A few months back, Chas posted about the Cinci-Xavier game and who to root for. In the comments, a few people said they think Miller will coach at Pitt someday, to which I said won’t happen. I don’t want to get into that argument again, especially since his name will be in the hat for the gig at Michigan.

Various reports are linking Xavier head coach Sean Miller to the vacant head coaching position at the University of Michigan. Xavier finished this season with a 21-11 record, an A-10 Championship and a berth in the NCAA Tournament. In two season at Xavier, Miller has a overall record of 38-23. Miller’s strength is his ability to recruit, in fact, Ohio State coach Thad Matta told the Cincinnati Post that Miller “taught me everything I know about recruiting.”

He’s also on the list compiled by Michigan Sports Center.

In all seriousness, Miller would be a great choice. As I hinted, just look at what the last Xavier coach is doing now. Imagine if that type of thing could happen to Michigan. Bring in a new coach from Xavier and quickly become an elite program. The only thing is would he want to come to the Big Ten to coach against a friend in Thad Matta. That could work for or against Michigan.

Other names include John Beilein, Lon Kruger, and Steve Lavin, among many others.

Be excited — under 14 hours to tipoff.

VCU’s upset over Duke has been chronicled all over the internet and TV for the last 8 hours. From what I saw and what you probably already know, they can beat Pitt. Conversely, Pitt can beat them. From what I saw, here’s a bit of a scouting report for you all out there.

– They play a great high tempo defense. Combining a nice full court press with a nice half court trap is one of their calling cards. At times I felt we were sloppy on the offensive side of the ball. Maybe it was because we got into that popular Pitt thought process that “we’re the higher seed so we don’t need to worry”. If we do the same thing against VCU they’re going to make us pay with those defensive strategies.

ESPN’s team page for the Rams tells us how to beat a team like this.

Will Lose When …
Teams are able to handle the VCU traps all over the court and slow the tempo of the game. If the Rams can’t create turnovers off their pressure, their offense can become stagnant.

Yup, that pretty much sounds like how it needs to go for Pitt. Now as for how it actually WILL go…

– Eric Maynor feels no pressure. He is their main man when it comes down to the end of a tight game. If you need to see it in video form, click here to watch the Eric Maynor Show.

He’s not even their leading scorer this year though. B.A. Walker leads with 14.6 per game, Maynor with 13.9, and followed by Jesse Pellot-Rosa with 13.1.

–They play pretty physically for a guard dominated team. None of the three guards mentioned above are afraid to get a little bruised up both on offense and defense. This Pitt team doesn’t have the toughness of past teams so this could be something to watch for. Chances are also that someone from either team will get a little bloody. There were 3-4 times when players from both teams had to leave the game to get some blood cleaned up.

–Wil Fameni might be prone to doing this. He is going to be starting at one of the forward positions and picking up 4, 4, 3, and 5 fouls in the last four games could leave us matching up someone like Mike Cook, Levon Kendall, or Sam Young on him in foul trouble or his lesser talented backup.

–All of America will be rooting against us. If you’re trying to find the way it affects the game, not only will VCU fans be vocal for their team but so will fans from Maryland and Butler who play in the game before and end up sticking around.

Anyways, tomorrow’s game is slated for a 5:50 tip so expect something 10-20 minutes later that originally planned.

Today’s shoot-arounds, practices and press conferences for the Tournament teams playing tomorrow. The Raiders left yesterday afternoon, and got to Buffalo. The disrespect, mid-major mistreatment perspective already being played.

Once in snow-free Buffalo, the team took a short bus ride to the Airport Holiday Inn, where they were greeted by a few clumps of green and gold balloons. Accommodations are doled out according to seedings — lowest seeds get the plushest digs — so Pitt is in a fancy downtown hotel a half hour away.

Hey, if you were a beat writer covering the team, you’d be pissed too about the team you cover getting stuck in the crappy hotel — because that means you are there as well.

