NCAA rules allow D-1 basketball programs to go on an international tournament once every four years. The competition is rarely much, but the attraction for coaches — and why they push hard for it despite the obvious expense — is that it gives them extra team practices. It’s a huge incentive. The fact that it is permitted once every four years, though, does make it a commodity that can’t be wasted. A team can’t wait an extra year and then get to take a trip only three years apart.

For Pitt players on the 2014-15 team, this means they get a trip to the Bahamas and a trip to Hawaii this year.

Don’t worry, the players are taking it seriously. This summer trip is all about basketball.

Sophomore transfer Sheldon Jeter smiled when discussing the anticipation for the trip.

“It’s exciting. We get to go to the Bahamas,” he said. “It’s not an everyday experience. It’s definitely something I’ve been looking forward to all summer.”

Jeter said it isn’t the basketball aspect he is looking forward to the most.

“Probably just relaxing, getting the chance to enjoy the beaches, the women down there and all that. It’s nice that we get to play basketball down there, but I’m looking forward to a vacation probably a little bit more than I am the basketball,” he said.

Goddammit Jeter. Get on the same page, here.

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In my draft folder is a kind of longform piece I’ve been working on regarding the seemingly neverending UNC cheating scandal. The scandal has been fascinating to me because as Carolina has struggled to do everything in its power to minimize the mess. From claiming it was an academic scandal for the entire school, not just the athletic department. To saying it was a rogue professor who made it all happen. To smearing an of their own people who might say this is a problem. All to protect “the Carolina Way.”

But in the end, they have only made it worse. They keep trying to cover, obfuscate, deny, attack, etc. All because they are so heavily invested in “the Carolina Way” as mythos that defines them.

(more…)

Last article’s comments are getting unwieldy and as per direct orders from “pmdHTP” (whoever that is – I think an upstart commenter) here is a new tab… Enjoy!

May. The very, very quiet time for football and basketball. Outside of recruiting stuff and the police blotter the real news is spotty.

It’s filler time. Speculation on how teams will do. How the depth chart will shake out. Broader NCAA issues. Taking cheap shots at other programs screw-ups —  hello there, Rutgers. The ever popular talk of bringing back the Pitt script and/or old colors. Looking back at the stats and record over the past year to see what can be extrapolated

It’s moments like this when I almost miss the expansiopocolypse. Almost.

About the only non-recruiting tidbit of news that is still to come with Pitt is who Jamie Dixon will hire to be an assistant.

Other than that, there’s debating what is it about Steven Adams that gets under the skin of opposing NBA players. It is impressive.

Does this really work? Can someone try and get really drunk and report back on this method?

Dear Pitt Seniors,

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Well I imagine a lot of you have seen the recent news of some certain WPIAL kids going elsewhere. You’ve witnessed the meltdown on message boards, Twitter, and probably read some columns from the local papers.  Here’s some things we should already know as Pitt fans: (more…)

The lawsuit against EA Sports over using player likeness just got a huge boost this week. The lawyer representing Arizona State’s Head Coach Todd Graham has announced that Graham will be joining the lawsuit along many former (more…)

I guess it really was not a difficult decision for Coach Paul Chryst and Pitt. Sam Werner of the Post Gazette tweeted out a short while ago that Rushel Shell will not be welcomed back to Pitt. Further, they never even gave it serious consideration.

Burned bridges cost him a lot sooner than imagined. Chryst and Pitt just could not trust him. A wee bit ironic since ostensibly Shell left because he felt he couldn’t trust the Pitt coaches. Allegedly feeling betrayed because they were less than complimentary about him behind his back.

Shell now has to make a new choice. He can look at some MAC schools that aren’t too far away. He can consider other options at lower levels. But after not following through with UCLA, you can bet other programs will be that much more wary.

Got a bunch of them and more seem to be piling up every day.

If you can’t find good beer these days, you aren’t trying.

North Carolina keeps telling everyone it wasn’t an athletic scandal, but an academic scandal that just happened to involve some athletics. Yet, they can’t seem to put it behind them. Perhaps because every drip, drip, drip of information they finally, tortuously release when forced to suggests something else.

Julius Nyang’oro, the former UNC African studies chairman at the heart of an academic fraud scandal, had a cozy relationship with the program that tutored athletes, according to newly released emails.

Members of the academic support staff offered Nyang’oro football tickets and the chance to watch a game from the sidelines. One counselor offered to discuss athletes’ coursework over drinks, and another negotiated with Nyang’oro to schedule a no-show class.

UNC-Chapel Hill Chancellor Holden Thorp and other officials have said the Academic Support Program for Student Athletes did not collaborate with Nyang’oro or his department manager, Debbie Crowder, to create the classes to help keep athletes eligible to play sports.

The university, in its own investigation and in a probe helmed by former Gov. Jim Martin, had concluded the fraud was not intended to benefit athletes because nonathletes were also enrolled and received the same high grades. They have pinned the blame solely on Nyang’oro and Crowder.

