I’m leaving to visit family for Thanksgiving today, so there’s a good chance of not checking back in until late or tomorrow. Posting will still be happening, but I’m hoping the conversations here are a lot mellower than last year.

Sam Young was named Big East Player of the Week. He’s the first Pitt player to get the nod in over two years.

Seth Davis at SI.com had a bunch of national nuggets/observations in this article.

If you’re a Pitt fan, you’ve got to love this start by junior forward Sam Young (team-leading 19.3 ppg, 9.0 rebounds in the first three games). My buddy Pete Gillen is looking pretty smart right now for picking Pittsburgh as his darkhorse team to make it to San Antonio.

Gillen could arguably be considered biased since his former top assistant — Tom Herrion — is now a Pitt assistant. Just saying.

Dwight Miller, originally was going to wait until the spring to make a decision on where to attend. He changed his mind and signed with Pitt to complete the 4-man signing class.

A native of the Bahamas, Miller has been playing organized basketball for only three years. He played his first two seasons at Westbury Christian in Houston and transferred this fall to St. Pius X, a perennial power in Texas.

Miller, who has worked with former NBA star Hakeem Olajuwon, became a prospect with a strong summer season and got on the radar of some other major programs.

Dixon is not able to speak about recruits until Pitt has received their letters of intent. All four letters should be in Pitt’s possession today, at which time Dixon will discuss his class in depth. Tomorrow marks the end of the week-long fall signing period.

Here’s the obligatory recruiting quote about getting a good find.

The high-upside Miller, who visited Pitt on Nov. 4, picked the Panthers over Rutgers and St. John’s.

“I think that’s a great get,” said Hoopscoop.com editor Clark Francis, who has Miller ranked No. 65 in the Class of 2008.

I’m a little torn on this. Not sure Pitt needs another project, but he did seem the best player available. Of course, banking the scholarship makes little sense this year, since Pitt will have 4 to offer for the 2009 class. So I’ll shut up.
While Pitt has been off for a while and will continue until Friday, of course they have continued practicing hard.

Personally, I found myself reading and re-reading this today.

Pitt’s 20-16 loss Saturday to Rutgers was very much like the Panthers’ entire season — they played hard, but in the end they just didn’t make enough plays to come out ahead.

But close losses have become the norm for the Panthers (4-6, 2-3 Big East) under coach Dave Wannstedt as the team easily could be 7-3 had they just made a few plays.

As the story notes, that is the story each season under Wannstedt. Falling just short in a game here and a game there.

McGlynn is correct, the Panthers have had some tough-luck losses, including three games in which they had the ball inside the opponents’ 5 with less than a minute to play and a chance to either tie or win. But the bottom line is good teams find ways to make enough plays to win games, and Pitt has not done that.

That, however, isn’t much different than the previous two seasons under Wannstedt. Pitt needs to find a way to make plays in crucial situations.

I don’t buy into “luck” good or bad as the reason for this. Players, coaches and teams make their own luck. Relying on the other team to make the mistakes is a passive and losing approach. It also leaves no margin for error.

Now, with only a couple games left, the season is now about next year, so maybe, possibly there will be line-up changes. Call me cynical, but Coach Wannstedt has said such things all season but has been very unwilling to do much.

Failing to “get the job done” is a point Wannstedt emphasized Saturday.

That’s the main reason he benched two key players — quarterback Pat Bostick and cornerback Kennard Cox — in the Rutgers game and likely will shake up the lineup for the final two weeks. He also will spend an offseason making some moves with his coaching staff as well as changing some personnel as the pressure to replace “what-ifs” with “wins” next year will be enormous.

Frankly, the only “pressure” on him will be from the ticket office with renewal and sales of season tickets. If the idea of this year was to build to 2008, then it will be a hard sell to all but the die-hards (who likely already have tickets if they live close enough), that there was actually progress. The record — and the scores of the game — sure won’t convince many.

I haven’t given up on Wannstedt as coach of Pitt yet. At the same time, he hasn’t done much to make me believe in what he does with the team. Yes he is recruiting well, but so little has been done with it.

2008 looms larger and larger. 7-5 won’t be acceptable. I’m not saying Big East title, but there has to be more than rhetoric and a bunch of stars next to the recruits. There needs to be tangible evidence that the team is approaching this alleged next level.