The Dayton paper is doing what it can to find the local connections in the teams playing in Buffalo. Not to mention what could be a bad omen for Wright State.

At least two of those teams have Dayton connections, and I’m not talking about Pittsburgh coach Jamie Dixon’s flirting with the WSU job when Paul Biancardi got it four years ago. Pitt’s athletic director is Jeff Long, a Kettering native, and Virginia Commonwealth’s coach is Anthony Grant, a former basketball star at UD.

Oh, and Maryland’s coach is Gary Williams, who once coached an Ohio State team that played UD in UD Arena — and lost.

Once the Raiders arrived, they checked into their rooms, had lunch, rested, then went to practice.

The only bad part was on the way back to the hotel. Two cars in front of their bus slammed into two fawns trying to cross the street.

It wasn’t a pretty sight, according to sports information director Bob Noss.

Roadkill. Excellent.

Wright State was 13-15 last year, and then hired Brian Brownell from UNC-Wilmington (Sun Belt Conference CAA). Now they are 23-9 and going to the NCAA Tournament. That’s a turnaround, and the sort of thing that puts a coach on the “hot” list. Which, of course, means it is time to deny, deny, deny.

WSU athletic director Mike Cusack said that he has not been contacted by any schools hoping to talk to Brownell.

“I’m not a high-profile coach,” Brownell said Tuesday after he and his team arrived in Buffalo by charter flight. “I didn’t play at a big school (DePauw) or coach as an assistant at a big school. I’m not a known commodity.”

He’s becoming one after leading the Raiders to the regular-season and Horizon League tournament championships on the way to a 23-9 record and the school’s first NCAA tournament since 1993.

Supporters in his hometown of Evansville, Ind., think he’s a natural for the vacant job at Evansville University, a member of the Missouri Valley Conference.

Brownell said he isn’t looking.

His Wright State contract pays him $220,000/year, base salary. That actually seems pretty good for the Horizon League. One of his bonuses is another month’s pay for each NCAA Tournament game the team plays. That also applies to his assistants.
At least one of the WSU booster’s knows the score:

“Brad went out and did exactly what we were paying him to do,” said Bob Mills, whose name is one of three on the team’s practice facility. “But, you know, he went a little bit overboard. He did more. I really think you have to have a system that will reward clearly outstanding behavior in job performance.

“We may not be able to keep Brad (and his assistants) forever, but let’s try to keep him as long as we can, knowing he’s going to leave this place in a better situation than he found it.”

That’s what you have to hope for as a mid-major.

At this time, I’m not aware of any Wright State blog. The best news source on the Raiders comes from their section in the Dayton Daily News (annoying free registration).

Of course, there is their official website.

A message board.

Wright State car mats available on eBay. Because, personally, I think the best way to show love to my school is put wet and muddy shoes all over the logo.

Raider fans discount their whuppin’ by LSU (in the comments) as just one of those things from December when they were still learning the system.
Now, you might think that as I live in the Cleveland area and Cleveland St. is in the Horizon League with WSU, I might have some knowledge. No. Watching Horizon League action was never high on my “to watch” list for basketball. Bad basketball is hard enough to watch, but couple it with poor coverage quality and the only way to somewhat enjoy it is completely sauced. And at that point, I’m just not getting much insight into the teams. But I digress.

The break down from the YSU assistant coach is encouraging. While DeShaun Woods seems to be the kind of guard that can cause problems for Pitt, their game is the kind that is what Pitt wants.

Wright State plays a similar game as Pitt. The Raiders like a half-court tempo with aggressive man-to-man defense, which they play about 80 percent of the time.

“They don’t want to get up and down,” Thorne said. “It’s strange. It’s the same thing as Pitt. They grind it out. They both run set plays. Wright State prides themselves on defense, similar to Pitt. They are very good defensively. They are always where they should be.”

