This was on the front page of ESPN.com’s basketball page today.

Seems the ridiculous to the extreme “bracketology” puts Pitt as a #1 seed for the 2009 NCAA Tournament. That’s really useless. On the positive side, Coach Dixon continues to say the right things about the goals.

“People are always going to expect more. We deal with it every year,” Pitt coach Jamie Dixon said. “I look at it as a good thing. It’s part of our program — both in the visibility of it and the success of it.”

…

“We’re going to continue to do things that have put us in a position to be successful in the tournament,” he said. “Obviously, the health of our players is very important.”

The key phrasing, in the second part was “in a position to be successful.” There is still the issue of what Pitt does once in that position.
Apparently the Oklahoma AD made contact with Coach Jamie Dixon, but that was about it (ESPN Insider).

Oklahoma State’s call to Pitt’s Jamie Dixon wasn’t even long enough to warrant a serious discussion. Dixon wasn’t going to Oklahoma State.

The popular rumor is that Dixon — along with plenty of other coaches — is not going anywhere for at least a year.

He would be great, as he has been at Pitt. But there’s no reason for Dixon to walk away from a preseason top 10 team, particularly when he’d probably be the leading candidate at Arizona if Lute Olson was to really retire after next season.

I’m not going to stress on the Arizona thing. I think Olson has already shown he will be pulling a Paterno, so he’s going to hang around for some time.

I do expect that Pitt will announce a new extension for Dixon anytime in the next couple of weeks. On a somewhat related note, I recommend this article about Kansas and their AD dealing with the “costs” of winning. It’s something Pitt, in its history has struggled to handle.

The team banquet was on Sunday night (and yet another year passes without an invite coming my way). 12 players managed to take home awards including Mike Cook. It is easier to list the players who came away with nothing — Austin Wallace, Cassin Diggs and Tim Frye.

Lamar Patterson is Pitt’s first verbal for the class of 2009. It looks increasingly likely that Pitt snagged him early and before he really started showing what he can do.

Pittsburgh quietly landed Lamar Patterson during the high school season and the commitment probably didn’t generate the kind of buzz that it deserved. Patterson is the real deal. He has been the most consistent player for Team Final this weekend and showed off all the facets of his game. His passing ability was on showcase on Saturday.

Amusing complaint from some minor Philly paper about Pitt recruiting talented players from Philly these days.

But it bothers me that Pitt was able to land Nasir Robinson from Chester and Lamar Patterson from the Lancaster area. Add them to current Panthers Bradley Wanamaker and Mike Cook and you have a veritable Philadelphia pipeline heading to the other side of the state. There’s nothing that Pitt has that Villanova doesn’t, and the Cats should take it personally that schools like Pittsburgh and Virginia have multiple Philadelphia players on their roster.

Ah, provincialism. It’s everywhere.