There is an inverse way in which this works as well. If a coach or staff is good at one but not the other they will ultimately fail to reach the level of success possible if they could achieve some degree of skill at both.

Consider Jamie Dixon. As an assistant to Ben Howland, he was known as a solid recruiter. Because of his recruiting abilities he has been consistently able to get in talent that the Pitt basketball program hasn’t seen in years. As it turns out, he is a pretty solid coach as well. He has led Pitt to unprecedented success in the Big East and to a reputation as a nationally feared/respected program. His success at recruiting gave him the tools and his success at coaching has allowed him to get the most out of his recruits. Arguably he is a better coach than recruiter because he has been able to get 5-star talent out of many 3-star athletes. But he recruits players that fit his system and then has the skill to coach them up.

Dixon’s recruiting got Pitt solid players, though not necessarily top tier players. His coaching then allowed him to get the most from those recruits. If you put total success alongside recruited talent, Dixon has arguably had more success than UCLA, Kansas, Duke, and UNC based on the facts that those teams are all littered with McDonald’s All Americans and Pitt is full of 3-star recruits with the occasional 4-star added to the mix. Kansas and UNC have national championships in the last few years, but Pitt is comparable in regular season success, and in the case of UCLA and Duke/UNC, they had comparable records while playing in a far better and tougher conference.

Dixon’s coaching success with decent recruits has led to better recruits coming to the program, which has, in turn, led to more success. All of this culminated yesterday with the commitment of Dante Taylor, a potential McDonald’s All American (the first of Dixon’s tenure should he be named one), and a top 25 recruit by both Scouts.com and Rivals.com, two of the premiere recruiting sites on the web. (Read more at Pitt Blather here and here.) This is a huge get for Pitt and it comes back to the circle of recruiting and coaching feeding off of each other in a symbiotic relationship that creates a successful program that can draw players to it. For example, Coach K doesn’t have to recruit the way other coaches do. He has his choice of McDonald’s All American’s and 4-5-star recruits dying to play for Duke. While Dixon has a ways to go to reach that level of success, the Taylor commit shows Pitt fans great reason to be excited and patient as Dixon only seems to be improving with time.

Then there is Dave Wannstedt. He has done a phenomenal job at recruiting. What everyone is holding their breath over is whether or not he can coach. In most respects he could be considered a better recruiter than Dixon is in basketball, considering he has managed to bring in talent such as LeSean McCoy and has been voted the top recruiter in the Big East- no small thing considering he has to recruit against WVU and Louisville. However he has yet to translate that into winning.

To be fair, football is on an entirely different scale than basketball. In basketball there are usually 8-9 players in a rotation. In football, you have to have 22 starters plus special teams. Given the numbers involved in football it stands to reason that it takes longer for the recruiting to filter into the program to the point that it makes an impact. It wouldn’t work, even with all 5-star recruits, to start an entire team of true freshmen. So Wanny has to be given some time.

If he proves to be even a competent coach, the talent level of recruits should be enough to bring success. If he can have decent success, such as making bowl games and beating teams like WVU, on a semi-regular basis, then the recruiting will increase and the team will get better. Given his skill at recruiting, Pitt could, over the next 5-10 years, return to being a national powerhouse. Somehow he has the knack for getting sound recruits. All this is dependent on a competent level of coaching, however. Should he fail to develop that talent and turn it into wins, then it will be a completely wasted resource. Potential recruits will watch other players go into the Pitt program and get swallowed up, never to be heard from again, and they will decide to go elsewhere.

All of this points us back to the original point: coaching and recruiting are the two necessary keys to a successful college athletics program. Our patience is paying off with basketball, where Pitt his flourishing under Jamie Dixon, being chosen a preseason top 5 team and landing a big time recruit this offseason. Football is on the right track, and has the potential for even more success than basketball based on the recruits Wanny has brought in. But it remains to be seen whether or not the football staff can deliver on coaching the way it has in recruiting. If they can, then the circle will continue, and soon enough, all will Hail to Pitt.

Joshua Timothy Prowler

Born July 2, 2008

8lbs, 7oz; 22 1/2 inches

Grades are also important to student athletes because of the grade point average requirements to remain eligible for NCAA athletics.  Of course, grades aren’t the only thing that affect your eligibility.  They aren’t even the only thing regarding intelligence/brains that affect eligibility.

