Okay, so maybe you are heading to Morgantown on Friday after Thanksgiving this year for the Backyard Brawl.

There is another option. Pitt basketball will be playing in Philly that same weekend. Pitt takes part in the Philly Hoop Group Classic.

On Friday night, Pitt will play Penn at the Palestra. Yep. A football-basketball doubleheader on the day after Thanksgiving.

No, this is not a marquee tournament. Pitt was kind of due, unfortunately, for a less than high-profile early season tournament after the past couple of years. This one fits that description with other participants (of which two will come to the Pete to play) include: James Madison, Rider, LaSalle and Robert Morris.

The only upside is that Philly area Pitt fans get to see Pitt play in the historic Palestra.

In other non-con basketball scheduling news, tomorrow ESPN will announce the pairings (and the four Big East teams excluded) in the all-new, revamped Big East/SEC Challenge — courtesy of ESPN PR guy and Pitt grad Mike Humes.

I see it as a sign of how far the basketball talent at Pitt has improved. Even a few years ago, an undersized, but gritty and hard-working center/forward like J.J. Richardson would be an important part of Pitt’s team. Looking at significant minutes.

Instead, the talent ahead of him and coming in this year made his playing time prospects dim. He likely would have seen some early chances, but as the season progressed those minutes would diminish as the experience of Khem Birch and Malcolm Gilbert increased their minutes. This had him looking for an opportunity to play more than minor reserve minutes.

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Coach Todd Graham gets a front page piece from Rivals.com. He discusses the challenge of changing systems.

At Rice and Tulsa, he learned a few lessons, and with the Panthers, he still is in the process of changing old habits and putting his own stamp on the program.

“You ever watch ‘Men in Black,’ where they take that little wand and they kind of beep it and it makes them forget everything?” Graham says. “I wish we could do that a little bit.”

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Graham wishes he could wipe the memories of the old offensive and defensive schemes from his players’ minds, and he probably wouldn’t mind erasing any memories of Pittsburgh’s tumultuous coaching search as well. In reality, the Panthers had two coaching searches, and Graham basically was Pittsburgh’s fourth coach between Dec. 7 and Jan. 10.

Safe to say it isn’t just the players who could use the memories of the last 10 months or so of Pitt football wiped.

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