Obviously, these are subject to lots of alterations, especially once Terrelle Pryor makes his decision. There are still kids out there who haven’t signed and might still make moves up and down the rankings. Even for Pitt as players like DeVoe Torrence and Dominick Britt are still out there.

Brief aside. Pryor is not going to Pitt. I wish otherwise, but I’m not going to rip on a high school kid simply because he won’t go to my school (until it becomes time for my kids to pick a college). I also think there is no reason for any kid to sign his NLI on the very first day. With a talent like Pryor, why should he sign at all? Think any school would stand on some principle if he told them, “Yes I’m coming but I won’t sign the NLI.” Hell, no. They’d hold the scholarship regardless.

It sounded good when Pryor told everyone at his high school and ESPN-U that he was waiting to take more time. Saying that he just hasn’t had the time to digest everything from all the schools with his HS work, the football and now basketball season. Sounded very mature, and everyone praised the maturity. Dismissing out of hand any thought that he was doing this to keep the attention on him. That said, isn’t it a little remarkable that he didn’t have time for really considering all of the schools, but has had no problem with every interview. Every publicity moment? Every extra appearance? Showing up on TV to say he hadn’t made up his mind? I mean, don’t you have to wonder a little if it isn’t a bit about milking extra attention?

Moving on.

The defections of A.J. Alexander and Zack Stoudt knocked Pitt out of the top-20 recruiting class in the major recruiting rankings.

Rivals.com has Pitt the lowest at #29

Scout.com puts Pitt at #25

ESPN/Scouts, Inc. the highest with #21

Good for Pitt, and bad for the Big East as a whole, though, that Pitt is the highest ranked Big East team in all of the national rankings:

Team —— Scout.com —– Rivals.com

WVU ——— 37 —————- 44
Rutgers ——– 44 ————– 46

USF ———- 46 ————— 56
Louisville —— 54 ————— 55
Syracuse —— 49 ————- 48
Cinci ———- 55 ————– 68
UConn ——– 70 ————– 72

ESPN.com only goes top-25.

USF and Cinci have the widest disparity in the rankings. Louisville is clearly the most disappointing. Arguably, UConn could be considered more disappointing, but recruiting for football in their geographic base is much like Pitt recruiting basketball in Western PA.

Syracuse, all things considered, didn’t do too badly. WVU could be considered a disappointment, given their season, but all the crap that happened after the Backyard Brawl makes it somewhat stunning how well they recovered.

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.

Did someone drag Fran Fraschilla to an apartment party in deep South Oakland (Insider subs.)?

If you’ve ever been to Pittsburgh’s campus in the Oakland section of the city, you have to know that the Panthers are not going to lose their toughness even if the janitor has to suit up for Jamie Dixon. No surprise to me that they beat Georgetown.

Grant Wahl did his “Magic Eight-Ball” predictions for teams that will win the national championship in his mailbag.

Are you going to be smart enough to have Pitt in your Magic Eight? The Mike Cook injury hurts and the Levance Fields injury hurts more, but if Fields is back for March then Pitt will be much better for it. Look at the depth that is being created by their absence. Three freshmen (two true, one redshirt) are getting tons of PT because of the injuries. I would just advise you to consider them as the dark horse candidate. When Fields comes back, they are going to go deep into March regardless of seed.
– Josh Grubbs, Gibsonia, Pa.

I couldn’t go far enough to put Pitt in the Magic Eight, but I’m awfully impressed by how Jamie Dixon has handled the injuries to Cook and Fields, and the Georgetown win was particularly striking. Dixon is making his bones as a coach this season, and if he can keep Pitt in the top three of the Big East he’ll be a candidate for Coach of the Year.

So after a week of absence, Pitt is back in the power rankings.

ESPN.com has them at #13.

Jamie Dixon has rallied the troops and the shorthanded Panthers stepped up big time when they knocked off Georgetown. Ronald Ramon and Keith Benjamin can knock down jumpers with regularity. Dejuan Blair and Sam Young will take care of the glass. So much for getting ready for next season!