Being smart enough to not enter the NBA (or NFL or MLB etc) draft early when you aren’t a lock as a first rounder is arguably as important as maintaining good grades, being increasingly more important the fewer years of eligibility you have used.  Consider that if you are on a team and get bad grades, you are only ineligible for a set period of time, pending the grades being raised.  On the other hand, if you enter the draft after your freshmen season and don’t get drafted, your career is over, your eligibility is gone, and you don’t have a degree or scholarship.

In this regard, Sam Young is a rocket scientist.  He knew he wasn’t a lock for the first round.  He probably knew that it was possible he wouldn’t get drafted at all.  While he could have a bad year next year and lower his draft stock a la Carl Krauser, at least he would end up with a degree if he didn’t get drafted.  If he entered the draft this year and either didn’t get taken, or got taken in the second round, getting no guaranteed contract, he would be without a degree and quite possibly without a career.

Andy Katz has a blog on espn.com about this topic.  He talks extensively about the disappointing night underclassmen had at the draft, despite the record number of freshmen getting taken in the first round.  Just ask junior Jamont Gordon and freshmen Davon Jefferson if they wished they had stayed in college another season.  While both assumed they were a hot commodity (I never heard of either of them frankly), neither got drafted.

What about Mario Chalmers (picked 34th) and Chris Douglas-Roberts (40th)?  These are two guys that seemed like super studs in college.  Who would have guessed they wouldn’t even be close to the first round?  If these two guys weren’t first round picks, there is no way Sam Young was going to be.  They did get picked, and will both have a real shot as NBA players because of their talent.  But, as Katz said (about Texas A&M’s DeAndre Jordan), do you think Chalmers and CDR left college, especially teams that could compete again for a national title, in order to be drafted in the second round?

Leaving school early for the draft is a gamble unless you are a super stud that is being talked about as a top ten pick.  In football, a player can be drafted in the seventh round and end up on the team.  In basketball, there are only two rounds, and second rounders have much less of a shot.  After all, they are competing for a limited number of roster spots.

All of this points back to the fact that grades aren’t the only indication of how smart a person is.  Decision making is a vital part of intelligence.  Leaving school early and losing all of your collegiate eligibility isn’t a smart choice if you aren’t certain you will make it in the pros.  Sam Young understood this and made a brilliant decision.  He certainly has athletic ability.  He is fun to watch and could well be a solid NBA player.  But he, like many of us, realized that this year wasn’t the best year for him to try.  There is always next year.  And if he makes the improvements between this year and next that he made between the last two seasons, then his brilliance will shine even brighter when he is truly a potential (albeit lower) lottery pick.

Three Panthers Set For Olympic Trials*

Pitt’s swimming and diving team will be represented by
two of their top freestylers in recent history as well as one of its
fastest butterflyers at the 2008 US Olympic Trials, as senior *Stacie
Safritt* and alumni *Kristin Brown* and *Jason Miller* each qualified to
compete for a spot on the Olympic team at the Qwest Center in Omaha, Neb.,
from June 29-July 6.

“These three athletes have helped to make a great name for the
Panthers,” said head coach *Chuck Knoles*. “Stacie and Kristin have
both been to NCAA’s and Kristin and Jason are both on Pitt’s ‘Walk of
Fame.’

“I am excited and proud to have worked with these athletes and I
know they will represent themselves and the Pitt community very well in
Omaha.”

Safritt *(Cranberry Township, Pa./Seneca Valley)* is the lone active
member of the squad to earn an invitation to the trials, after she
finished 17^th in the 50 free at 26.19 at the Omaha Swimvitational
Grand Prix.

This past season, she recorded several multi-event victories
including,first-place finishes in the 100 and 200 free against
St. Bonaventure and Virginia, and 50 and 100 free wins in meets
against Syracuse, Cincinnati and Notre Dame.

In the Big East Championships, Safritt posted an NCAA provisional
time in the preliminaries of the 200 free, and tied for seventh in the
finals. Later at the ECAC Championships, she recorded first-place
finishes in the 50 and 100 free with times of 23.77 and 51.25,
respectively.

