If it’s Friday, it’s time to list out where Pitt is in the various power polls. After all, how else can we achieve righteous indignation at the punditry that hates Pitt if we don’t know which ones.

FoxSports dropped Pitt to #5 and bitched about the free throw shooting.

At the beginning of the week — before the Syracuse game — Mike DeCourcy had Pitt at #5. On the bright side, he had a cogent critique.

Sam Young is not slumping as a shooter. He’s slumping as a shot-selector. It’s hard to say why he began to perceive the demand for him to take and make guarded shots. There was a smidge of that in the victory over Georgetown, but it faded quickly. It has been more evident as he has shot 15-of-49 in the past three games. The nature of the Panthers is to generate and convert high-quality shots while denying them to opponents. To be great, they must remain that team.

Which is something that jibed exactly with what he did in the Syracuse game. It also meant he got to the free throw line.

Before his recent drought, Young had attempted at least one free throw in 46 of the previous 49 games.

“It’s just him attacking and not settling,” Fields said. “It kind of got him going. It’s always good for a scorer to get a couple easy ones at the free throw line.”

Against Syracuse, Young nearly single-handedly fouled out Harris — even if it meant getting one of his shots blocked. Young drew two shooting fouls on the junior forward, including his fifth with 3:17 to play. Young also drew shooting fouls on Syracuse forwards Rick Jackson and Kris Joseph.

Most shooting fouls come from the defender being late and desperate to stop the clean look. That’s what Young was getting in the game.

Luke Winn at SI.com only dropped Pitt one notch to #2, and focused on Levance Fields.

… In it, point guard Levance Fields says, “To be honest, some of us got snubbed, if you really want to look at it that way, from being those kind of recruits.” Fields is the strangest case of being overlooked, because typically New York guards — like, say, Sebastian Telfair — tend to be overhyped rather than overlooked. When Fields made his college decision in 2004, he was choosing between St. John’s, South Florida, Miami and Pitt. He was the 14th-ranked point guard on Rivals.com’s board that year, and as you scan up the list, only second-ranked Mario Chalmers — who, if you recall, had a decent title game in March — turned out better than Fields. The No. 1-rated point guard that year was none other than Greg Paulus.

Fields being overlooked is easily explained. His body type just doesn’t scream elite point guard. Or more precisely, future NBA point guard.

ESPN.com also put Pitt at #2.

The Big East survival guide warns against letting one loss turn into two, or even three. Pitt heeded that warning with a dominating win over Syracuse at home on the heels of the Panthers’ first loss against Louisville. But it’s back on the road again, with upcoming trips to West Virginia and Villanova.

Now, the big shock. Gottlieb was had Pitt at #2 (and had UNC at #1???). Jay Bilas, however, put Pitt down at #6 — the lowest of all voters.

A treat, even.  Arguably, one of the developments of increased parity in college sports is the decrease in depth. Few teams really go too deep in rotations. You see it in preseason rankings. After the obvious talent on a team and the coach, the two factors most commonly relied on to rank a team higher involves experience level and depth.

Pitt came into the season with some questions about the depth. Mainly, how would it be used and could it be relied. Generally it has come through this season. In his chat, Ray Fittipaldo noted that it didn’t quite come up strong against Louisville.

PrimeTime: I keep hearing you say that Pitt is not that deep, I have been paying attention to the last 3-4 games Especially Louisville and Syracuse and it seems those teams only played 6 and maybe 7 and Pitt is playing 7-8 guys, I think this gives Pitt a big advantage going into the Big East Tourney and the NCAA, what is your thoughts

Ray Fittipaldo: Pitt’s depth one through seven is a strength. Brad Wanamaker and Gilbert Brown are really good bench players. That being said, they only contributed five points in the Louisville game when they were really needed. I guess I’d like to see more consistency out of them. Also, I’d like to see Gary McGhee progress as a backup center to Blair. Gibbs is fine for three or four minutes a game as long as he doesn’t have to handle pressure. Fields had to play 39 minutes vs. Louisville because there was no one else to handle the ball. The result was he and the rest of team were worn down at the end of the game.

…

Minnesota_Pittman: I hear what you’re saying about Pitt’s bench needing to score more. However, if these guys can come in, play defense, score a couple of points, keep the other team at bay and most importantly give our starters some rest, then IMHO they’ve done a good job.

Ray Fittipaldo: I agree with you for the most part. My observation from the Louisville game was that they needed to score and did not because everyone else was in foul trouble. Wanamaker and Brown are solid players, but they did not step up in that game. If there is another scenario like that down the road, I think they’ll have to find ways to score and help out the starters. The starters scored all but five of the team’s points in that game. Sometimes you need some help from unexpected sources.

I guess. In one game the bench didn’t score and the starters were in foul trouble. I’m a bit more optimistic, since we have seen the bench come through in the scoring part in prior games this season. Rutgers immediately springs to mind.

So the first man off Pitt’s bench is almost always Gilbert Brown. Naturally that makes it easy to lead with his puff piece from his local paper.