The emails were released to The News & Observer this month as part of a public records request filed nearly a year earlier. None of the details within the correspondence had shown up in the numerous investigations conducted since the university confirmed the existence of the fraudulent courses in May 2012.

Is it a pure smoking gun? Not really, but once again it shows that this is not simply an “academic scandal.” It’s yet another piece that gets added to the pile of evidence. And once again it raises some more questions about the investigations if these e-mails never made it into any of the reports.

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Football may feel like it is treading water. Basketball may have ended yet again in bitter disappointment. The Baseball team may have fallen short of making the College World Series field. But Pitt’s Ultimate club just keeps hucking.

A second straight year of winning the D-1 College USA Ultimate Championship for Pitt’s club.

If you want to see Pitt actually winning something this year, you can see the highlights of the Championship games at 7pm on ESPNU or a rebroadcast of the Championship game at 8p on ESPNU.

There was no ultimate really being played while I was at Pitt, but I started getting involved in it a few years later in law school. For a while I was playing with a club team in Cleveland. Never went through so many wrist and ankle wraps before or since.

Clear some tabs of things that have held my interest. Actual relation to Pitt may not exist.

The SEC is still wrestling with the issue of staying at 8 or going to 9 conference games. Great article by Andy Staples laying out the factions and the issues. There remains that certain inevitability to 9 games when you have 14 members and strength of schedule will be coming into play at some point with the new playoff system. A lot of the issues in there can be applied to the ACC.

It makes sense to see opposition from schools like Florida, Georgia, South Carolina. They have annual non-con rivalry games that limit their scheduling. Go to a 9-game conference slate and suddenly they only have 2 non-con games available. It limits the ability to schedule much outside of a rent-a-patsy. I find it strange that LSU seems so opposed to going to 9 games.

(more…)

Over at EDSBS.com, some wonderful photoshopped hairswaps. All rivalry based. Paul Chryst with Holgorsen hair is just amazing. Peruse the rest, but special attention should be paid to the Arizona-Arizona State rivalry.

With the recent departures of Rippy and the Davis twins, the football team was under 85 scholarships. They wasted no time when they rewarded 5th year senior Desmond Brown with one. Needless to say, Brown was a happy camper and his teammates didn’t hesitate to congratulate him.

S/0 everybody showing me love right now!Y’all my motivation esp my teammates.,I do this for us!Now Lets go win this Acc championship! #H2P

— Desmond Brown (@Des_brown30) May 14, 2013

This is great news for Desmond, the younger brother of Pittsburgh Steelers WR Antonio Brown. Desmond took advantage of Rushel Shell’s departure and was easily the second best back in the Spring Game. There’s no sense in wasting an open scholarship and Desmond is certainly a player who deserves it. It’s also advantageous that he’s a senior so there’s no pressure to keep him on scholarship next season. Still, it’s a great honor to be 1 of 85 players on a team to earn a scholarship. Send some praise to Desmond on twitter for his accomplishment!

In the end it wasn’t Pitt. It wasn’t Wake Forest. It wasn’t West Virginia or Rutgers. Fordham and their coach Tom Pecora landed the NYC shooting guard.

Severe cited playing time but especially the chance to stay local.

Just have to wonder why he couldn’t have figured it out a bit sooner.

My friends, I’d like to take a few minutes and let you all know just how much I’ve appreciated both the opportunity to contribute to The PITT Blather as a writer and the interactions we have had when you all commented on those articles.

I posted 154  pieces on here and am proud of every one of them.  I am most proud though of the fantastic readers and commenters on this site and of the truly high level of discourse we have had over the years.  It has been a real blast to be able to travel around representing the Blather, researching issues, trying to get the facts and then letting you all know what I found out and my thoughts and opinions and how I came to them.

As you can see over the last year The PITT Blather has added some new writers.  There will be  an injection of new writing blood with at least two new contributors, one a student-athlete from PITT, weighing in.  Justin is a well grounded and detailed writer and a great read.  That is well and good and I wish them all the best.

With that, I’m going to move onto other things and let the Blather go on without me.  I know, I know – it is no big loss and it probably isn’t.  There is going to be quality stuff on here as there has always been and hopefully just as much good and detailed discussion as we have all had in the past.

I have nothing but gratitude for Chas Rich for the chance he gave me to be part of this blog.  I not sure the readers know this but Chas is about the best possible publisher there is.  In all my time here he changed only one article and that was to make it more readable.  Other than that I was free to write what I wanted and when I wanted with no fear of editing or censorship – and I wrote some pretty controversial things.

Of course I’ll still read The Blather every morning and evening and comment as I have been doing.  There just won’t be many, if any, articles with my name on them any longer.  If anyone is at all interested in what I have to say more formally about PITT football just look around, I’ll still be attending practices, talking with others and writing and posting in other sites.  This really is going to be a fun and interesting second year for Paul Chryst and PITT football with a ton of things to talk about.

My true thanks to all, goodbye and Hail to Pitt!

Reed