I’ve been debating the waste of time that was ESPN’s “Face of the Program” gimmick. Essentially trying to pick one player or iconic image that would define a program at its best. It’s been mostly lame. For several schools they have been stuck with just the logo.

Pitt was a no-brainer for ESPN in going with Tony Dorsett. Not only was he the school’s greatest running back, won the Heisman, wore the cool uni and was a hall of fame pro player. He also led a Pitt team to a national championship.

That’s the one thing that trumps all the other poll choices in Dan Marino and Hugh Green. Larry Fitzgerald and Curtis Martin never had a shot.

Yes, that I even wasted a post on it is an obvious sign that news and info is drying up just before the July 4th holiday.

I love regional hall of fames. You never hear or read about most of them until there is a press release combined with a slow news day. Maybe a little more attention at a smaller paper that has a local connection to one of the inductees.

Take, oh I don’t know, the Pennsylvania Sports Hall of Fame. You knew one had to exist. Just never really heard of it.

Well, this year one of the inductees includes Walter Hynoski who starred at Penn in the 50s. Yes, he’s related to Pitt fullback Henry Hynoski — cousins.

Walter gets a pleasant enough piece in his local paper and it lists some of this year’s other inductees.

Hynoski, who is retired and lives in Holland, Pa., was notified of his election recently. The induction ceremony will be Nov. 1. Two others from the area to be inducted with him are Dick Purnell, former Shikellamy High School football coach, and Bob Unger, a Pottsville High graduate who was an All-American in football at Princeton in 1952.

Other members of the 2008 class are former Wisconsin football coach Barry Alvarez, former Minnesota Vikings placekicker Fred Cox, ex-NFL quarterback Joe Pisarcik, Pete Vukovich, who won the American League Cy Young Award in 1982; former Pitt football coach Walt Harris, former NFL running back Doug Kotar, Jim Mutscheller, Elaine Sobansky-Blackhurst and Leroy Hennon. Ted Meredith and Franco Harris will be honored as Atletes of Distinction.

I guess it’s something else to add to the old resume.

I think sometimes we — as fans — get so wrapped up in what is or has happened in just a few day period that we lose sight of the full season. Expectations are fluid things. Going into the season, it was unsure. Pitt was ranked, but there were lots of questions. Some expected big things, others saw a transition season and others saw struggles for a very different looking team.
Pitt raised expectations in the non-con by going undefeated through most of December, including a huge win over Duke that only looked bigger further into the season. The cost, though, was the loss of starting small forward Mike Cook.

Cook was averaging over 10 points, was one of Pitt’s most athletic perimeter defenders and best free throw shooters. His loss was immediately felt in the Dayton loss immediately afterwards. Brian Roberts was able to take advantage of Cook’s absence, and torched Pitt. Dayton was also hyped and primed for this home game — from the players to the fans.

In addition, Pitt lost Levance Fields in the second half with a broken foot. Despite losing two starters, Pitt managed to go 8-4 without him (7-5 in the conference). In that period Pitt beat Georgetown and had a bad loss to Rutgers. The team did it with only 8 scholarship players — half of whom were freshmen or redshirt freshmen. by going back to the slow tempo, hard defense approach that was required without Fields and Cook. Pitt also had to be efficient on offense since the possessions will be limited — and a common theme in all the losses is that when Pitt didn’t shoot well and/or turned the ball over they lost. All of their losses had Pitt’s efficiency at 100.5 or lower — Duquesne, Duke and WVU were the only games where Pitt’s efficiency was horrible but Pitt won.

Levance Fields returned for the Marquette game, but he was not near where he was with only two days of regular practice under his belt. The blowout loss wasn’t on him, though, as Pitt just stunk. Yet it was still just one loss — no matter how bad.

Consider that Pitt has 3 “bad” losses. Either because of a poor opponent beating them soundly or being blown out: at Dayton (25 points), Rutgers (13) and at Marquette (18). How about other teams in the top-25?

Marquette (25/24) has 4 “bad” losses: at WVU (15), at Louisville (20), Louisville (24) and at UConn (16).

