The funny thing about Big East regional games, is who ends up televising these things. Here’s the official TV syndication for the game:

Pittsburgh (FSN Pittsburgh), New York (SportnetNY), Washington D.C. (MASN), Baltimore, Md. (MASN), Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater, Fla. (Brighthouse), Orlando-Daytona Beach-Melbourne (Brighthouse-O), Hartford-New Haven, Conn. (SNY-CT), Cincinnati, Ohio (FSN-Ohio), Milwaukee, Wis. (TW-WI), San Antonio-Austin, Texas (KCWX), Providence-New Bedford, R.I. (Cox-NE), Green Bay-Appleton, Wis. (TW-WI2), ESPN3.com, ESPN Full Court.

San Antonio-Austin, Texas? Okay. Guess that TCU to the Big East thing might be paying off.

Oh, and let me offer a fine eff you to Fox Sports Pittsburgh, ESPN regional, the Big East or whoever is responsible for not having HD cameras at this game. Get this shit together.

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Liveblog tonight at 6pm. Post for that will be up later.

The Bearcats were one of the premier regular season teams in the 90s. The way Pitt seems to be on ESPN all the time these days. That was Cinci back in the 90s. I was able to get the girl who is now my wife back to my place early in our dating, with the lure of cable and being able to watch her Bearcats play that night. Needless to say, the Bearcats no longer enjoy that lofty reputation or status on ESPN. Pitt on the other hand…

The Pittsburgh Panthers have what the University of Cincinnati used to have and desperately wants to get back.

While the Bearcats are striving to return to the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2005, at Pitt there’s little doubt that the Panthers will make their 10th straight appearance come March.

Not long ago, that’s how it was at UC.

“It’s what I call standard of excellence,” said UC coach Mick Cronin. “You don’t want to be the team that doesn’t live up to the tradition of the teams before you. That was stripped away here and that has been the hardest thing to rebuild.”

UC (18-4 overall, 5-4 Big East) could take a huge step toward returning to the tournament by beating No. 4 Pitt (20-2, 8-1) Saturday night at the Petersen Events Center, where the Panthers have won 51 of their last 53 games.

Cronin was on UC’s staff from 1996 to 2001 when the Bearcats were dominating Conference USA in the midst of a run of 14 straight NCAA Tournament appearances.

That streak ended in 2006. Getting a new one started has been the final piece of the rebuilding effort for Cronin.

And as mentioned yesterday. Getting back there in the Big East is not easy.

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Well another National Letter of Intent day has come and gone. We’ve made our snap reactions on 17 years olds who we’ve never watched play, we’ve successfully ignored the moralists telling us how it’s a disgrace that we give these kids so much attention at such a young age and we’ve talked ourselves into the fact that the previously mentioned 17 year olds will fit our system perfectly. Now its time to turn our attention back to the hardwood.

Welcome back to Pitt by Numbers; the tempo-free statistical post that spent the last month and a half blaming itself for the Tennessee loss.

Lets talk about points per weighted shot. To put it simply, this stat measures how many points a player takes per field goal attempt (PPWS = Points/(FGA + .0475FTA)). I also included field goal rate which measures the percentage of offensive possessions a player plays that involve him taking a shot from the field.

(Note: My original chart had more categories but wouldn’t fit in the post horizontally. You probably need to maximize your browser to view everything that I was able to fit.)

Much has been made about Pitt’s nation leading offensive efficiency and with good reason, the Panthers have done an unbelievable job at putting points on the board while controlling the tempo of the game. Most seem to attribute this mainly to Pitt’s phenomenal offensive rebounding ability coupled with the Panther’s team-wide ability to find the open man and these two factors are undeniably important.

But there is also something to be said for simply making sure that the best shooters are taking the lion’s share of the shots. Gibbs, Wannamaker and Brown are shooting more often than any of the other regulars and for good reason. They’re probably the three best shooters.

This graph is a solid statistical illustration of how good Jamie Dixon is at his job because with the possible exception of JJ Moore, nobody is shooting more frequently than they should be. It’s also a credit to the team for buying into the greater good since it appears everyone is self-aware enough to know their limitations and simply do what is asked of them.

Here some other quick thoughts on these numbers:

1) Gilbert Brown really doesn’t attack the rim enough. I know this isn‘t breaking news but its good to know the numbers back up what we‘ve been watching. His .41:1 FTA to FGA is below the team average of .425:1 and just above the national average of .38:1. There is no excuse for Brown to be shooting less than one free throw for every two field goal attempts.

2) I have no idea what to make of Dante Taylor’s shooting numbers. It’s obvious that McGee starts over Taylor for defensive purposes but I didn’t expect there to be a large gap between Taylor and McGee’s numbers here. When I saw Taylor’s PPWS my first thought was “that’s what happens when you don’t have a post move and get all your points on dunks that happen all too infrequently” but his FG frequency dispels that myth a bit. The only thing that makes sense is that Dante had some mammoth games against cupcakes early in the year that skew his numbers but even that doesn’t seem like enough to make Taylor’s numbers what they are. Could we possibly be underrating Taylor’s offensive abilities?

3) JJ Moore and Lamar Patterson have been in direct competition for playing time all year and JJ Moore shooting the ball in over 27% of his offensive possessions could provide some insight as to why he hasn’t seen meaningful minutes in a long time (Even if Moore was making shots at a decent rate). But if Lamar Patterson doesn’t start making more buckets it wouldn’t be surprising to see Moore get some of those minutes back.

I know when I posted the first Pitt by Numbers back in December I said it would be a regular thing, this time I mean it. Unfortunately it’s hard to come up with too many opinions on this team other than “Pitt is really good” so if you have any topics you would like me to explore in future posts please leave them in the comments section for me and I’ll see what I can do with them.

Until next time…Hail to Pitt.