The 2006-07 Big East/Aeropostale Student-Athlete of the Year, Brown
garnered an invite to the Olympic Trials in four freestyle events.
She will swim the 50, 100, 200 and 400 free. During the Mutual of Omaha
Swimvitational, Brown finished with top-15 times in the 200, 100 and
400, while placing 10th in the 200.

Brown ended her career at Pitt as a two-time Big East Champion in
the 200 free and held five school records.

A Big East Champion in the butterfly, Miller will compete in the 100
fly at the trials. During his career at Pitt, Miller won the 200 fly at
the conference meet in 2003, was a member of the 200 free relay team
that won a Big East title in 2005 and aided in a school record as the
anchor of the 200 free relay team at the 2006 conference meet.

Safritt, Brown and Miller hope to join Sue Heon and Angie Lopez as
the only Panther swimmers to compete in the Olympics.

Congratulations to Stacie Safritt, Kristin Brown, and Jason Miller in making it this far. We will be rooting for you guys. Hail to Pitt!!

In short, May through July sucks for college sports fans.

There are, of course, a few reprieves in an otherwise torturous quarter year of sports nothingness.  For example, there are those ESPN, Rivals.com, Scouts.com, Weknowmoreaboutsportsthanyou.com, and other such articles and blogs that serve to get us ready for a season that seems like it will never come.

Lucky for us, with the NBA draft looming, we have had a bit of such college hoops news coming out.  One such piece being the latest bracketology on espn.com.  In it, Joe Lunardi lists our beloved Panthers as not only a 1 seed; but as the #1 overall seed in the 2009 NCAA Tournament.

On a side note, apparently Greensboro, NC will host the 1 seeds from the South and East brackets, giving both Duke and UNC a shot at playing home games for a good portion of the tournament.

Likewise Andy Katz has nice things to say about Pitt, ranking them #2 in his super preseason poll.

The hint of Mike Cook coming back for a sixth year (after tearing his ACL in December) makes the Panthers even more formidable. Sam Young and DeJuan Blair are big-time bigs, and Levance Fields might be as good a floor leader as anyone in the country. This Pitt team could win the national title.

You hear that?  This Pitt team could win the national title.

Then there is Andy Glockner’s piece about how seniors are going to be the key this year in hoops.  Of course you can’t mention seniors without mentioning Sam Young, whom Glockner calls Pitt’s “Unassuming Leader.”

Since Pitt’s resurgence/resurrection/dawning as a basketball power, this kind of praise has been non-existent.  Pitt has often been a sexy pick as a team to watch; a gritty team from a tough conference who can beat the most explosive teams with its grind it out defense.  Never have they been a team that was being picked as a favorite for a national championship.  Never have they been a team being crowned a 1 seed by a guy who has historically been pretty hard on Pitt when putting together his brackets and analysis.

This is something new.

As Pitt fans, we have been expecting a national title since Ben Howland’s third year.  We can name the top players from each season and why most of the teams of the last eight years were well equipped to make deep tourney runs.  We have complained that the analysts aren’t giving Pitt enough props and respect.  We have then witnessed those analysts be correct, though never admitting that they were in fact so, as Pitt failed to make it past the Sweet 16.

But what we have never had is a media that seems so giddy about our beloved Panthers.  While we are thrilled with the praise, we are left wanting to write a letter such as this:

Dear Media,

You didn’t believe when we did.  Now you want to jump on the bandwagon.  Its too late, losers.

Hail to Pitt.

PS- Even though you aren’t allowed on the bandwagon, please keep writing those wonderful articles about our team.

All of this makes for an exciting, if lengthy and otherwise bland off season.  I already want to start planning my National Champion Pitt Panthers party.  Unfortunately we are still four months from the season even beginning.  Who knows what can happen between now and then?  Who knows what can happen early in the season, such as losing two pivotal starters for the year?  For now, we just have to wait with anticipation, speculating on what could happen; what might come to be.

In the mean time, it won’t hurt if we can get some more of those articles about how good our team is going to be.