Notre Dame (21) has 2 bad losses: at Marquette (26) and at Georgetown (19).

Xavier (10/12) has 2: at Arizona State (22) and at Temple (19).

Texas (7) has 2: at Mizzou (13) and at Texas A&M (17).

Texas A&M (22) has 2 (and soon to be 3 after this Texas game right now): at Texas Tech (15) at K-State (21).

Vandy (20/16) has 3: at Tennessee (20), at Florida (22) at Ole’ Miss (16).

Michigan St. (19/17) has 3: at Iowa (7, but only scored 36 points), at Penn St. (9) and at Indiana (19).

Are any of these teams going to make the Final Four? I don’t see it. I do think all of these teams have a damn good chance of making the Sweet 16 and a few even to the Elite 8. If that happens, well then it comes down to match-ups and who has the big games.
Pitt had big questions going into the season about their flaws. Some were shown others not so much. It sucks that if Fields and Cook didn’t get hurt Pitt might have been a Final Four team, but that’s the way things go.

Pitt still has flaws, but so do most of the top-25 teams. Parity is very high right now. The good news, is that Pitt can get better as Levance Fields gets his game legs back.

It’s easier to be pessimistic, because you are rarely wrong.  I’m just not there with this team.

It’s not like we can dictate things, but I think I would be willing to lose to Notre Dame and Louisville in the following two games as long as Pitt takes out Marquette tonight. Why?

This.

Seven members of the 2002-’03 Final Four team will be in attendance for Friday night’s game against Pittsburgh at the Bradley Center.

Travis Diener, Steve Novak, Terry Sanders, Scott Merritt, Andy Freund, Jared Sichting and Tony Gries will be honored at halftime. Dwyane Wade will be playing in the NBA All-Star game in New Orleans and unable to attend. Also missing the ceremony due to prior commitments are Robert Jackson, Todd Townsend, Joe Chapman, Chris Grimm and Karon Bradley.

Grrrr. Nice timing. Please spoil this.

Ramon’s game winning 3 has apparently been logged in as one of the best gamewinners in Pitt’s history. So they turned to Larry Harris to find out what he thought.

While watching the Pitt-West Virginia basketball game, Larry Harris spilled his soda and popcorn when Ronald Ramon swished a 3-pointer from the left corner as time expired to give the Panthers a 55-54 victory.

“I had a little flash of Cincinnati,” Harris said. “It was exciting.”

Harris made one of the most memorable shots in Pitt history when he sank a 15-foot jumper from the right corner at the buzzer for a 65-64 victory over the No. 12 Bearcats on Feb. 2, 1977, at Fitzgerald Field House.

…

“They always talk about that one,” said Harris, now an assistant coach at North Carolina State. “Somewhere along the line, if the conversation is long enough, that always comes up. It’s one of those things you always remember.

“For us, our school and our fans, that was a special moment for us. I wish it was against West Virginia, though.”

Harris is an assistant coach for Sidney Lowe at NC State. What sticks out for me is that he was watching Pitt. At the same time, there was a Clemson-Virginia game being played. The Wolfpack have a game with Clemson in a week, yet he was still watching his alma mater play.

That’s the great thing about the college game. You never forget your school. Even if you are wearing other colors in the employ of another, you think of your school as “us.”

So, how likely is Levance Fields’ targeted return date of mid-February?

Was asking around a bit about Pitt PG Levance Fields’ injury, and was told that coming back six weeks after surgery on a metatarsal is completely plausible, provided that the player has little pain in his foot. That will be the key to Fields’ early return — how bad his foot hurts.

Here’s a bet that he’ll come back just a bit too early and play with tremendous pain, which will limit his minutes. Here’s also a bet that he’ll be 100 percent healthy before the Big East Tournament.

An article stressing how depth may be key this year for the top teams in March. Pitt gets prominent mention of the worst case scenario.

Pitt is still in the ESPN Power Rankings at #13.

