.

The big mystery to me is Aaron Gray’s free throw shooting. Gray is 86-133 (.647) at the line on the year. Once more Gray shot free throws well on the road. I’ve been noting to myself recently that Gray seems to shoot his FTs better away from the Pete. That’s not entirely true.

——– FTM – FTA — FT%
Overall (23) 86 — 133 — .647
Home – (15) 52 — 80 — .650
Road — (8) 34 — 53 — .642

So I’m wrong. Not entirely. It turns out if you go to BE Conference games only, the numbers are quite different.

——– FTM – FTA — FT%
Overall (12) 50 — 79 — .633
Home — (6) 20 — 36 — .556
Road — (6) 30 — 43 — .698

In the non-con, Gray shot .667 overall (36-54) and .727 at home (32-44). With only 2 non-con away games, he shot only 4-10 (.400).

I’m not sure what happened. His first 3 road games (which includes Louisville) he went 8-19. His last 3 road games showed an excellent 16-18. At home in the last 3 games, he went 8-17.

The simple explanation is that he is still learning his stroke and he is just inconsistent. It’s just been very strange since the start of January and got even weirder since the end of the month.

Lots of achievements for individuals and the team last night.

Aaron Gray missed getting another double double, but was a perfect 9-9 from the floor. He was the first Pitt player in 15 years to shoot such perfection. Brian Shorter went 11-11 in 1990, also against Providence. Pitt is now 24-15 versus Providence since joining the Big East (24-16 overall). The second best winning percentage for Pitt against any BE conference foe (the best is against now departed BC — 28-15).

Pitt (20-3, 9-3) came out after the intermission and forced the ball into Gray, who responded with 16 points in the first 6 1/2 minutes of the second half. Pitt took control of the game with a 17-2 run. Gray scored 12 of those points, including a 3-point play with 14:45 remaining that gave the Panthers a 52-44 lead.

The Panthers were bringing a man up to the high post and working the high-low to perfection in the second half.

“We just really stressed getting the ball inside in the second half,” Gray said. “We were all making plays. That was the main difference in us winning the game.”
…
“I thought we did a good job of attacking the zone in the second half,” Dixon said. “We had to do a better job of getting the ball inside in the second half, and we did that. Aaron is doing such a great job of keeping the ball up [after he catches it]. He caught all of the balls and never brought any of them down.”

Krauser had another slow start to the first half, not helped by being limited to only 9 minutes due to foul trouble. Still, Gray gave credit to Krauser for getting them going in the second half.

“It was our on-the-floor leadership of Carl Krauser,” Gray said, explaining what helped to hold Pitt together. “He’s the one who huddled us up at halftime and really took control, and coach Dixon came in and kind of cleaned it up. We realized that anywhere in the Big East it’s tough to steal a win, but we felt we could here.”

Providence played a zone defense for most of the first half and it seemed to confound the Panthers. But Pitt solved things in the second half, when the Friars played zone and mixed it up with a man-to-man.

“We weren’t playing very smart (in the first half),” Gray said. “But we made the right adjustments and were able to keep it going.”

Krauser scored 12 points, 10 coming in the second half. More importantly he had 6 assists in the second half (7 for the game), by being the guy able to get the ball to Gray. He became the first Pitt player with 1500+ points and 500+ assists. No other Pitt player has done that. On top of that, has 467 rebounds as a point and shooting guard. Krauser’s ability to get the ball inside to the frontcourt players is probably the most overlooked thing about him. It will be sorely missed. No other Pitt guard can do it quite so well, and is a big thing for Ramon and Fields to work on for next year.

Keith Benjamin had another excellent offensive performance, taking good shots and hitting them. Naturally, it is resulting in him seeing more minutes.

As previously noted, with this win the team has won 20 or more games and finished above .500 in the BE for 5 straight seasons. The first time ever. Jamie Dixon also accomplished a first for Pitt.

The victory gave Pitt its 20th in a season for a school-record fifth consecutive time and enabled Dixon to become the first in school history to win 20 games in his first three seasons.

Former Pitt coach Paul Evans won 20 in his first two years, but finished with 17 in his third.

In Providence, Aaron Gray was part of the story.