I don’t want to beat a dead horse into a large jar of Elmer’s Glue so I won’t talk about the Backyard Brawl. The reason I bring it up is that that one game has had such an effect on the way Pitt fans and the media remember last season; and it has helped to shape the expectations for next season. After that win, most of us forgot just how poor the season really was for Pitt (and that is what winning a rivalry game will do, especially when it keeps your rival from the BCS title game). It also, apparently, helped us undecided recruits choose Pitt, believing that beating WVU showed that this team is headed in the right direction. And who can forget that this win led to the resignation of, and instant demonization of Rich Rodriguez?

It truly worked in Pitt’s favor that they beat WVU the weekend they did. It was the end of the season. It was after a season of unranked teams knocking of number two ranked teams. It was, without a doubt, what kept WVU from playing for, and quite possibly winning a national championship. Because of that, Pitt has gotten more press than any of the other unranked teams that scored such upsets.

This truly was the stepping stone from which Pitt’s national visibility has returned. Add to that the buzz surrounding McCoy, the strong recruiting classes of the last few seasons, and the return of injured starters Bill Stull, Derek Kinder, and Gus Mustakis, and there are some lofty expectations on this team.

I have seen Pitt projected anywhere from seven to eleven wins this season, depending more on how other teams like WVU and Louisville perform. The latest round of expectations comes from Lindy’s College Football Preview. (See story on Pitt’s Official Site) Lindy’s has Pitt ranked number 23 in their preseason poll, in addition to having Scott McKillop listed as a preseason all-American and McCoy a second team preseason all-American.

There is no doubt that both of these players deserve all of the attention they have been getting. McKillop led the nation in tackles last year. McCoy was the leading freshmen rusher and set the freshmen Big East rushing record- not bad since he wasn’t the starter at the beginning of the season.

The question is this: will Pitt live up to all the hype by having a huge year? Or will we all be letdown by another underachieving team? The most difficult part of answering this question is accurately assessing what a ‘huge year’ would look like. A few months ago, eight wins seemed to be the real expectation. Seven wins would pass if the team showed a real growth. The more praise and puff heaped on this team in the preseason, the more expectation we have for them. I suspect that, at this point, anything less than nine or ten wins will lead to calls for Dave Wannstedt’s head. Whether those would be fair calls or not is more likely to be determined by how they lose rather than if they lose. If Pitt loses games they legitimately should have won, such as the Navy game, it will be tough for DW to quiet the critics.

On the other hand, it is entirely possible that this team will live up to our expectations. If they can win eight or nine games, have a solid offensive season, and get themselves into a New Year’s Day bowl game, that would be, in my opinion, an enormous success and a tremendous building block for coming seasons.

Maybe the hesitancy to really expect a breakout year for Pitt solely based on the [tremendous] talent on the roster comes from the way they haven’t delivered on talent in the past. We did, after all, have Larry Fitzgerald, Gerald Hayes, Claude Harriot, and several other nationally recognized players under our previous coach and failed to break into any real national prominence. The closest we got under Walt Harris was being picked to win big games that we never seemed to win.

The buzz around this team is different from the Harris-era buzz in the sense that it is based on solid recruiting classes and glimmers of hope on the field, as opposed to simply a few stud recruits surrounded by a team of average players. I do see there being more reason to expect great things from Pitt. McCoy and McKillop are just two of those reasons. 13-9 surely helps. But 13-9 is over and done with. For all the good it has done us, it won’t win us any games in 2008. Neither will all the media hype in the world. The players on the field and the coaching staff will have to do that. There is a lot of excitement. Here’s hoping that our Panthers are up to the task.

On the subject of the trip to New Orleans, there are two things I can say about it. First, New Orleans is a city that has largely been ignored since the months following Hurricane Katrina so most people don’t know what is happening there since the news cameras have left. Over 75% of the people have returned to the city and it is really coming back to life. At the same time, homes are still damaged significantly. People are still working to put their lives back together. For many of them, they can’t afford to do the work on their homes that needs done (thus the mission trip to help out). Primarily it is church organizations who are helping the people get their lives back together. The most impressive thing about it is that the people’s spirits remain high despite their troubles, and they are very welcoming to outsiders who come just to show support. When we got there, no one cared that we did work. The commonly repeated theme was simply, “Thank you for coming and for not forgetting about us.”