Of all the things that make no sense in the Big East, the Panthers might be the biggest enigma. There is no reason Pittsburgh should be in the national picture, not with more suits than unis on the bench to choose from. Yet here they are, losing to Cincinnati on the road by only three and thumping St. John?s. If the patch-worked Panthers can hold it together until Levance Fields returns, they could be the toughest out come March.

Pitt is also still in Luke Winn’s SI.com Power Rankings, and actually moved up another spot to #14.

This just in, Sam Young is hot this season.

Sam Young is riding a scoring streak unmatched by any Pitt player this decade, despite playing a lot of minutes at a new position.

Young, seeing more time at small forward, has scored at least 20 points in four of the Panthers’ past five games. No Pitt player since Ben Howland arrived in 1999-2000 can claim such a consistent, prolonged scoring run.

“I feel everybody has a weakness,” said Young, averaging 21.8 points in the past five games, “and if they do have one, I will exploit it.”

Just, please, stay healthy.
Kind of a strange chat with Ray Fittipaldo. Speculating more on Fields’ return and Pitt’s conference record at that point, a little about Wanamaker, and dissing D.J. Kennedy.

If you had watched College Gamenight on ESPN, you know that they are celebrating the 20th anniversary of  “Send it in Jerome!” Article in the P-G about it.  This part was absolutely fascinating to me.

But the Big East regular-season champions had a disappointing loss to Villanova in a Big East tournament semifinal and a heartbreaking loss to Vanderbilt in the second round of the NCAA tournament. The NCAA game is known in Pittsburgh as “the Barry Goheen game.”

Goheen made a desperation 3-pointer in the final seconds to force overtime, denying Pitt a spot in the Sweet 16. Goheen was the hero, but Lane blames former Pitt coach Paul Evans for the loss.

“We never should have let them shoot a 3,” Lane said, “Why not foul like John Calipari said? John Calipari said that in the huddle, and [Evans] told him to be quiet. Why not let them shoot free throws? We’re up by three, and you’ve got the greatest rebounder in the game under the hoop to get the rebound.”

Here’s why that is so fascinating to me. Sean Miller, of course, was on that squad. Fast forward 19 years and he’s the head coach of Xavier playing Ohio State in the NCAA Tournament. Up by 3 with Ohio State trying to tie in the waning seconds.  Miller didn’t have his players foul before the shot. Ohio State of course tied and then won in OT.

Miller was second guessed a lot after that game for the decision. Never quite dawned on me that he had history repeat itself on him.

Now that Paul Rhoads has accepted, and it’s (hopefully) too late for his return, I thought I’d give the Auburn fans some of my very biased perspective on the Rhoads tenure. They keep visiting and seem somewhat surprised that Pitt fans aren’t rending their shirts at the news of his departure.
Here are the basic numbers.

Year — Def. Ranking — Run Def. — Pass Def.

2007 —– 5th ———– 33d ——– 3d
2006 — 87th ——– 107th ——— 29th
2005 — 31st ——— 94th ———- 2nd
2004 —- 73d ——– 48th ———- 100th
2003 — 79th ——– 87th ———- 54th
2002 — 12th ——– 24th ———- 18th
2001 — 7th ——— 26th ———- 6th
2000 —- 29th —— 17th ———— 80th

That’s the kind of consistency Pitt has seen on the defensive side in the Rhoads tenure. The minute the talent previously recruited started graduating, the defense slid. Rhoads as a recruiter has been anything but good.

I’ll start with this post back in November about this season. After years of preaching “read and react” defensive schemes, Rhoads then had the gall to claim he has always been a proponent of aggressive defenses. He doesn’t do halftime adjustments or any adjustments. There’s a gameplan and he’ll stick to it.

The media will love him. Rhoads is a charmer in person by all accounts. It is why he has been well supported by media and the administration. He also disappears when things aren’t good. When things go well, he’s happy to talk. No one likes a guy who won’t be accountable in the bad times as well as the good.
Even halfway through this season, it looked like Rhoads was finally done as the media had finally conceded he hasn’t performed well.