When all else fails, pure size can do an awful lot of damage in a basketball game.

The Friars found that out the hard way last night as Pittsburgh’s deep set of big men, and most notably 7-footer Aaron Gray, had their way inside to lead the Panthers to an 85-77 win. After talking at the half on concentrating on pounding the ball inside against PC’s zone defense, Pitt shot 60 percent in the second half and made 14 of 21 shots from the foul line. More important, the team’s defense overwhelmed PC’s inside game as Herbert Hill was held to eight points and Randall Hanke managed only six.

“They are good, and their big guys are very good and really run the floor well,” Pitt coach Jaime Dixon said of the Friars. “In the second half, we did a much better job inside and on the boards, and that helped us a lot.”

The notebook story also suggests that Pitt and Providence have the best Freshmen classes in the BE. That’s some home-cooking. I may be biased to Pitt, but I would say that Marquette has a better class than Providence. Or at least Marquette is winning more.

The other thing Pitt did, that they have done to so many this season — they just wore down the Friars with their physical play and deep bench.

The Panthers, now 20-3 and 9-3 in the Big East, simply outmanned a PC team that had gotten by with a crisp offense and just enough defense to win four of its previous six games. But with Pitt scoring 19 second-chance points and 34 points in the paint, it became very clear that the Friars don’t yet have the size and strength to push back against the biggest teams in the Big East.

“They wore us out with their size in the second half,” said PC coach Tim Welsh. “In this league, you have to defend the paint and rebound the basketball. The game is played in the lane and won inside, especially against a Pittsburgh.”
…
Pitt’s offensive execution limited the Friars’ chances to rebound and crank its running game into gear. Even so, PC’s second half offense managed to put up 40 points. The problem was stopping the Panthers. Dixon tweaked his offense at the half by placing a forward near the foul line and making sure Gray took more than the one shot he attempted in the first half.

I should mention, since I can be quick to criticize bad writing, that the Providence Journal’s Robert McNamara is one of the best college basketball sportswriters out there. That observation about how Coach Dixon adjusted on offense to create more space for Gray is just one of the more subtle reasons why. Every other writer just would go with the stock line about how Pitt just made an effort to get the ball inside to Gray more. McNamara tells you how.

For Providence, Don McGrath was the only story. The Senior Guard, playing at the shooting guard this year after running the point in previous years (geez, that sounds like a familiar storyline), was doing all he could to get that first win over Pitt in his career — the one team he has never beaten. He gets one more shot next Saturday.

I really hate having to listen to basketball games. It’s even worse than listening to football games. You just don’t get a sense of what other players are doing without the ball. You are totally dependent on the announcers to tell you what they find relevant. So take these thoughts on the Pitt radio crew for what they are worth.

Hillgrove and Groat have long, storied ties to announcing Pitt basketball but, I was frequently befuddled by what was actually happening in the game. Not until early in the second half did Groat finally explain that Providence was doing a great job setting screens to free up the shooters.

I think Hillgrove has a great voice for calling games, but aside from the obvious name confusion issues, the big beef with him is that he doesn’t see the plays develop so he will completely whiff on a call — roughly every 8th play. You never know what happened.

Groat is the kindly old grandfather, does a good job of not talking over the action, and can still provide some sharp analysis coming out of time-outs and commercials to explain what a team is or isn’t doing — when he has time. Of course, this is live action, so time is a luxury. The problem is during the game, his comments are frequently banal, cheerleading or just confusing because he is expected to say something. Comments like, “You have to make that pass, young fella’,” after a turnover really don’t do much.

The problem is, people freak when you get rid of longtime, established game-callers. It becomes a comfort and familiar. Groat, especially, would cause a large hue-and-cry because of his age and history with Pittsburgh.

The other problem, is the “be careful what you wish for” risk. Who’s to say that if Groat or even Hillgrove that the next crew would be better. Groat at least isn’t talking over the actual call very much. The trend with color analysts has been to chatter non-stop, and frequently about things not pertaining to what is happening on the court or field.

Kind of feeling a little “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” regarding the radio. Well, hopefully with high expectations next year, more of the games will be televised and on Full Court.

Sorry, just had to get that out of my system.