The second important thing about the trip was that I was able to convert a high school kid from Kansas into a Pitt Panther fan. This is no easy task considering KU just won the national championship in basketball. It may not be as significant as helping people trying to recover from a hurricane; but I am willing celebrate any conversion to Panther nation.

Anyway, thanks for hanging around even while it has been slow news time. Now that I am back in town, I will try to get some new updates in the next few days.

The incident last month with Cassin Diggs leaving the Pitt basketball team, apparently against his will, brought about lively discussion about how the schools/athletic departments hold all the power in the relationship. This argument goes like this: the players have no rights or power. Instead, they are just pawns in the greater chess game of intercollegiate athletics. This doesn’t turn out to be a problem for a lot of players because they live up to their potential and therefore are treated well. But in the case of a guy like Diggs, being “asked” to transfer showed that these athletes have to please the brass or they will be forced out. It is the ugly side of college sports, and the players become victims.

There is another side to the issue. Consider the OJ Mayo incident that has been in the news recently (or even more recently, Darrell Arthur from KU). If the allegations are true, and for the sake of the point I am making, we will talk about them as if they are, then USC will be punished for Mayo’s actions. The school could have its wins taken away. They could lose scholarships. If Mayo is found to have accepted money dating all the way back to high school, USC will almost certainly be on probation and be kept from post-season play for at least a year. In addition, a highly touted recruit just withdrew his commitment because of the scandal.

In the Arthur case, it is suggested that his grades may have been fixed back in high school. If that is true, the NCAA could take away all the wins during any season that Arthur was on the team; meaning the national championship could potentially be in jeopardy.

So while one argument is that the student-athletes have no power in the relationship; we can see on the other side that they have tremendous power. Even bigger than potential sanctions brought by one player’s indiscretions has been the impact of the one-and-dones of college basketball. The players have to have at least a year of college before they can go to the NBA, so they treat college like it is NBA mini-camp. OJ Mayo was free to accept cash and gifts because he was never committed to USC. He wanted USC to showcase his talents so he could go to the NBA and make millions. And if he gets the school in trouble, he loses nothing because he is still drat eligible and will still go in the first round.

This is a tremendous amount of power to be put in the hands of one player. While most schools don’t have stars of the Mayo caliber, if Levance Fields or Joe Alexander or another star was taking money, having grades fixed, etc., they would equally bring down the wrath of the NCAA upon their schools. This is why teams try to impose sanctions on themselves as soon as infractions are brought out into the open. Because they know that the mistakes of one or a few kids can ruin the whole program.

Who remembers the Fab 5 from Michigan? Probably most of us. Who doesn’t remember them? The historical records of their accomplishments. Why? Because more than ten years after they all left for the NBA, it was found at that Chris Webber was accepting money while at Michigan. Webber had a successful NBA career, making lots of cash. Michigan was left to have their names erased from the history books.

So who really has the power? I believe that the argument that these kids have no power, as if they are somehow victims (I would like to be a victim of the crime of being given a college degree) is overstated. I don’t disagree that there is an imbalance of power. But the imbalance is on both sides. The schools may have too much power in forcing a kid like Diggs out. They might have winning on the mind too much, to the detriment of some really good kids. However the players have the ability to destroy a program as well. By being selfish, they can destroy the post-season aspirations of their teams. They can harm recruiting by being involved in scandals. They can cause their schools to have their names removed from the records. All the while, it costs the player nothing. If he was good enough to play in the NBA, he will still get to.

While the schools may have the power to harm individual players; the players have the ability to harm the whole program. That, to me, is an imbalance of power.

Of all the reason to like Jamie Dixon, and there are many, it is his loyalty to the University of Pittsburgh and to Pitt fans that have caused me to respect and admire him so much.  Sure he has a great winning percentage, he has had great success in the Big East Tournament, and he runs a squeaky clean program.  And sure there are reasons to criticize him, such as the lack of 5 star recruiting, the inability to make it past the Sweet 16, and the lack of Pitt players in the NBA.