Luke Winn at SI.com returns them to #15.

I’ll admit I was expecting the Panthers to fold after losing Mike Cook and Levance Fields — and they did, to a degree, losing big at Dayton and narrowly at Villanova in the following two weeks. But they’ve rebounded nicely to win three straight in the Big East, including a Power-Rankings-worthy victory over Georgetown on Monday. DeJuan Blair, who had 15 points and nine boards in that game, and did yeoman’s work defending Roy Hibbert, remains under-hyped in this freshman class. He well behind Mike Beasley in terms of production, but stacks up against the other power-forward phenoms:

I’d just like to see solid conference road performances at Cinci and St. John’s in the next week. Cinci is a lot better than expected — especially at home — and St. John’s has been an inexplicable nightmare for Pitt. The road in conference is looking like a nightmare this season. Pitt needs to get road wins where ever they can. The road games in February and March will be brutal (UConn, Marquette, ND, Syracuse and WVU). Pitt has continued to dominate at home — and that can’t change.

Let’s see, Gene Collier yesterday in a chat actually fielded a Pitt question.

jimmy_g: The devastating injury losses that the Pitt basketball team has suffered may be too much to overcome. How do you see this affecting their remaining season?

Gene Collier: Negatively and substantially. With Cook and Fields out, 30 percent of the scoring is gone, not to mention their experience. Fields ran the show. Now the show goes on without a front man. Fields could return by March. DuJuan Blair has broad shoulders, but not this broad.

You may sense a theme as Andy Katz at ESPN.com had his own chat (Insider subs.).

Fo Sheezy, Pittsburgh: Andy: Let’s cut to the chase. With the injury bug in full force, what can we expect of Pitt the rest of the regular season? The Panthers looked like a top-10 team after the Duke game, but the Fields injury is an absolute killer. He is the best player on that team, and he plays the most important position. So here is my 2-part question…(1) Where do you see Pitt finishing in the Big East? and (2) What have you heard as far as the time table for a possible return for Levance Fields? Thanks!!

Andy Katz: Is that your real name?

Well, Fo, I can tell you that the world didn’t end at Pitt. Nope, there is no Chicken Little roaming around Petersen. Jamie Dixon is still very optimistic after Ronald Ramon had 10 assists and no turnovers. I totally disagree with Doug Gottlieb, who said Pitt is going to the NIT now. The Panthers will win games, especially at home. The Big East, save Marquette and Georgetown, is even and there are plenty of games to be had. As for Fields, think more Padgett than Cook. The surgery went well and the feeling is that he will be back possibly during the Big East season instead of in the postseason.

Finally there was the Ray Fittipaldo chat today.

7_man_rotation: Do you think Pitt can go .500 in Big East play and how many Big East games do you think they need to win to get into the NCAA tournament?

Ray Fittipaldo: I think if Pitt goes 9-9 in the Big East the Panthers would be giving themselves a chance. That would give them a 21-10 record entering the Big East tournament. If Pitt wins one game in New York I think they would be assured of a spot.

Pitt cannot have any letdowns against teams like Rutgers, Seton Hall and St. John’s this season because beating the upper echelon teams in the league will be difficult with Cook and Fields. I’ll predict they’ll play two games under .500 without Fields. But depending upon when he comes back they could still make a run a berth in the tournament.

needdepth: What are our chances against Nova? Can we match up?

Ray Fittipaldo: Villanova is not a big and strong team. Jay Wright has some nice guards and small forward types, but Sam Young and DeJuan should have a big edge on the inside. I think it will be a matter of whether Pitt can contain Scottie Reynolds. He’s Villanova’s best player and the Panthers will need to keep him in check if they want to have a chance.

The ‘Nova game scares the hell out of me because ‘Nova’s guards are slashers and penetrators. If (when?) they get past Ramon and Benjamin, they can be the ones that will get Blair and Young in foul trouble.

With the loss of players for Pitt, they fell in meaningless power rankings. ESPN.com dropped them to 15.

