It is the dead period for college basketball. No “official” recruiting. The summer AAU circuit is winding down. So any basketball news is surprising beyond reports of high school kids and where they are leaning.
It is also how you know that your team is either controversial or expected to be good next season (or both). The team keeps getting mentioned in stories or features about the upcoming season.
Jeff Goodman at FoxSports.com posts a little on Pitt’s recently completed Ireland trip. The focus is the NCAA changing the rule to allow freshmen to make the trip. Coach Dixon (obviously) liked the rule change and thinks more teams will take the opportunity. Before, it was only teams with very small freshmen classes taking the trip, simply because there weren’t enough bodies on the roster.
Dixon said this year’s Pitt group will be much bigger and longer than a year ago. Don’t be surprised to see a frontcourt that features much-improved big man Gary McGhee and Zanna – a long and skilled 6-foot-9 native of Nigeria who averaged 8 points and 7 boards on the trip.
“We think he’s going to be pretty good,” Dixon said. “He’s another body so we can play bigger.”
Dixon also has plenty of size on the wing with guys like Gilbert Brown (6-foot-6), Brad Wanamaker (6-4), Patterson (6-5) and freshmen J.J. Moore (6-6) and Cameron Wright (6-5).
This could be Dixon’s deepest team since he took over – although he was cautious.
“Everybody is deep in the summer,” he laughed.
Not in Kansas and Memphis if the NCAA isn’t clearing top-5 players.