This past season, Rhoads was stripped of secondary coaching and instead oversaw the linebackers. This was Wannstedt’s call to force Rhoads to pay more attention to stopping the run. Emphasis up front more. It was a brilliant move by Wannstedt because it recognized and used a key issue with Rhoads — When he had the focus on the secondary, he wouldn’t put them in a position to get burned at the expense of the rest of the defense. Now that he’s got the linebackers, he doesn’t want them looking bad. The result, for the first time in Rhoads’ tenure, the safeties were actually brought up in run support. Something Pitt fans had been screaming for years.

He preaches “fundamentals” but teaches crap. The focus has been on how good the defense has been this year. Consider what he’s done in past years, as well. If it’s about talent, then the question still remains — what role does the DC play as a recruiter? Rhoads escaped a lot of accountability for the talent slide on the defense.

Oh, and finally, Rhoads has historically sucked at getting the defense to handle spread offenses. I don’t think that can be stressed enough.
Thank you, once more Auburn and Tommy Tuberville for hiring Paul Rhoads. He’s your problem now.

I hate revisionism. The play of Sam Young and now Keith Benjamin have people second-guessing their usage in 2006-07.

Q: In light of the current play by last year’s bench players, doesn’t it make you wonder what could have been if coach Dixon would have let these guys (Benjamin & Young) play more last year? The outside game they bring is exactly what we were missing in the NCAA tournament. I think he had more loyalty to Levon Kendall than he to developing the younger players.

Mike Nixon, Libertyville, Ill.

FITTIPALDO: You might have a point, Mike, but you have to remember that Young was not completely healthy last season. He had problems with both knees that prevented him from being the player he is now. If Young had been healthy all season, I believe he would have received more playing time.

Benjamin is someone who is thriving with more playing time. This is the first time he has ever been in position to play 30-plus minutes per game. I guess you can say Benjamin deserved more minutes last season, but at whose expense? Ramon? Graves? They both played vital roles on a team that advanced to the Sweet 16.

Dixon is going to have an interesting dilemma on his hands when Fields is healthy enough to return to the lineup. Does he send Benjamin back to the bench? Or does he have Fields come off the bench? I suppose these types of problems are nice to have. It means you have players who are playing well and deserving of playing time.

For whatever reason, the other obvious possibility is having Ramon coming off the bench. As he was before the injuries. Several other points.

Even while Young was struggling to get healthy, Pitt was trying to get him more time. The early 2006 experiment was to play Young at the small forward. That would have gotten him on the court more as spelling both Kendall at PF and Cook at SF. We now know he was hobbling, but he wasn’t comfortable at the small forward. Struggling, especially, on the defensive end. Ultimately, if he wants to make the NBA, he has to look to that position. With his range showing this year, he has a chance.

Prior to this season, Bejamin never showed the shooting touch, patience, or restraint. He also struggled in defensive assignments, because he was more eager to work the offensive end. I know the contra argument is that he was only getting limited minutes, and was looking to make them count and show what he could do. The problem with that, is it only got him yanked faster when he’d rush down the court and hoist a shot. It finally seemed to get through to him this year. Even before he got into the starting line-up with injuries, he was just playing within the team. So much better.

Finally, both Young and Benjamin are better and like playing much more up-tempo. The team’s configuration last year with Aaron Gray just wouldn’t work that way. In that respect, Levon Kendall was a much better compliment inside.

Look at the numbers last year. Young shot .458 from the field and .310 on 3s. I know, I howled “NO!” when Young hoisted from outside last year. Benjamin was even more brutal — .420 from the field and .255 on 3s, not to mention below 50% on free throws.

Keep perspective.

There was the story from Joe Starkey on Brian Davis. Essentially about what was and might of been.

What happened at Pitt?

“Basically, I stopped going to class,” Davis said. “Can’t blame anyone but myself. I’m not the only one who’s ever done that, won’t be the last, but I can’t blame anyone but myself.”

Davis believes he erred in staying too close to home. He put too much time into entertaining his homeboys from Washington and too little into taking care of business at Pitt.

Davis, though, is content with his life and has one.

Not so for Todd Becker.