Todd Brown, a 6-5 guard, and Vaughn Duggins, a 6-3 guard, were both named to Horizon League All-Newcomer team.

Naturally with Wright State making the Tournament for the first time in 14 years, they are giddy over their coach. Even as the whiff on Dixon was noted.

Four years ago, WSU athletics director Mike Cusack narrowed his coaching search down to two guys — Paul Biancardi and Jamie Dixon — as the replacement for fired Raiders’ coach Ed Schilling.

He chose Biancardi and you know how that worked out thanks to an NCAA violations mess that eventually followed the former Ohio State assistant from his days in Columbus.

Had Cusack hired Dixon — who now will coach his No. 3 seeded Pitt Panthers against the 14th seeded Raiders in the first round of the NCAA Tournament Thursday in Buffalo — there wouldn’t have been the headaches of the past couple of seasons. But then there almost certainly would be no Brad Brownell now either.

The present coach has been studying tape since the seedings were announced.

So instead of being happy with crumbs, he probably wanted a little more of the tournament cake — something better than a 14 seed.

Of course, some of that tightness behind the smile had to be because, as he put it, “We’re going to be here most of the night.”

Everyone at the paper seems to think it might be a good idea to definitely review the game tape of the Dayton-Pitt game.

Here are the game notes from Wright State (PDF). The entire history of the two teams are two meetings in 1998 and 1999. Pitt won both of them.

I looked around a Wright State message board that we got a few hits from (one of their fans found us and pointed it out) and here are some things being said.

My main concern is Gray — how do we stop somebody like that given our limited “big” men? get him into foul trouble? Deny him the ball? Control the tempo? Anyone with a better basketball sense than me can offer some insight here?

If the “What will Wright State do about Gray?” question isn’t the main storyline/focus for this game then I don’t know what is.

I personally like the match up with Pitt. Aaron Gray is prone to foul problems.

Gray in foul trouble aginst guards driving right at him will probably be their main plan. He sometimes fails to move his feet (and when he does it’s very slow) and instead he fouls to compensate.

Will Brad go small against Pitt? I think he should. Take the 7 footer out of the equation as much as possible. Let our shooters control the game and leave it in their hands. I think that is our best shot.

My response to this is, “Go ahead, let our seven-foot double-double machine have a 6′ 6″ defender on him. Please, be my guest. No way Wright State shoots lights out enough to cancel out the 20+ points Gray would put up if WSU goes with a small lineup.

Man, I love ‘big’ schools. This is entertaining stuff. If you can’t go here and laugh, then life just isn’t fun.

I might as well be going to comedycentral.com. lol

If I were in this guy’s shoes I’d probably say the same thing. There’s always going to be some guy on a message board under some fake name like PittExpert12345 who says we’re tops in the nation when we play well and puts us out of the Top 25 after a loss.

There’s a thread that discusses the start time on Saturday, hoping that it’s not too early. Not one fan warning the others to not overlook us. Keep it up, Pitt.

Probably true enough.

With all of this NCAA tourney talk, let me take this time to remind you to sign up for the Pitt Blather Bracket Challenge.

(By the way, the title only took me about 2 hours to come up with.)

Keeping things easygoing while I watch the final round of the PGA Championship.

Kevan Smith gets a nice write-up.

“I found out Stull broke his hand, and Dexter has two bad knees, so I’m second guy right now,” Smith said. “That gets butterflies in your stomach, just thinking about it.”

Smith is showing no signs of anxiety. In Tuesday’s scrimmage, he completed 11-of-17 pass attempts for 130 yards, with two touchdowns and no interceptions, while working with the second- and third-team offenses.

“My head was spinning a lot in the beginning, but now it’s really slowing down,” Smith said. “I’m definitely making progress. The speed that I’m learning, and how I’m grasping it, shows my development and how fast I can grab things. If I keep learning at this rate, hopefully, good things will happen.”

Coach Dave Wannstedt singled out Smith for praise after the scrimmage.

