Seriously? Again? What more info could they possibly need (Insider subs).

Pitt was supposed to hear this week from the NCAA about whether Mike Cook would receive a sixth season of eligibility. But the NCAA asked for more information, and Pitt has still not gotten a decision. Cook tore his ACL against Duke on Dec. 20.

I did check the date on Andy Katz’s blog post on this. It is for today, so it isn’t a rerun from info of last month. This is getting beyond stupid. The other problem with the continued delays is that it screws up the system if they do turn Cook down.

The NCAA system allows for appeals and requests for reconsideration. If the NCAA takes this long to make the first decision, there will be no practical chance to make an appeal and have a decision made before the school year starts. More than just making it very difficult for Pitt to set a roster, they are keeping Mike Cook’s life on hold with this. He’s in limbo with moving on to the rest of his life.

QB Bill Stull headlines this national list of players coming back from injury this fall.

“Last year, you’re standing and watching an offense that you were in, that should have you out there,” Pitt quarterback Bill Stull said by telephone. “I can’t wait. I’ve been looking forward to this season for a whole year.”

Stull started last year’s opener against Eastern Michigan before ripping up his thumb on a third-quarter handoff. He watched freshmen understudies Pat Bostick and Kevan Smith complete a 5-7 fall, disappointing even after a season-ending upset of then-No. 2 West Virginia.

But Stull, a redshirt junior, beat incumbent starter Bostick for the No. 1 job this spring, leading a platoon of Panthers back from sickbay. Receiver Derek Kinder, back from a torn ACL (the only college football initials worse than “BCS”), figures to rank as Stull’s top target. And defensive tackle Gus Mustakas has rebounded from a knee tear, too, and might start along Pitt’s front.

All that’s left for the threesome, and all the guys returning from injury, is proving their worth come September. And don’t sleep on what a guy can do after missing a chunk of last year.

It will be closely watched how well those three plus Chris Jacobson and Dan Matha. To say nothing of Pinkston and whether Mick Williams can stay healthy. Yeesh. Heck, we have to see if Coach Wannstedt’s knee can hold up this year.

You have to be kidding.

The decision on Pitt guard Mike Cook’s medical redshirt may not come this week, as has been reported.

According to a source close to the situation, the decision by the NCAA may take another month, not nearly as soon as coach Jamie Dixon told reporters earlier this week.

Exactly what other information do they need? What other factors are under consideration?

This is a decision where you balance the letter of the rule — player can’t play more than 1/3 of the season — which he hit in the Duke game where he got injured to get a medical redshirt. The spirit/mercy of the rule — not taking away the chance to play and compete in collegiate athletics because of injuries.

Complicating things is that Cook would essentially be a 6th year senior since he used a redshirt when he transferred from ECU.

Still, all of this is known. This really should be about the NCAA just making the decision already.

It’s been assumed since Mike Cook blew out his knee against Duke that he would eventually apply for a 6th year of eligibility. He has officially requested the extra year, but as of now, the chances are stacked against him. He played for two seasons at East Carolina, then used his original redshirt (per NCAA rules) because of his transfer to Pitt. Therefore this season he was a 5th year senior, and the committee rarely grants the extra year in situations like this.

“It’s really out of my hands,” he said Friday afternoon. “All I can do right now is pray. If it happens, it happens. If it doesn’t, I’ll just have to go to Plan B.”

It’s likely that he won’t find out until after the NCAA Tournament and not any sooner, but either way he will be honored with his parents at tomorrow’s senior day festivities. Should he get the extra year, it would be interesting to see a player be honored on senior night for two years in a row.

Before he went down, he was averaging 10.4 points and 3.5 boards in about 25 minutes per game.

His rehab is expected to last anywhere from 9-12 months.

“Right now I’m just focusing on getting my knee better and getting back to 100 percent,” Cook said. “My rehab is going real well. I’m just taking it slow and taking it day by day.”

It’s been just over two months so far. Best of luck to him, and here’s to hoping he gets healthy soon whether we see him again in a Pitt jersey or not.

Fields returns.

Fields returns.

“I’m looking forward to playing on Friday as long as the foot feels good,” Fields said last night after Pitt’s light workout at the Petersen Events Center. “Everything is going as planned.”

When asked later about how confident he was in playing, Field said: “I know I’m going to play.”

Fields returns.

Levance Fields wasn’t smiling when he said it, but everyone could tell he was content inside.