All said in done, the attractive thing about Jamie Dixon is that, in an era where coaches are looking to build a resume to make a jump to a better place, Dixon has shown great commitment and loyalty to Pitt, never giving the impression that he wanted a better job.  And furthermore, never seriously contemplating other jobs, even when he was offered (or at least considered, before shutting them down immediately) some, such as Indiana, that historically would be seen as better programs.

From Katz’s article:

“He is so loyal to us and if there are three to five suitors every year, that would not surprise me at all,” Nordenberg said. “He doesn’t dangle that in front of us and doesn’t advertise it or try to take advantage of it.”

“Every time his name circulates with a job, Jamie shuts things down fast,” said athletic director Steve Pederson, back for his second stint as AD.

And again:

Loyalty at this level, in any sport, is unique. Chasing the big bucks is more the norm, but what has changed over Dixon’s five-year tenure is how much Pitt has become a destination job. No longer is there a reason to run with Pitt arguably one of the premier jobs in the Big East, which makes it one of the top gigs in the country.

We know how unique loyalty is.  It was Dixon’s predecessor, Ben Howland, who jumped at the first opportunity to go to a better school.  That stung most of us.  But Dixon has taken that sting away, and for me anyway, taken away much of the legacy of Ben Howland by forging his own as a rookie head coach.

Rumor after rumor abounds every year that Jamie Dixon is off to somewhere else.  Though there never seems to be so much as an interview.  Supposedly he was going to bolt for the Cal job this year, because everyone knows he is from Cali and can’t wait to go back there; everyone, that is, except for those of us who have listened as he has repeatedly said that Pittsburgh is his and his family’s home, and that he has no intentions of leaving.

I am not naive enough to think that Dixon could never be lured away or will never leave.  There are so many variables that can’t be predicted.  A new AD that he doesn’t get along with; whiny fans who consistently call for him to be fired, despite his continued success; the feeling that he has reached a ceiling at Pitt… who knows.  He may not spend 35 years at Pitt.  But he certainly never gives the impression that he is looking to leave, or even that we should be worried about the next opening that will be dangled in front of his face.

The following quote by Jerry Cochran really puts into perspective how unique Dixon is and how lucky Pitt is to have him:

“He’s not looking for stardom, to increase the size of his bank account. I’m quite pleased to say he’s an exception to the rule.”

If you are a Pitt fan and you don’t think we are lucky to have Jamie Dixon, consider a few things.  Look what Kelvin Sampson did to Indiana.  We could have ended up with a coach like that.  Now, Tom Crean is there, having eight scholarship players from last year either declared for the draft or removed from the team.  And then there is Bob Huggins.  Huggins is a good coach, no doubt.  And if he can stay clear of problems, he will have WVU competing at a high level year in and year out.  But after signing a 10+ year contract extension, all the news is about how it has a clause telling him not to drink and coach.  WVU says that it is standard in all contracts, and that may be.  However, it is being made newsworthy because of the embarrassment Bob Huggins’ drinking brought upon the Cincinnati basketball program.

So many schools sell their souls to win.  They will hire disgraced coaches; recruit players of questionable character (Ralph Willard anyone?); throw as much money as possible to try to lure coaches away from top jobs (Oklahoma St. anyone?); or just have complete jerks (John Calipari?) as coaches (though I guess that isn’t exactly a crime).

Even if Dixon never wins a national championship at Pitt, I am happy to have a coach I can be proud of, running a clean program that I can be proud of, knowing that the coach isn’t looking for the first chance to upgrade to the next best thing to come along.  Jamie the Loyal is a fitting name.  And to him, I pledge my allegiance.

Prior to the defections of Miami, Virginia Tech, and Boston College, the Big East was legitimately a top football conference. It has since come to be [not so] lovingly referred to as the Little East. Like it or not, losing three of the top programs in the league definitely hurts the competition level. At the same time, the Big East did add some teams, and two of those teams (Louisville and South Florida) have turned out to be solid teams. Also, Rutgers’ coach Greg Schiano has turned the Scarlet Knights into a solid team.

The issue is whether or not this is enough for the Big East to maintain respect as a league. I would say that the conference has been hurt by two other factors that, if rectified, would allow them to re-emerge as a solid BCS league. Those two issues are the inconsistency of Pitt, and the total demise of Syracuse. The league needs the core of the original Big East to be strong to maintain the public respectability.