“The guy who has learned the most, who was thrown into the fire as quick as any of them, is Kevan Smith,” Wannstedt said. “He’s come out here and has been the second-team quarterback from Day One. He has been very consistent the entire camp. He has been a real pleasant surprise and no one’s talking about him.”

Smith is silencing all the major-league scouts — and even his own family — who insisted baseball, not football, held his best chance as a future pro. Focus on baseball, they said, and the 6-foot-3, 215-pound catcher would have been a top-10 round draft pick last June.

No indication as to whether he’s going to play ball with the Pitt baseball team. You have to imagine Joe Jordano would love to have him “walk-on.” It had to be tough, though, to do his own thing when his own father is at least “hinting” baseball was the way to go. Suggests a very strong-will and desire towards football.
From all accounts, Smith is a natural talent, and if he prefers football over baseball it makes sense to pursue it. Not to mention, that it’s generally been a bit easier for two-sport athletes to move from football to baseball than the other way. At the very least, the baseball organizations will still take a chance on you in the draft and with a signing bonus if you play football first.
An interesting piece looking at the QBs for Pitt, PSU and WVU.

Palko had to learn some things the hard way: Being a backup to Rod Rutherford as a freshman, taking a redshirt the next year and learning that, after a standout sophomore year, he couldn’t win games by himself last season.

“That’s my personality a little bit,” Palko said. “I’m not a selfish person, but if something needs to be done, I step up and try to make it happen. In football, one guy can’t do everything. I’m a little bit of a hard head. Sometimes I have to learn the hard way.

“My way’s worked. It’s not going to always work. There’s that old saying, different ways to skin a cat. My sophomore year, there were times when I handled it the way I handled it in high school. Hey, high school worked.”

Palko admits that last year didn’t.

He went from hometown hero to scapegoat, took the lumps that went with the position. There were questions about his arm strength, his decision making, his leadership. He has learned to listen to his coaches, not his critics.

“I think it helped him a lot,” Pitt linebacker H.B. Blades said. “Now he knows. He handled adversity last year. Tyler’s a great player. He knows that. We know it. He found out through the media not everybody loves you. I think he took too much of the blame last year.”

He left out questions as to whether he was playing hurt or such. Honestly, there are still some questions about his arm strength. Especially throwing to a sideline, 10-15 yards downfield. The ball tends to float a bit at that spot — which may be more about the way he throws to that spot — unlike when he throws over the middle or even a deep ball along a sideline. Hopefully they have worked on that some more.

The part on Morelli skips over his mental acumen issues. Which leads to a contrasting figure.

Finally, Luke Getsy, in his second year starting at Akron gets a story on ESPN.com. (Given that I live in NE Ohio and a Pitt alum, I probably pay more attention to stories on Getsy than I should.)

Some quarterbacks get by with bionic arms and chutzpah. Getsy does it with preparation.

“You’ve got to be prepared for everything,” he said. “If I move this way, I’ll be able to make a play here or there. It’s kind of an instinct thing, but if you don’t know what’s going on around you, bad things happen.”

Getsy’s instincts were telling him to leave Pittsburgh, his hometown school, after losing the starting quarterback job to Tyler Palko in September 2004. But he was hardly prepared for his next move.

He had never been to Akron. He didn’t know much about the MAC. And because then-Pitt coach Walt Harris wouldn’t release him from his scholarship, Getsy had to pay his own way.

The scholarship situation also prevented him from contacting other schools.

“I pretty much had to go on hearsay,” he said.

He knew Akron coach J.D Brookhart, who had been Pitt’s offensive coordinator during his first two years there. But as Getsy packed his bags, left his hometown behind and headed for Akron, sight unseen, he knew it was a leap of faith.

Turned out to be the best scramble this quarterback would ever make.

“I wouldn’t trade my past for anything,” he said. “I wouldn’t trade the position I’m in now for anything.”

