The Sporting News puts Pitt at #5 in its preseason rankings and has the preview for them up.

This is Pittsburgh we’re talking about. This is the place that Herb Sendek, Skip Prosser, John Calipari and at least one sportswriter you might know departed so they could move up a little in the basketball world. This not only is 100 percent Steelers country, but also is a place where winters mostly have been occupied by hockey talk. It is amazing the city has come so far so fast in adopting basketball as a favored pastime.

There is one final step, though, for Pittsburgh to become a true basketball town.

Get the Panthers to the Final Four.

They’ve won the Big East regular season. They’ve won the Big East tournament. They’ve advanced to three Sweet 16s. All these were moments of profound joy for the few basketball-loving folks around long enough to remember when the city high schools turned out the likes of Maurice Lucas and Kenny Durrett and the only really big hoops night of the year was the Friday in April when Sonny Vaccaro staged his Dapper Dan Roundball Classic. To engage the entire town, though, Pitt stepping into the Final Four would be the golden ticket.

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Some teams appear deep because they have a lot of veterans with established credentials and/or young recruits with lofty reputations. Pitt’s a little different. What Pitt can do that few others can is search through its pile of talent for the right component that fits on a given night.

The trick if find that component early enough in the game.

Over at ESPN.com they have their 9 “experts” pick their Final Four teams. Two of them pick Pitt in the FF.  Fran Fraschilla is one of the people picking. The other might be something of a stunner (it was to me), Doug Gottlieb. I mean, on the bright side, it wasn’t Dick Vitale.

It may not shock anyone, but AOL has no Rutgers blogger. As the lead for the Big East, it fell to me to do a lot of Rutgers blogging this week. Some things about the Rutgers game.

Greg Schiano made some astounding halftime adjustments to the defense (remember, he’s also the DC) — and there must have been one hell of a halftime speech. One of my fellow Fanhouse bloggers, Brian Cook (Michigan) came away suitably impressed by what he saw from the Scarlet Knights. Schiano recruited speed — high motor guys — for the defense, and even if the players were undersized and/or not major prospects he coached them. Taught them fundamentals. Utilized their talents in the best possible ways with some great calls and schemes.

Made the whole unit more than the indvidual players. Much in the way West Virginia and Rich Rodriguez does with the O-line. Louisville has a tremendous offense. It is balanced. They can run, they have great receivers, probably the best pro-ready QB in the Big East (and top-3 in in the country), and rather good O-line. Rutgers’ defense made Louisville’s offense in the second half look like Pitt when they faced Rutgers. You can’t tell me, there weren’t moments when you thought it was Pitt not Louisville getting swarmed. Like when they played Pitt, they compensated for the disadvantages in the secondary against receivers by keeping the QB off balance and under pressure.
Once can be an aberration. They’ve been doing this all year. It is a quality defense that isn’t afraid of any team or situation.

The offense for Rutgers did what it does. It runs. It runs a lot. Mike Teel is not the worst QB, but he definitely gets little help from his receivers. Those drops. Ugh.

For this year, it is a blow to the Big East as the odds of a Big East team making the BCS Championship are just a step above the ACC. Long-term, the Big East just demonstrated some significant depth is happening in a conference with only 8 teams.

Success for Rutgers makes recruiting there that much tougher for schools that have had a lot of good times poaching talent — BC, PSU and Maryland are going to find the going much harder. Of course, it also means, the price to keep or hire Schiano just went up.