For many in the media and fans of other conferences, no matter how well Louisville and South Florida perform, they won’t bring credibility to the league because they are new, and they don’t fill the shoes of the teams that left. On the other hand, if Pitt could consistently make bowl games, challenge WVU for the league championship, and win 8-9 games; and if Syracuse could return to being at least semi-respectable (making bowls and not being a team that goes on the schedule to ensure a win), the Big East would have a core of solid teams (Pitt, WVU, Syracuse, and Rutgers) who have been in the league for a long time. I truly believe that this would help the league to gain respect tremendously.

Consider that WVU has been ranked in the top 10 the last several seasons, and every year the outcry is that they are too highly ranked because their league is weak. Sure the Hoopies blew a shot at the BCS title by losing to Pitt. But this wasn’t nearly the magnitude loss as USC losing to Stanford. Pitt could be no. 1 and WVU no. 100, or vice-versa, and the Backyard Brawl would be a game where either team could win. That is what rivalries are about. In this case, it wasn’t about WVU choking and proving that the Big East didn’t deserve a shot at the BCS. It was about Pitt stepping up and showing that keeping their rivals from that title shot was important. After the loss, the naysayers immediately began the, “The Little East is a mid-major conference,” complaints. The only time I ever rooted for the Hoopies was when I was watching them THRASH Oklahoma, proving that they [and the Big East] are for real.

But the league can’t survive on WVU and Louisville alone. Pitt looks like they are heading in the right direction. If recruiting translates into actually game success, the Panthers should make the Big East proud. If only Syracuse could come along and do the same thing. The school that produced Marvin Harrison and Donovan McNabb needs to dig deep, for the good of their program, and for the respectability of the league, and return to form.

From Little East to Big East, let’s take a look at the other side of the story. While we have spent the last few years not being able to make a legitimate claim to being the best football league; there is little doubt that the Big East is truly a monster league in basketball. Even before the defections of teams to the ACC this was a truly solid league. The defections helped basketball because we lost perennial bottom feeders [other than BC who was generally solid, but hasn't been much of a threat in the ACC].

With powerhouses such as UConn, Syracuse, [more recently] Pitt, Villanova, and [traditionally] Georgetown, the Big East was always a top basketball league. Adding Louisville and Marquette only improved the league. While other conferences might claim one year or another that they are the best league, the Big East is consistently, year in and year out, the most competitive and difficult league. The Big East Tournament is the mother of all conference tournaments, playing in the Mecca of college basketball, New York City.

Sure, this year many claimed that the Pac-10 was the best. Another year people might claim it is the Big 10 or Big 12. Fans love to jump on the ACC bandwagon, but they only have two consistently good teams: Duke and UNC. A two team league isn’t a powerhouse, even though the top two teams are most definitely powerhouses.

The reality is this: while many in college football claim that WVU or Louisville wouldn’t survive in other “real” conferences, it is certain that no team could plow through the Big East basketball league year in and year out. Duke couldn’t do it. UNC couldn’t do it. UCLA couldn’t do it. Kansas couldn’t do it. These teams might be in the top half of the league; being an 8 seed in the Big East will still get you a workable NCAA tourney seed. But these teams would not dominate the Big East the way they dominate their leagues. UCLA might finish 16-2 one year in the Big East, but it would finish 12-6 another. While that kind of record hurts in another league, it is a reality for teams in the Big East. There are just too many good, competitive teams in the Big East.

Who out there thinks that Memphis would have finished with one regular season loss if they had to play Georgetown, Louisville, WVU, Pitt, Marquette, UConn, and Notre Dame, and some of these teams twice?

I am not going to get into whether the Big East is the “best” league. What I am saying is that it is the most difficult and competitive league in college basketball… every year.

So we are Little Big East fans. We realize that the football conference needs to improve; though we also know that it is a much better football league than many out there give it credit for. We also have the luxury of knowing that we get to watch some of the absolute best basketball every year. The rivalries, the tradition, the competition, and the tournament all make the Big East the premiere hoops league.

I am ok with being the Little Big East.