“Usually around the five-minute mark, [Brown] is the first guy in,” the six-year head coach said. “Defense is first, along with rebounding and decision making. In some games he will score some points for us.

“Brown has a great understanding of what we do offensively and defensively. He’s a smart player who takes great pride in being a student of the game. When we recruited him his athleticism jumped out at me. He is a good student with a good family background.”

And he’s contributing significantly to one of the country’s top teams, averaging 19.6 minutes, 5.9 points and 3.9 rebounds. He also has recorded 12 steals.

Brown’s season this year, sort of reminds me of Sam Young’s sophomore year. Nagging injuries. So much potential that showed the prior year. Yet, the progress was slowed by the physical injuries. Flashes of it. Hopefully it will keep re-emerging through the season.

When Nasir Robinson was recruited and gave his verbal to Pitt, the common refrain was that he was gritty, tough but not always pretty. Especially with his offense. We’ve seen that in limited doses this year. When on the court, he plays tough defense. He’s got the athleticism and can get to the basket and be in position. His touch, however, gives new meaning to muscling the ball. Just as it seemed like he was going to get buried on the bench this year, he’s started to get more playing time.

“He’s good against the zone and that was something we were looking at,” Dixon said. “They went small. So we really felt good about it and it felt like the right thing to do at the time. He’s active and that was something he didn’t do against Louisville.”

Robinson – a two-time PIAA all-state first team selection – made his only shot, a layup off an excellent feed from DeJuan Blair. He also grabbed one rebound, had one assist and saved a ball from going out of bounds in his limited action.

Pitt, which plays at West Virginia on Sunday, saw its lead grow to 11 by the time Tyrell Biggs entered the game for Robinson with 3:32 left.

“(Nasir) came in fresh and he gave us a big boost,” guard Levance Fields said.

Robinson’s boost in playing time comes at the expense of Gary McGhee. There’s no doubt that McGhee is still struggling, but I really don’t think he’s going to get run out of Pitt or transfer. I see it as a great thing about Pitt’s depth and talent. There are a lot of programs where McGhee would be playing a lot of minutes simply because of his size and the lack of talent in front of him.

At this point he’s not looking like he’ll ever be a starter. I’m not convinced he doesn’t have an important role, though. A player that can fill the lane and provide some help inside. If he wants it, he will have every opportunity in 2009-10 with Biggs and Young are gone. Yes there is talent coming in (and redshirting) that will push him. That’s good.

I think as much as anything, the “transfer or push” talk is more from following recruiting. Pitt, like nearly every other program, is still staying involved with players even as they have their allotment of scholarships for the recruiting class filled. So, that fuels the speculation as to where another scholarship could potentially emerge. McGhee seems like the most apparent on the roster.

So former Pitt player, former Pitt coach and father of a Pitt player getting lots of irrational hope pinned on him has re-upped with Nick Saban.

After several days of specula­tion, Saban finally confirmed the hiring of Carolina Panthers defensive line coach Sal Sunseri as well. Willis and Sunseri will replace inside linebackers coach Kevin Steele and outside linebackers coach Lance Thompson, but Saban did not specify which assistant will coach which position.

“I’m extremely happy to add a coach the caliber of Sal Sunse­ri to our staff,” Saban said. “From his playing days at Pitt, to coaching in college football and the NFL, Sal has been suc­cessful at every level of the game.”

This is Sunseri’s second stint with Saban. He coached line­backers at LSU in 2000 under Sa­ban. In making the announce­ment in 2000, Saban said Sunseri was an excellent re­cruiter.

“When you talk about college football tradition and national prestige, it doesn’t get any better than the University of Alaba­ma,” Sunseri said. “This is a championship program with a championship coach in Nick Sa­ban and I feel fortunate to be a part of that.”

Not sure if there was any actual speculation, but Sunseri, the elder swears that Tino isn’t going to transfer to join him.

Before that led to any speculation of whether Tino Sunseri would transfer to Alabama, I contacted the Sunseri family. Here was the response: “Tino is a Pitt Panther and will stay one.”

Glad that was cleared up.

Drew Rosenhaus will rep LeSean McCoy. Actually might be the right fit for McCoy. He needs a hard-nosed agent. McCoy has from all reports tended to be deferential to coaches and authority. Not good for negotiating a contract. Hey, at least it isn’t Scott Boras.

Another verbal earlier in the week. This time a defensive end from New Jersey, Bernardo Nunez. This one was expected for at least a week. He’s a solid 3-star recruit. Plus, he has upside (Insider subs).

He is a solid tackler who wraps up, but will drop his head some at times. He has the initial burst to get a good up-field charge in passing situations. He will use his hands to try and push a blocker by when he gets to quarterback depth. Does a good job of getting his hands up when he can not get to the quarterback. Displays the tools to be a disruptive pass rusher, but needs to keep working on developing an arsenal of pass rush moves. Nunez is a promising prospect. Displays good natural tools and flashes some good ability.

Broken record time, but I still wish Pitt would recruit a real center. So far efforts to convert young O-linemen have not yielded much more than frustration and spring and summer fumbled snaps.