“I’m going to play,” he said. “You probably can’t tell by this face, but I’m real energetic. When Friday gets here, I will be extra excited.”

Sensing a theme?

Suddenly the reports are that Fields might be ready by the middle of the month.

Junior point guard Levance Fields is expected to return to practice today when the Panthers begin preparations for the Providence game Tuesday night at the Petersen Events Center. Fields was cleared by team doctors Thursday afternoon to resume basketball activities.

Well, practice turned out to be delayed a day, but Fields did take part in shooting drills. He’s definitely not going to be playing on Tuesday. That just strikes me as Dixon refusing to put any timetable — moved up or back.

The win moved Pitt up to 5th in the Big East and WVU slid to 9th. So, naturally that means it’s time to worry about the NCAA Tournaments and conferences getting enough of their teams into the show.

What really matters, is how does Pitt look as the selection time is a month away?

“Look around the country and try to find me a team that doesn’t have a bad loss,” Parrish said. “They are almost nonexistent. Tennessee, the No. 1 RPI, lost to Kentucky (11-9). North Carolina lost to Maryland at home. UCLA lost to USC (at home). And those are the No. 1 or 2 seeds. Those losses aren’t as bad as Rutgers. But those are the elite teams.”

“At this point, Pitt isn’t going to be a one- or a two-seed anyway, so only one bad loss on your resume (Rutgers) is going to be fine. … I would suspect on Selection Sunday that Pitt will get a better number than most people would think. The committee is not going to forget about Levance.”

All of this assumes, of course, that Pitt qualifies for the NCAA Tournament for the seventh consecutive season.

The Panthers seem to be a good bet, provided they go .500 or better over their final eight games. That would give them 10 conference wins.

Does 10-8 in the Big East make Pitt a lock? Yes.

Yippee.  Of course that means going at least 4-4 with games that have a rather rough stretch looming. After Providence it is at ND, at Marquette, Louisville, at Syracuse (unpredictable) and at WVU before finishing with DePaul. The

Don’t worry, basketball hasn’t been forgotten. Just shunted to the side for the day.

There was a question about the kind of offense Pitt runs. Which Ray Fittipaldo called a basic motion offense.

The offense is your basic motion offense that many other teams in college basketball run. The stagnancy you’re seeing the past few games has more to do with the personnel running it than the philosophy behind the offense. When this offense is run well — as it was earlier in the season — it is very effective. The Panthers have routinely shot 50 percent or more in games with this offense. Even though the Panthers found a way to win three of their first four Big East games, they do not have enough talent on offense to overcome the loss of two starters.

This is essentially true and plays into something I have been meaning to link for a week or so. The Basketball X’s&O’s blog looks at the game ending play Pitt ran against Duke and Villanova. The five-up screen.

Definitely click over to see the diagramming and breaking down of the play. I’m skipping to his concluding comments.

The play works because in late-game situations, traditional thinking defensively is to switch on all picks. We do it, everyone does it, you always switch all picks late in games. So here, the “5 up” is designed to get a switch and the guard should be able to take the slower forward 1v1. Also, you have a mismatch down low for the offensive rebound with a bigger forward being guarded by a smaller guard.

…

In analyzing the plays, it’s clear what the message here is. Players win games. You can have the best game winning play ever designed, but in the end, it’s the guy that swishes the net that takes the glory if he hits it and the heat if he misses.

For the truly obsessed, you can actually buy Jamie Dixon instructional DVDs. Including one on the Spread Motion: 4-in, 1-out Offense. Or you can see another example/variance on the 4-in, 1-out as he there is a break down of San Diego’s (I really can get lost in time looking through this site).

Hoopsworld.com looks at some of the best small forward prospects in the NCAA. Sam Young is listed as third.

Sam Young has been able to step up on the offensive side of the ball this season. Pitt needed some more scoring from the junior forward and Young responded by increasing his scoring average by 11 points from a year ago. At over 18 points a game, Young is currently the fourth leading scorer in one of the toughest conferences (Big East). Young’s awkward form causes some inconsistencies with his outside shot. His shooting percentages (49 fg% and 40 3pt%) are pretty good however. Young allows the game to come to him. He moves without the ball well and can knock down the spot up jumper.