Becker made waves as a true freshman on special teams for Pitt, a top-10 program at the time, and was named special teams captain as a sophomore. But on Dec. 16, 1982 — the day before the team was set to fly to Fort Worth for the game — his life came to a tragic end.

At the time, Becker had been banned from a dormitory for several minor infractions, most notably squirting a fire extinguisher. He snuck into the building to attend a party thrown by several of his teammates, but when authorities were called, he fled for fear that he wouldn’t be able to play in the bowl if he were caught.

Becker ultimately fell to his death from a third-story window. He was 20 years old.

The program hasn’t been the same since, enduring just 12 winning seasons in the ensuing 25 years. Pitt lost that year to SMU, reached another New Year’s Day bowl in ’83, but didn’t return until 2004 — and even then, was highly overmatched.

Something that has more to do with coaches, recruiting and players since then; but it makes an interesting time mark.

I’m calm, I’m collected. How that office chair went through that window, I have no idea.

I haven’t been drinking to a stupor — though I thought about it — nor did I break my computer in response to the news. I have been trying to do a lot of things in the real world, so I can be clear for the trip to Morgantown. Never even got onto the computer to this point. I had left a message for one of my friends who was going to the game as well early in the afternoon. About an hour later he called me back while I was on my way to take my kid to a check-up at the doctor. That’s how I had the news broken to me that Pederson was rehired as AD. After that he broke the news to me about the Wannstedt extension.

Wow. Way to completely take the little bit of excitement and energy I had for the Backyard Brawl and crush it. Neither of us were joking when we both brought up the idea of bailing on the game completely. If not for the fact that someone else went to the effort of getting the tix in the first place, we probably would have.

This is what I said back in October after Pederson was dumped by Nebraska and there was some speculation that maybe Pitt might contact him.

Pitt and sequels just don’t work. This is not about wanting a Pitt guy/gal as the AD — I don’t particularly care. I want the best person for the job. Not someone the Chancellor already knows and may be comfortable with dealing.Pederson did a lot of good and some bad while at Pitt. He wasn’t the god/savior some make him seem for dragging the primary teams in the athletic department into the modern era, improving the facilities and finally getting a new basketball facility constructed. Nor was he the devil for changing the colors, logo and name and tearing down Pitt Stadium. For the most part he was a good athletic director who provided and acted in a way that helped Pitt. That doesn’t mean he should be brought back now that his alma mater has said “buh-bye.”

I’m sure there will be a column in the next day or two suggesting that it would be a good idea to bring back Pederson. That he would provide the energy to the athletic department and will make the hard choices, etc.

Feh. That’s just code for dealing with the only major public concern regarding the athletic department. Right now the issue is about the football program and its direction. Does the baseball program need shaken up? How about the men’s or women’s basketball? No. I don’t think so.

The athletic department could probably benefit overall from someone aggressive and with personality. It doesn’t, however, need the overhaul and makeover as before. Things have changed.

Bringing back Pederson would be taking the easy way, rather than being serious about looking for a new AD. It would also be one more sign that the athletic department is being run via proxy by Chancellor Nordenberg.

[Emphasis added.] And of course, there was the obligatory column from Ron Cook.

With the almost immediate decision that Wannstedt would get a 2-year extension, that would ostensibly take him into 2012 season. That this is happening means that we know who is really running the athletic department and that no Athletic Director hired would have had a say in the decision.

Hell, the press release announcing the re-hire of Pederson practically made it explicit the relationship.

Together they orchestrated a major revitalization of Pitt athletics that resulted in nationally ranked programs and state-of-the-art facilities. Today, that team was reformed as University of Pittsburgh Chancellor Mark A. Nordenberg announced the return of Steve Pederson as Pitt’s athletic director.

I have no animosity to Pederson, on a personal level. Don’t know the guy. I just don’t like trying to do sequels. It reeks of Pitt not seriously looking for the best candidate for Athletic Director. It’s about the guy the Chancellor likes. It means that Pitt never conducted much of a search. That the search committee got used.

I’m guessing the next news will be a new contract for DC Paul Rhoads.