Like aging, coaching ain’t for sissies. Down two starters, Jamie Dixon is now coaching on the fly just as the Big East schedule dawns with a Sunday date at Villanova. One idea — get the ball in DeJuan Blair’s hands more. The sensational freshman forward took just six shots in a win against Lafayette.

And yet, for whatever reason, they have Dayton behind Pitt at #16.

Luke Winn at SI.com dropped Pitt, but has them at the top of of his “On the Cusp, Tier 1.”

Pittsburgh (11-1): The Panthers’ ugly loss at Dayton normally wouldn’t be enough to knock them out of the rankings. They do, after all, have a win over Duke on their resume. But with Mike Cook and Levance Fields now out of the equation, Pitt no longer resembles the scary team we saw at the Garden before Christmas.

I don’t have a problem with these rankings.

Pitt moved up to #8 in SI.com’s Luke Winn’s Power Rankings, with the focus on the P-G puffer on Levance Fields and the same bit I liked (do I need to revise my view?).

ESPN.com’s Power Poll puts Pitt at #6.

Pitt’s big rally — and the big Fields 3 against Duke showed skill and fortitude. Losing Mike Cook is a downer. Resolution: Get to the free-throw line more. Also, take smiling lessons from DeJuan Blair.

In a less related note, Aaron Gray has moved up in attention among NBA rookies.

This 10th spot seems to be reserved for the one-week wonders. This week it’s the Bulls’ big man out of Pitt. Given three straight games of at least 20 minutes, Gray responded by averaging 10.6 points and 7.3 rebounds. Of course, he came back to earth on Saturday (and Big Ben returned to the lineup), so if the pattern holds up, Gray’s stay in the rankings might be short-lived.

After Kevin Durant, the rookie pool has been a little low on impact so far. That has meant the “role player” rookies are actually doing more.

Among players who weren’t lottery picks but have started to carve out a niche in the league are Miami’s Daequan Cook, New Jersey’s Williams, Detroit’s Arron Afflalo, Boston’s Glen Davis, Utah’s Kyrylo Fesenko and Chicago’s Gray, who looks like the best bargain value of the 2007 crop.

According to Boston’s Doc Rivers, the current draft culture hurt the 7-footer out of Pittsburgh most, because teams started poking holes at his game instead of concentrating on what he could do. What he can do is establish a presence inside, gain position and bang the offensive boards.

Trends are funny things. Oklahoma State hasn’t won a true road game since February 11, 2006. A span of 13 games. At the same time, they have beaten Pitt 3 straight times. Oklahoma State Game notes (PDF).

Pitt is at home and has only lost one home non-con game at the Pete since it opened. Winning 26 straight home non-cons and 54-1 overall at the Pete in non-conference games. Pitt Game notes (PDF).

Interesting how Pitt got the game at home in exchange for playing in Oklahoma City rather than Stillwater last year. Seems a bit of good negotiating, leverage and ESPN helped make it happen.

In previous years, All-College games played in Oklahoma City have been returned in similar venues, like last year’s game against Tennessee in Nashville.

“I think Pittsburgh bargained last year that the All-College needed a quality team and they leveraged ‘Hey, we’ll come play, but we want the game on our court coming back,’” OSU coach Sean Sutton said. “I said, ‘We’ll do that if you start a series with a quality opponent that starts in Gallagher.’”

ESPN, therefore, owes OSU that game next season, Sutton said.

Not Pitt’s problem, though. Really, what could Pitt have offered that would have been equivalent? The closest would have been a tournament with Duquesne at the Civic Arena or something with Penn State up in Erie. Just not seeing it.

There seems to be some confidence that Pitt will win this game over at ESPN.com. This week’s Power 16 has Pitt at #9.

Like Texas, the Panthers are a “Ewing Theory” candidate, as the replacement of Aaron Gray with DeJuan Blair has made this a much more athletic and flexible team. We’ll find out a lot more about the Panthers (and Duke) next Thursday at MSG.

Already skipping ahead to Duke.

Andy Katz in his chat was asked a couple things regarding Pitt (Insider subs.).

