Let’s face it, this team has so many possibilities for perfectly legit man-crushes, it’s hard to choose one. Levance Fields and Ronald Ramon for fans of the guards. Aaron Gray centering it all. Levon Kendall of the frozen hair for the ladies and for doing all the little things. Sam Young for the potential and his explosiveness (as soon as that knee is 100%). And then there is Mike Cook.

Cook has quickly risen to man-crush stature because he is Pitt’s first legit small forward in a few years. He has size and can play on the perimeter or drive to the hoop. Pitt has missed that.

Gene Collier has chosen Cook as his man-crush for the team this year. So he’s concerned about how he’s fitting in to the Pitt system.

Cook is a remarkably more elegant player than any of the more fire-tested components in Jamie Dixon’s machine. The Panthers, you may have heard, whether they’re No. 3 or No. 2 or even No. 1 in the little known perhaps because it’s purely fictional Pitt Alumni poll, do not exactly generate the athletic spectacle you might associate with one of America’s greatest college basketball teams.

The Pitt paw print on any reliable win — as it was again last night against a determined and talented Robert Morris team — is anything and everything but a series of opulent transition baskets and rim rattling theatrics.

Pitt comes to work you to death, and exactly where a fluid X-factor such as Cook fits into Pitt’s blunt basketball personality still isn’t terribly clear, particularly on a defense Dixon’s team delivers with almost monastic resolve.

Twenty-four hours before Pitt’s seventh consecutive season-opening win, Dixon described Cook’s defense aptitudes as “not there yet, in our book.”

But what is there looks like a load of talent and floor-savvy, the very thing Pitt can use on much colder nights, maybe when its no-frills style isn’t matching up terribly well with another Big East bully.

I’m not particularly worried. As the column points out, even Mike Cook acknowledges he needs to work on his defense. As much from a mental/concentration side as to the actual sets and play. Coach Dixon has already had Cook around him for a year. He has a sense of what the kid can take as far as criticism and being talked about publicly — and how Cook responds.

My guess is Cook actually responds well to some public criticism of part of his game. He is aware of what he has to do and there is no reason not to believe he will get there.