At 6′6, Young will be undersized at the small forward position in the NBA. He has a well developed muscular frame that allows him to body up defenders well in the post. He fights hard on the glass pulling down 7 rebounds a game, which lets you know that he has no problem getting physical in the paint. With some developed skill sets on the perimeter, Young will be able to get some burn at the 2 guard position.

Let’s not presume Levance Fields will be back by the Marquette game.

“I would say [Feb. 15] is on the aggressive side based on what we know [now],” [Athletic Trainer Tony] Salesi said. “Even if we get a good report on Thursday and we can start doing a few more things that doesn’t leave you much time to get ready for a game. You’re talking about getting back into running, shooting and practice. A lot of it will be what Levance can handle. I think when he said that it was an overly optimistic time frame.”

Salesi allowed that athletes heal faster than most people and that there is always a chance that Fields could come back earlier than he expects.

Pitt originally set a timetable of 8 to 12 weeks after surgery. Yesterday was five weeks from the date of his surgery. If Fields comes back at eight weeks, he would be able to play in the final three regular-season games and the postseason tournaments.

That would be the games at Syracuse, at WVU and DePaul.

Practices went back to more intense, physical competition after the Rutgers debacle (is anyone doing a running count on the adjectives used to describe that performance?).

“If we would have gone non-contact today, guys would have been upset,” senior guard Ronald Ramon said after the two-hour practice. “It was definitely good, especially after a loss. Guys want to get after it and want to respond.”

Coach Jamie Dixon, whose practices are closed to observers, is trying to reignite some of the aggressiveness and intensity that seemed to be missing in the second half of the loss to last-place Rutgers.

“Our thing is built on intensity and toughness and physicality,” Dixon said, “You can’t help but lose some of it in some of the practices. Plus, that’s what the guys want to do. They want to play five-on-five. It was good today, and it will be good tomorrow.”

To lessen the chance for injury, No. 18 Pitt has been focusing mainly on skill work and conditioning at practice in recent weeks. The Panthers have held only a handful of all-out, five-on-five competitive practices since losing Cook and Fields in late December.

None of those practices compared to yesterday’s workout, in which redshirt freshman Gilbert Brown estimated “90 percent” of the session was the same five-on-five drills that have defined Pitt’s program for many seasons.

It helped that Pitt actually had enough bodies to go 5-on-5 for the first time in a while. Even if the injury situation isn’t completely good.

G Keith Benjamin reopened the gash on his right index finger in Saturday’s loss to Rutgers and had to get his stitches replaced. He practiced Monday with what coach Jamie Dixon figured was more tape “than he had the other two games.”

C/F Cassin Diggs returned to practice Monday, but only briefly. Dixon said that Diggs’ injured hip wouldn’t allow him to complete the session. Surgery is still not out of the question.

“He’s still struggling,” Dixon said. “He’s not even close … He doesn’t feel comfortable, doesn’t feel good out there.

Getting Diggs back for some of practice along with new walk-on Ryan Tiesi. It also appears that Dixon did give a closed door (and with Dixon there rarely is any other kind) “discussion” of the work ethic and effort after Rutgers.

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.

Levance Fields and Mike Cook had their first meeting with the media since their injuries. The local media isn’t saying much about the questions and such yet — after all they have to have something to put in the paper tomorrow.

Mike Cook is indeed looking to get a medical redshirt. He doesn’t expect to find out from the NCAA until after the season.

Levance Fields is very optimistic about how quickly he is healing. He expects to be back around Valentines Day.

If Fields’ projection is true, his first game back would be Feb. 15 at Marquette.

The initial projected date of return was March 1. By moving up his timetable, Fields could play in the final seven regular-season games before the Big East tournament.

“If everything goes as planned I’ll be back before you know it,” Fields said.

That would give him time to be worked back in. To slowly get himself back into playing shape over the final 7 games.  Then carry things into the Big East Tournament.
If you missed the Ray Fittipaldo chat, there was a suggestion of a nickname for DeJuan Blair.

Blaznasty: Blair needs a nickname … “Grizzly Blair”?

Ray Fittipaldo: I saw that Dick “Hoops” Weiss from the New York Daily News wrote that in his Pitt-Georgetown game story Tuesday morning. We’ll have to see if it sticks.

I don’t know if Weiss intended it as a nickname, but I have to admit I like it. It was the final line of Weiss’ story.

“We weren’t going to lose in our house,” the grizzly Blair said.

I also like that Fittipaldo knew where it came from. It works.