Brian (Pittsburgh): Andy, Any thoughts on this weekends Oklahoma State/Pitt matchup?

Andy Katz: Pitt handily.

…

Fosheezy, Pittsburgh: Andy: I love your work. You are the best college basketball mind on ESPN. Does Pitt and Duke go into their matchup next week both undefeated? Pitt has a tough one against Oklahoma State this Saturday. Who do you like in the Pitt-Duke game?

Andy Katz: I didn’t know I had relatives in Pittsburgh. I do think Pitt and Duke will be undefeated going into the game. I’ll stay away from a prediction at this point but I will say that I’m looking forward to seeing how the Blue Devils guad Sam Young and how Pitt defends the Duke 3-point shooters.

There was also the weekly chat with P-G beat writer Ray Fittipaldo. It seems everyone already wants to look ahead to the Duke game. Hopefully the players aren’t. Oklahoma State still offers enough of a challenge.

Everyone likes Power Rankings, yet never before have we seen them completely dedicated to our Pittsburgh Panthers. Every week or so we’ll take a look at the biggest news makers related to Pitt sports — all in Power Ranking form.

5. Aaron Gray, center, Chicago Bulls
Gray’s been signed, and Chas wrote about that a few days ago. I was a bit surprised, however, whenever I clicked on the link to the Bulls website and saw this picture:

Definitely kind of odd to see Gray without a Pitt jersey on. Joakim Noah? Still don’t like him.

4. New Pitt football jerseys
Speaking of jerseys, Pitt’s are supposedly scheduled to be released on August 9. There have been two possible concepts floating around the message boards (home and away) but I won’t believe it until I see it.

3. College Football Live, ESPN
There are plenty of things I don’t really like about ESPN, but their new show College Football Live is a winner. You can see it at weekdays at 3:30 on ESPN and again at 6:30 on ESPN2. And if you were wondering, Mark May is a regular on the show.

2. Jim Delany, Big Ten Commissioner
We’ve talked at length about the possible Big Ten expansion that Delany might be proposing as well as Pitt’s place in the big scheme of things. One problem about the Big Ten adding a team is that they’ll need to change one of the best logos in all of sports. Notice the 11 that is formed around the ‘t’…

1. Football training camp
The countdown to camp is at less than a week and it’s pretty easy to see that the football talk is really heating up. September 1 is the start of a new year…time to start getting excited.

Everyone likes Power Rankings, yet never before have we seen them completely dedicated to our Pittsburgh Panthers. Every week or so we’ll take a look at the biggest news makers related to Pitt sports — all in Power Ranking form.

5. ROC the Panther, Pitt mascot, Member of the Octonion
Some background: “Every June, a secret society of the eight wealthiest mascots in the Northeast convenes at a secret estate in Providence, RI, known as Mike Tranghese’s basement, where chips and mango-peach salsa are served. They control the Northeastern bank money supplies, Fort Dix, ESPN and the Weslyan College student newspaper. They are known as The Octonion.”

One such discussion about bowl games…

Cinci: Well we’ve got a new coach too but we’re hoping to improve on our finish last year and do even better than the International Bowl.

Pitt: The what bowl?

International.

Did you get together with you friends and play a game in your backyard and call it a bowl? Cause there’s no such thing.

Yes there is!

Oh yeah? Where is it played?

Toronto, Canada.

Sure it is. Who did you play?

Western Michigan.

Aha! No such school!

Fine. Who did you play in your bowl game last year?

………f@#& you.

Read it all here and here.

4. Torrie Cox, CB, Tampa Bay Bucs, former Pitt football player
He’s been suspended for 4 games by the NFL for a repeat violation of the substance abuse policy. In this year’s training camp he was expected to compete for a starting job.

3. “Greatest Show Ever” on 92.1 WPTS
Hosted by Pat Mitsch and Jeff Greer on 92.1 and www.wpts.org/live, they cover all kinds of topics from around the sporting world including your Pitt football and basketball teams. A good way to waste time from 10-noon on Tuesday mornings.

