Weather turning nice, a 3-year old that shows little interest in being babysat by the TV, and trying to get to the various projects I have put off since September. Whine, whine, whine.

Okay, the NBE blog ran a series of quadrant rankings of the Big East for the offseason. They had the bottom 4 teams (no shocks unless you were high on Cinci). Third tier — surprised to see Louisville this low. Second tier doesn’t seem too stunning except maybe Marquette while losing Hayward and Acker, but seem to be given a boost in perceptions from being much better than expected last season.

Pitt was obviously picked for the First Tier, but also the #1 spot ahead of Villanova, Syracuse and Georgetown (hat tip to wbb). There has not been a question that the expectations would be high and there would be no surprising teams this year.

This just reinforces it.

Based on the above roster, one player listed will not be with the Panthers next season. Either a player is transferring or a recruit is not going to qualify as they have 14 players for 13 spots. Nonetheless, Pitt wil be a good team from start to finish. With an experienced line-up, they should improve upon their 13-5 conference mark a year ago. Dante Taylor holds much of the team’s upside as the 2009 McDonald’s All-American has the potential to be a break out performer next season. If they can get him to begin to reach his potential and get contributions from one of the three tremendously athletic incoming backcourt players the Panthers should be a top-two conference team all year long. Even without those developments expect Pitt to be near the top of the conference. With Jamie Dixon as their head coach, though, you have to expect someone on the team to improve tremendously and elevate their game.

Still no word on whether J.J. Moore is going to qualify, and if so, who transfers out of the program. In Chris Dokish’s latest Q&A he hints that it looks like Moore will make it into this class. He also hints that the search for a new assistant is getting closer and looking really good.

A: Jamie Dixon is busy recruiting and he has been taking his time looking for an assistant. There’s really no hurry. But if the replacement is who I’m hearing it will be, the fans will be doing cartwheels. I can’t say any more than that because, well, you have to just trust me that I can’t, but the fans will be very happy if it is indeed him. At least they should be. You can’t please everybody.

Q: Why doesn’t Dixon just promote Rasheen Davis?

A: Davis has a very bright future and, in fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if he is on a staff next season (with Mike Rice at Rutgers?). If Brandin Knight wasn’t the other assistant, I think it would be a done deal. But Knight has only two years experience as an assistant and Davis has none. That’s just not going to cut it in the Big East. I said from the beginning that it will probably be a veteran who can be an associate head coach, and if what I’m hearing is true, that’s exactly what it will be.

He really likes the Bond verbal, Pitt’s recruiting in general, and thinks Pitt will go for a center of some sort for the final spot on the 2011 recruiting class. Dokish also revealed he will be moving back to the Burgh this summer, so that is (presumably) good for him.

Everyone’s new favorite walk-on, Aron Nwankwo, has a Q&A about coming to Pitt.

Q: How did the opportunity come to walk on the Pitt basketball team?

A: After I got accepted and received the academic scholarship, I started contacting the basketball office and asked about getting an opportunity to walk on. I started sending my game tapes and they were impressed and said they would like to have me as a walk-on after they learned more about me. So it’s basically a guaranteed spot on the team and I couldn’t pass that up.

Q: How exciting was that?

A: It was like a dream come true. A lot of colleges I was considering, like Johns Hopkins, for instance, were schools that ultimately had very good pre-medicine education. But my dream was to go to a good school where I can study pre-medicine and also play for a very good basketball team. So at Pittsburgh, I feel like I got the best of both worlds.

Related to that is news that Kentucky’s academic performance in Calipari’s first year was unimpressive. So, Calipari is spinning. Interesting claim:

“Obviously it’s important,” Calipari said of academics. “I’m walking into a home, and I want those young men and those families to know that we’re going to be there. If John Wall says he wants to come back, I feel a sense of responsibility to make that happen. A player I recruited at Pitt, Brian Shorter, called me to get him back into Pittsburgh, which he did, and now he’s going to be enrolled to finish up at Pitt.”

The way I understand the “Panther Game Plan Degree Completion Program,” a player has to apply to the special program, and demonstrate a seriousness about getting his degree complete. I’m sure Calipari put a recommendation for Shorter, but I doubt it was determinative. Still, I am very happy to find out Brian Shorter is getting his degree at long last.

Pitt’s non-con schedule may not be officially announced yet, but it appears to be done. This Rivals.com article on scheduling indicates as much.

“Our ultimate goal is to attempt to get the toughest schedule in the country,” Dixon says.

Pitt learned its lesson the hard way. In Dixon’s first season, Pitt won the 2003-04 Big East regular-season title and reached the championship game of the conference tournament, yet the Panthers were saddled with a No. 3 seed in part because of a schedule that included six opponents ranked between 200 and 300 in the RPI and one foe from outside the top 300.

Since then, Pitt has tried to avoid those types of games. If the Panthers play a team from a mid-major or low-major conference, they want to face a team that’s favored to win its league.

After ranking 45th and 65th in schedule strength during Dixon’s first two seasons, Pitt has played one of the nation’s 10 toughest schedules in three of the past four seasons.

“We don’t know how other teams are going to play,” Dixon says, “but if you end up in the top 10 to 20, that’s a good ballpark to be in.”

Penn and American are new additions to the list of non-con games. Obviously Duquesne and Robert Morris are on the schedule. There is the game to be played in the SEC/Big East Invitational. Plus the Coaches vs. Cancer provides 4 games (2 home games and 2 at MSG). I think there were a couple others leaked from the competing teams, but I’m drawing a blank.

The other aspect to the scheduling that caught my attention was the note that since Pitt is willing to play some decent mid-majors at home, they don’t have to pay as much in guarantee money since these are also teams struggling to find other good teams willing to play them.