Steven Adams was picked as the “Preseason Rookie of the Year.” There are a lot of national expectations and curiosity about the Kiwi Phenom.
On the preseason All-Big East teams, Travon Woodall was named to the “Honorable Mention” (third team) squad. He was the only Pitt player on any of the squad. So start firing up the “no one believes in us,” meme.
The preseason player of the year was Louisville’s Peyton Siva. Probably for much the same reason that Ashton Gibbs was named last year: no clue among the returning players to give it to. I think I might have picked Georgetown’s Otto Porter.
It has seemed like a long time coming but it’s good to have Todd Thomas back on the field. He made his presence known with the blocked punt against Louisville. Unfortunately, the linebacking corps is not getting any deeper. Thomas saw more action in the Louisville game in no small part because Shane Gordon and Manny Williams both were hurt. That has also led to more Dan Mason on the field.
As inspiring as it is to see Mason out there, it is really depressing that he needs to be played so much. The injury situation at linebacker has them shuffling guys around.
We only got to watch the first half-hour of practice today, but in the brief team session we saw, it looked like Todd Thomas was working at weakside linebacker. Up until now, he had been playing on the strong side behind Eric Williams. In the lineup we saw, it was Thomas, Dan Mason and Eric Williams. It’ll be interesting to ask defensive coordinator Dave Huxtable about that later this week, because that may be a way they see to get their three best linebackers on the field, regardless of position. Responsibility-wise, the weakside spot requires a little more in pass coverage, which I think Thomas should be able to handle with his athleticism.
Freshman Nicolas Grigsby has been seeing more action. He’s probably the first guy to come in when they rotate.
