So just getting things done most of the morning, to give the day over to basketball. All leading up to tonight. And of course, there will be a liveblog tonight.

It is hard to see it from the way they are presenting this game, but Pitt is the underdog in this game. It’s 2.5 to 3 points, but it makes sense. Nova at home. Despite the loss at Rutgers, they are the #9 team. Pitt has Ashton Gibbs out. Corey Stokes is likely out for the Wildcats.

The really good news. Despite this being the College GameDay game of the night, no Dick Vitale. It will be Dan Shulman and Jay Bilas (Bill Raftery is doing the Ky-Vandy game on CBS).

On to the media. Not much really.

Locally, it’s Travon Woodall love based on what he did in the West Virginia game.

“When he said before the game that the guys who wanted to play, now is your opportunity, I kind of took that as if he was addressing me,” backup point guard Travon Woodall said. “I just wanted to go out there and play that much harder for him.”

It was Woodall who started in place of Gibbs, and the redshirt sophomore was impressive.

Woodall committed just one turnover in a team-high 36 minutes and came through with a clutch shot in the second half to help the Panthers topple the Mountaineers for a fifth consecutive road victory.

This game is going to be a lot tougher with Villanova’s guards — I’m expecting to see a lot of 3/4 press. Doing what they usually do on defense to keep the guards and guys on the perimeter from getting comfortable. West Virginia does not have the same class of guards that Nova has.

“He’s a vocal leader,” Wanamaker said. “He’s constantly talking to us and letting us know where we need to be.”

Tonight, Woodall will face an athletic Villanova backcourt of senior Corey Fisher and sophomore Maalik Wayns. Fisher had 23 points, 10 rebounds and five steals in Villanova’s last-second, 77-76 loss at Rutgers on Wednesday and made national headlines in August when he scored 105 points in a New York summer league game. Wayns was Wanamaker’s teammate for 2007 Philadelphia Catholic League champion Roman Catholic and is averaging 13.7 points.

Woodall is ready for the challenge.

“I’m extremely confident,” he said. “I think me earning playing time, that helps my confidence a great deal.”

He better be. Not to keep harp on the Nova guards, but…

The 6-2 Wayns, a sophomore who played at Roman Catholic, endured a rough outing in Wednesday night’s loss at Rutgers, going the entire game without a field goal. But when he is playing at the level he did in the Cats’ previous five games (16.2-point average, 52 percent shooting), he is a vital part of his team’s success.

The similarities in the games of both Fisher and Wayns make it a challenge for defenses to figure out how to neutralize them.

“To me, Maalik and me are the same,” Fisher said. “We both can shoot it and get to the rim. We get other guys involved. We’re both tough, and we both want to win.

“It’s a good feeling out there to know there’s another guard who can attack in transition and get to the rim at any time and get somebody else shots. It’s fun. We always hear that we’re small, so we want to go out there and prove every night that we can compete with the best.”

Wayns agreed that he and Fisher are “alike in a lot of ways.

“We both make plays for ourselves and each other, and we look for each other,” he said. “I think it’s a little hard to play against us. If I were playing against a team that’s got two point guards that can drive and kick and shoot the ball, it would be really hard to prepare.”

The concern with Fisher and Wayns, to me, is their driving to the basket. Getting Wanamaker and Woodall in foul trouble is a big concern.

Other reading of note. A less than optimistic viewpoint/story on what it would take for Villanova to move to 1-A football.

The school already has paid out over $4 million a year lately to play I-AA football. What’s the price tag for I-A?

The expectation is that if Villanova moves up, it will cost a cumulative $5 million during the three years (2011-13) before the school starts collecting Big East revenues. After that, one working estimate floating around is that Villanova would have to spend about $1 million more than it has been paying for the lower level, even with their share of Big East revenues. Since the Big East’s TV deal is still to be negotiated, that figure isn’t definitive. There is no definitive number.

“The discussion they have to be having [is] ‘Where do the revenues come from, not just to get there, but to sustain it?’ ” said Karen Weaver, the athletic director at Penn State-Abington, who has written extensively on college athletic expenditures.

Villanova’s plans involve playing at PPL Park in Chester. There are no plans to upgrade Villanova Stadium. However, in addition to adding scholarships and raising coaching salaries, a state-of-the-art football training facility needs to be built. Title IX issues have to be addressed. Money has to be raised.

Villanova has been checking with potential donors. The word is that some soft commitments have been made, some fairly large ones, but no blockbuster donor has stepped forward yet. There is no name for a potential training facility yet.

The other issue is that Nova has a smaller endowment than Drexel. At $300 million, they would have the smallest endowment of any school in 1-A. Not just BCS conferences, but all of 1-A according to the story.