When Getsy was battling Palko for the starting QB spot in 2004, it seemed unbelievable that the much heralded Palko could be in a dogfight through training camp with Getsy for the starting position. It did refelct well on Getsy’s guts, smarts and preparation to make it a battle. The best thing for Getsy was probably that Coach Harris has always preferred the arm strength and physical tools at the QB spot (for those whow remember the epic David Priestly-John Turman QB battles). That probably got Harris to make a decision before the end of training camp and give Getsy just enough time to leave Pitt.

One of Getsy’s most gratifying moments came after the MAC championship, when he and Brookhart received a congratulatory letter from Harris, now Stanford’s coach.

“We have a lot of respect for each other,” Getsy said.

“Luke understands how much Walt gave him,” Brookhart said. “We’re men and we make our mistakes and don’t handle things right. They worked it out and they’re again on speaking terms, so that’s good.”

Getsy enters the fall with high expectations. He wants another MAC title and for Akron to make a statement nationally. The Zips get a chance right away with an opener at Penn State.

If all goes well, could Getsy become the next MAC quarterback playing on Sundays?

“Someone would be crazy not to give this kid a shot in the NFL,” Brookhart said. “I’ve never been around one like this, who knows it the way he knows it and gets it and make decisions and sees things.

“The intangibles, he’s off the chart.”

There were some hard feelings on both sides when Getsy left.

Sorry, on top of some of the server issues this morning, I had other things to distract.

Not that it’s exactly a big news day.

I used to rag on BC for being in a city that ignores it worse than Pittsburgh does the Panthers. At least Boston has the excuse of having all 4 major pro sports in the city. Cinci gets it even worse when it comes to football, and everyone knows it.

During last month’s Big East media day in Newport, R.I., University of Cincinnati football coach Mark Dantonio looked around the room and didn’t see too many familiar faces.

“I didn’t see either newspaper from Cincinnati, I didn’t see one TV camera from Cincinnati or one radio microphone,” Dantonio said. “I saw people there for the other seven schools, but not Cincinnati.”

In the Queen City, the UC football program is but a pawn in the pecking order of attention, definitely behind the UC basketball program and the two major professional sports franchises, the Reds and the Bengals. The Bearcat football team is also arguably behind Xavier University basketball, auto racing and even high school football.

“Nobody’s talking about us,” Dantonio said, just days before the Bearcats open their fall camp on Monday. “It sends a message to our players. It’s personal. That’s what you want to make it.”

The media organizations all claimed it wasn’t worth the expense to go to Media day. And even when the coach is making the rounds on local media, the reaction is, uh, muted.

Dantonio appeared on McAlister’s show midway through the three-hour show. McAlister had solicited fans for questions on his blog and on the air, but received only one e-mail prior to Dantonio’s appearance. After Dantonio’s nearly 11-minute interview, McAlister didn’t receive a single call on UC football. Piecoro did have one call following up on Dantonio’s appearance on Thursday.

Well, uh, maybe the interviews were just so complete there was no need to ask any other questions?

Then there was this story on the Div. 1-AA Panthers of Northern Iowa. They have a new player on the team.

Lindgren, Curt Bradley, Ross Hannam and Johnny Gray look to provide an experienced foundation at wide receiver, but newcomers such as Pitt transfer Terrell Allen will deepen the diverse talent pool at his arm’s disposal.

With a priceless quote from a guy kicked off the Pitt team for “chronic disciplinary problems.”

“I’ve never been the go-to guy so that really doesn’t matter to me,” said Allen, who once was rated the nation’s 22nd-best receiver prospect by SuperPrep. “If we run the ball, I’m going to block. If we pass, I’m going to catch it, but if I don’t get it, I’m going to help whoever else has the ball. It’s about team unity and winning, and this is a winning (program).”

Allen was originally heading back to his home state — South Carolina — to play 1-AA football. Not sure when he made that left turn at Albuquerque.