2. New Hats on the PittPanthers.com Shop
Ugly now comes in two colors: white and blue.

Wouldn’t mind this hat though.

1. Chicago Bulls, NBA team
If Aaron Gray makes the team, the Bulls have a chance to become my favorite NBA team. They will replace my current favorite: the Pittsburgh Pisces. I’ll always have a strong dislike for Joakim Noah though, and that’ll never change.

Happy Fourth of July!

Everyone likes Power Rankings, yet never before have we seen them completely dedicated to our Pittsburgh Panthers. Every week or so we’ll take a look at the biggest news makers related to Pitt sports — all in Power Ranking form.

5. Kevan Smith, QB
The guy barely gets any publicity but got a story last week in the Post-Gazette. That’s one more newspaper article than guys like Pat Bostick, Bill Stull, LaRod Stevens-Howling, and most of the other guys on the team.

4. Pitt Marching Band
According to people who used to sit near the tunnel where the Panthers come out for homes games, they are being asked to move across the stadium. Why? The Pitt band is moving from behind the closed endzone to near that tunnel. The bad news is that they’re being moved away from the students; the good news is that they won’t be playing towards the open end where the sound can escape. It always seems that the away team’s bands are louder even when I sit closer to Pitt’s band — this could be the solution to that.

3. Clemson University
Our series with Clemson in 2010-2011 is off and then we pulled in one of their verbal commits. Yes, I wish we were keeping the series on with them but it seemed like a mutual thing. Taking one of their verbals…well hah!

2. Joe DelSardo Fan Club, Double-wide headband, writers, Panther Rants
They “took over” Dokish’s site and have turned it into what they call “The Onion of Pitt Sports”. They have had some posts that are simply hilarious including the press release of kickoff times for the 2008 season.

Also released was the start time for the matchup with Syracuse University on Saturday, November 3rd. “Dr. Gross [Syracuse Atheltic Director] and I agreed to start the game at 4:20. We chose this time because we figured you’d have to be high to go to this game. At that point in the season, both teams will be well out of the Conference race and any bowl possibilities. Therefore, we’re hoping a lot of potheads get confused and think it’s a Phish concert. There’s really no way to market this mess.”

1. Dinocat 2.0, new Pitt secondary logo
Two straight weeks of having a not-so-good subject in the #1 spot is a simple showing of which way most people think things are going. To top it all off, they throw out some “sleek” new logo that doesn’t even look like a panther. Panthers have noses like this, dogs like so. BYU, Florida International, and Houston got it right. Us? Not so much. At least we got something to talk about for a few days this offseason.

Everyone likes Power Rankings, yet never before have we seen them completely dedicated to our Pittsburgh Panthers. Every week or so we’ll take a look at the biggest news makers related to Pitt sports — all in Power Ranking form.

5. PittsburghPanthers.com Writers
At the bottom of this article, they write:

Single-game tickets, if available, will not go on sale until August.

If available?

4. Joe Clermond, DE, Pitt football
Clermond was named to the watch list for the 2007 Bronko Nagurski Trophy. He’s going to be the only player on this year’s football team that will even be close to any sort of award, and yet we could finish with a better team record than last year.

3. Terrelle Pryor, Basketball/Football Prospect, Jeannette HS
Pryor said he wasn’t going to come be a Panther with little explanation.

“They’re just not in it,” Pryor said. “That’s my picks.”

Thanks, Terrelle. You’re really giving us all the info you can. Good luck with that NFL career. If you were planning on playing hoops in the long run then I’m sure you wouldn’t rule out Jamie Dixon’s team as quickly as you did.

2. Pitt and Michigan State
Jeff Long will be bashed in a moment, but being able to work with MSU and their AD, Ron Mason, to get the September 15 game nationally televised is a solid job.

1. Jeff Long, Athletic Director
There’s definitely some backlash towards the football starting times released so far. Most of the comments questioned the times and what the athletic department was doing. Long hasn’t been the most popular guy in Oakland for a while now and he’s yet to do something that really gets him in our good graces.