Time has become an extremely limited commodity for me since September. So, there have been some basketball links piling up for the last few days.

Ashton Gibbs., now a Wooden Award nominee, made the regional cover for USA Today’s basketball preview, along with a featured article on him and Pitt’s team.

Jeff Goodman at FoxSports did an article on Coach Jamie Dixon and the expectations of this team.

“We’ve got the same players we had last year except for Jermaine, and it looks like we’ll be picked No. 1 in the league,” he said. “But I really don’t think our guys give that much thought.”

Just a couple years ago, there was plenty of talk about how the Panthers were unable to get over the hump and advance past the Sweet 16. Well, Jamie Dixon’s team went to the Elite Eight and if not for a Scottie Reynolds layup, would have made the Final Four in 2009.

Now, the talk is about getting to the Final Four — and it could be a realistic goal this season.

The story mangles facts regarding the non-con under Coach Dixon (“some would point to a cupcake non-conference schedule implemented by Howland and maintained by Dixon…”) as the ongoing Rivals.com series on basketball scheduling has pointed out.

The Panthers’ schedule strength gets an upgrade because they play in the Big East, traditionally the toughest conference in the country. But they also try to avoid scheduling non-conference games against teams with poor RPIs.

Pitt ranked 10th in the nation in schedule strength last season, and the Panthers faced four teams with RPIs in the 200s and none with RPIs in the 300s. Pitt’s 2010-11 schedule includes five teams that had RPIs in the 200s last season: No. 214 Delaware State, No. 236 North Florida, No. 291 Illinois-Chicago, No. 295 American and No. 299 Penn. Pittsburgh also has a home game with Maryland-Eastern Shore, which was 308th in the RPI last season.

The trick is trying to predict how programs in the low-major leagues will fare, since roster turnover and coaching changes can drastically alter the fortunes of those teams from one season to the next.

The story also mentions that Pitt essentially had to sit on its non-con schedule since May because of the Big East scheduling stuff. And Coach Dixon already has tournament plans tentatively set out until 2014.

Coach Dixon also had a chance to talk about the players he recruits, and naturally about how he ignores recruiting rankings.

“It’s hard because a lot of them don’t take into account academics, winning and most important — age,” Dixon said. “Some guys in the same class are two years younger than others.”

Despite the fact that Dixon recently picked up a commitment from the highest ranked player since he arrived on campus more than a decade ago, Khem Birch (Scout.com, No. 4), he won’t change his philosophy.

“We don’t recruit numbers,” Dixon said. “We recruit winning and character.”

“Sometimes when you get five highly ranked guys, they may not fit well together,” he added.

That all sounds nice, and I want to believe it but let’s be honest. There’s a good amount of bunk in there. Academics? Really? J.J. Moore was a qualifying question mark through May. Isiah Epps missed the summer and Ireland trip getting more work done — after doing a year at prep school. That is just in this incoming class.

As far as “winning,” well even 3-star players are usually among the best in their high school team and divisions — exception being for loaded prep programs — so it isn’t exactly uncommon for these kids to be coming from successful high school teams.

Finally character/chemistry. Sorry, what coach doesn’t claim that he looks for character in the player? That is a stock answer.

That’s not to say that Coach Dixon doesn’t look at those things. Just as I agree he is not greatly concerned about the number of stars a kid has or his ranking among other players.  Just that it is part of the whole thing.

Now mentioning age as a factor is interesting. It does speak to the maturity of the player and how they will handle not being the top-dog on the court. It’s something you don’t hear much from coaches.

This story provoked a post from Eammonn Brennan, ESPN.com’s resident college basketball blogger.

Here’s why this is interesting: Dixon has been winning without highly ranked recruits since he took over at Pitt. His recruiting classes are universally good, but not great, filled with guys that rank in the lower half of the country’s top 100.

His best player on the 2009-10 Panthers, freshman Ashton Gibbs, wasn’t even ranked that high. His best player of recent vintage, power forward DeJuan Blair, wasn’t considered a top-50 prospect before he became a Panther.

Instead, Dixon’s classes are collections of good players that, when meshed together over the course of three or four years, form tough, defensive-minded, intelligent basketball teams. This strategy has worked: Dixon has won fewer than 25 games only once in his seven-year tenure at the school, and his teams have never failed to make it to the NCAA tournament.

…

This isn’t exactly what Cannon was talking about in his positional flexibility piece, but it is, in its own way, a market inefficiency strategy. The Panthers have found a recruiting niche. They’ve constructed teams within that niche. It’s paid off.

Brennan is relating back to an August article I mentioned that discussed inefficiencies in recruiting for positions without consideration of versatility. To me, Coach Dixon has blended some mid-major philosophy of recruiting players rather than strictly position, with specifically targeting players who fit firmly in a spot.

Again, like the Gary Parrish article on how Coach Dixon doesn’t waste time with recruits he can’t get, the key seems to be a flexibility by Dixon with regards to recruiting and using players.

As structured and rigid as Pitt’s system may seem to some, there is adaptation with the players to make it be the best possible.