Sorry. I can’t help myself.

So many topics. Khem Birch leaving still swirls. The next coach for football. Todd Graham leftovers. Oh, and there happens to be a basketball game tonight. And hey, the Beef O’Brady Bowl is tonight that features an FIU team coached by Mario Cristobal. No winter break around here.

There’s nothing about Birch’s departure that makes me feel good. Pitt will be fine, but you do have to worry about the kid. People really seem to like him, but not the people he has let surround him.

“Khem is a great kid,” Hurd said. “This situation is painting him as something he is not. The problem is he is being led down a road by so-called advisors. It’s going to end poorly for Khem, and that is sad for me because I care about the kid. This is not going to end well for him.”

…

“If you asked me last year at this time I would have told you Pitt was the perfect place for him,” Hurd said. “If you ask me today I would tell you Pitt is the perfect place for him. I don’t know that this was his decision. Khem is an emotional person. My experience with Khem is that sometimes he can paint himself into a corner, and he didn’t know how to get out of it. This isn’t a situation where Jamie doesn’t like the kid. He likes him.”

This echoes the comments Chris Dokish made when Birch was first rumored to be bailing.

Originally, Birch was supposed to play one more season of prep school and be part of Pitt’s 2012 class — good god, that would have been the #1 class with Birch, Adams and Robinson. Birch, though, made a sudden decision, though, to reclassify for 2011. Considering all the talk about Birch being the most highly touted Pitt recruit since Brian Shorter, there was no shortage of one-and-done talk. My theory at the time was that Birch and his people were concerned that after the NBA lockout that was coming, the draft rules were going to be changed again to make it a two-year wait. So, getting Birch in early would solve that problem.

There were some rumors put out there that Birch was homesick. Keep in mind that Birch went to a bunch of high schools in 5 years including boarding/prep school at ND Prep. So that seemed questionable. Even more so when the transfer rumors are Mizzou or New Mexico State.

Pitt, however, might not release him to Missouri. I don’t have any knowledge, just a possible reason. Pitt is almost certainly in the Big East through 2012-13 season. Missouri is already going to the SEC for 2012. There just happens to be that whole SEC/Big East Challenge. That possible meeting might be enough to keep him from transferring to any SEC school. We will see about that part.

No one thinks Birch is making a smart decision. Whether it is for his own interests or because he just got frustrated like an increasing number of mid-year transfer players.

Still, Birch’s shocking decision to leave midway through his freshman year is on pace with the larger defects that have plagued college basketball’s culture over the last decade. Players are routinely shepherded through a grassroots system that caters to their every need, where there’s always another high school or AAU team ready to accept them at the first sign of adversity. No wonder so many of them bail on college. For the first time in their lives, they’re being held accountable. And they can’t handle it.

Yes, there are good reasons to change schools, and coaches are often at fault for over-promising during the recruiting process. But leaving mid-semester of your freshman year? When you’re starting? Former Pitt guard Brad Wannamaker said it best on Twitter after Birch announced his decision: “Guess everybody ain’t built for tough coaching and competing for minutes.”

Birch’s foolish move is the latest example of how the rush to the NBA can warp the minds of young players and, especially, the adults who are in their ears. “If you become a senior in college, in many regards you’re seen as a failure. That’s the starting point,” Arizona coach Sean Miller says. “If things aren’t going according to that timeline, if there’s any type of learning curve or process or hardship or obstacles, then many times the answer becomes, I’ve got to change my environment.”

Again, nothing is clear as to why Birch is transferring. Certainly no one was labeling him a bust. Some Pitt fans wanted him to have more playing time, but even last spring recruiting people were saying he was going to need more time:

Birch is a talented, quiet young man with a big smile. The physical tools are there to be a very good prospect, however, he’s not ready to dominate in the Big East for Pittsburgh next season. He’s more of a prospect than producer at this very moment and that’s a big delineation because of the expectations that he’ll bring to Pitt’s team, especially since he’s Jamie Dixon’s second McDonald’s All-American.

I’m quite sure Dixon is thrilled to have Birch, but he probably understands that his new center is not Jared Sullinger; he’s not wired up that way. Birch needs strength, which will add to his confidence, especially on offense. Next year, as a freshman, expect him to give Pitt a presence as a shot blocker, a big who can run the floor and as he develops in the program, his offensive and rebounding numbers will ascend. Just don’t expect him to sport the Superman cape right from the start.

Give Dave Telep for nailing that one. Except for the whole transferring thing.

One thing is certain, the players on Pitt — past and present — weren’t lining up behind Birch. Talib Zanna got some attention in the papers and offered a rather candid assessment of Birch in practices.

Zanna, a 6-foot-9, 230-pound redshirt sophomore, said it took him a full year to get used to the rough practices and trash-talking that takes place during a typical Pitt practice. Zanna eventually adjusted and is now giving it in practice — physically and verbally — as much as the other player.

“We know coach [Jamie] Dixon is a tough coach to play for,” Zanna said. “You have to come in and give all you got every day. When I came in it was kind of tough. Everybody was bigger than me. I was taller, but they were all bigger and stronger than me. In practice, they would push you around and talk all kinds of stuff. It was frustrating.

“I just had to get in the weight room and get stronger and get to their level. Once you’re in that level you have that confidence to challenge whoever is trying to bully you. Not bully you but try to push you around.”

Zanna saw that same frustration with Birch. Pitt’s practices brought Birch to tears on more than one occasion, Zanna said. He described how a hand injury brought Birch to tears.

“His wrist and hands were banged up,” Zanna said. “He banged it like three times in a row. There was a lot of pain. He couldn’t sustain the pain so he just had to cry. I don’t even know if I would say it was crying, but if you looked at his face it looked like he was crying. This program might have been too tough for him. I think that’s why he left.”

Zanna said he never spoke to Birch about attempting to stick it out. Birch was a bit of a loner and did not hang out with many others on the team.

“It’s a real shame,” Zanna said. “He made Coach Dixon look bad. That was up to him. It was his own decision. If he wanted to move on because he wanted more playing time that was up to him. We just have to move on and let him do his stuff. We’ll be fine without him, or with him.”

There is no secret that Pitt has tough practices. Plenty of coaches do it that way. Tom Izzo is one of the most well-known practioners of the physical practices. When you see how few players have transferred out of Pitt (and Michigan State for that matter) you realize how the players brought in actually embrace the practices. Grasp what it is doing for them.

Birch is still going to need the strength and be able to handle physical play — no matter where he ends up. Sadly, he and his “advisors,” have set Birch back on getting to that point.