The new Rivals250: https://n.rivals.com/prospect_rankings/rivals250/2025
Biggest risers: https://n.rivals.com/news/rivals-rankings-week-ten-biggest-risers-in-the-rivals250-32
Position-by-position breakdown: https://n.rivals.com/news/tuesdays-with-gorney-new-2025-rivals250-released-8
The Five-Star Countdown: https://n.rivals.com/news/rivals-rankings-week-five-star-countdown-for-2025-class-17
Meet the new five-stars: https://n.rivals.com/news/rivals-rankings-week-meet-the-new-five-stars-8
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Pitt will likely see a lot of zone defenses until it proves able to defeat them primarily with the 3-ball, IMHO.

The VMI game showed that trend. Only up 21-18 after going 0 for 7 on 3s over the first ~15 minutes. Then went 12 for 21 on 3s and outscored VMI 72-30 over the next 25 minutes.

A quality opponent with good size playing zone will be a real problem when the 3 ball isn't falling for Pitt.

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For any of the newer volleyball fans on here learning the ins and outs of how rotations work, one of the guys at Evollve tweeted out this cool graphic showing Nebraska’s rotations as they played a set vs Wisconsin and how they subbed in and out/changed positions. He also in the thread goes in to a bit of detail on the roles of each position and how they shift within the front or back row. May be helpful if you’re still trying to get a full understanding of how vball rotations work.

Pitt doesn’t use as many subs as Nebraska since all 3 of our pins (VVG, Stafford, Babcock) play all 6 positions while Nebraska subs in for two of their pins in the back row, but the rotation concept is the same. Only subs we use regularly are Cat and Griffin/meyer to serve in place of Klika/Ryla Jones. Happy to answer any questions too.
https://x.com/inpredict/status/1858948579530076442?s=46

Who yinz got?

11AM - 1A - Fort Cherry vs Clairton

2:00 - 2A - Seton-LaSalle vs South Park

5:00 - 3A - Central Valley vs Avonworth

8:00 - 5A - Peters Twp vs Pine-Richland

These are also PIAA quarterfinals. Other PIAA Quarterfinals of local interest:

Friday

1A - Westinghouse vs Bishop Guilfoyle at Johnstown HS

4A - TJ vs Clearfield at Windber

6A - Central Catholic vs State College

Central Catholic vs State College is interesting since its a HS next to Pitt's campus vs a HS next to PSU's. I've always wondered what percentage of SC students had a parent who worked at PSU. Has to be greater than 50%? Right?

Westinghouse is on the opposite side of the bracket as FC/Clairton. Would be nutty to make those teams drive to a Pennsyltucky HS to play for the state title when they can do so at a place like USC (if its FC vs House) or West Mifflin (if its Clairton vs House). PIAA should do the right thing there. Especially considering all 3 schools are from economically distressed areas, they really shouldn't make those parents drive out there for that when they can play it locally.

Its a 1/1 autograph card and the Pirates are offering 30 years of season tickets behind home plate plus other great perks to anyone who gets it. Do they plan on selling it? Giving it to Skenes? Selling it to give Skenes the money? This is bizarre. Starkey and Muller were talking about this and also how long Skenes will be here. They said 3 more full years then trade midway the next because that should be max value. How many more years is he under contract for?

AVCA released their high school All American list - Samara Coleman (OH Pitt ‘25) and Ayanna Watson (OH Pitt ‘26) both made first team AA. Only 25 girls on first team - only schools with 2 or more besides Pitt are Stanford, Purdue, Wisconsin (3), Nebraska (4), and Texas (5). Abby Emch (MB Pitt ‘25) made second team. The future continues to be super bright for Pitt volleyball.

Wow that's a surprise.

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The other thread got cluttered with SMF inspired stuff, so starting a new thread.

Let’s win this thing.

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As we know, non-conference SOS is a top-line metric that the committee uses and its the sole reason Pitt was left out. How many times did Lunardi say there's never been a team with a non-con SOS as bad as ours that's gotten in. Of course, he never said there's never been a bubble team with as many true road wins as us that has been left out but that's what he does. He drives the narrative. That said, ACC teams need to schedule better and maybe they've corrected some of that this year, not really sure but I found an easy hack to do exactly what they've always done but make their non-con SOS look extremely good. How?

Go to a 12-14 game ACC schedule. Play 8-10 extra OOC games vs ACC teams. These would be scheduled by the league and would look and feel like conference games but would go into the non-con bucket. Think about last year. Lets say the road game at Duke was a non-con. That skyrockets our non-con SOS and we probably make the tournament. It sounds ridiculous but they put so much weight on your non-con that its probably true.

At the Big Ten Media Days this week their AD let it slip that Ohio State football players are getting about $20 million in NIL money this year. This is in addition to the $20 million in House anti-trust money Ohio State will need to spend in the near future. If you are the Ohio State coach you will be expected to win.

Pitt is 5-0 and about to face its next big test of the season this Friday. What do we make of the Panthers after five games? Let's talk a little Pitt hoops on today's Morning Pitt.

Hosted the PIAA Soccer Championships. You cant make this stuff up. PIAA not even trying.

Band dance line. ? Just asking for a friend. Chris Farley

think it was last night, could be wrong. saw it on twitter

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I know we are all disappointed Pitt won't make the CFP now. Although we never could have imagined at the beginning of the season this team would have had a chance for a 7-0 start…it also obviously (and perhaps unfairly) elevated our expectations. I also think a healthy Holstein (he really hasn’t been fully himself since he got hurt against Syracuse) would have won the Virginia game and probably Clemson too despite how admirably Nate played as his replacement.

But we will never know for sure and here we are feeling a little let down and hungover after a close loss to a very good Clemson team. As bitter as it is to swallow for me its time to move on and focus on the rest of the season.

With all of that said, it is still very critical for Pitt to still do everything in their power to win the next two games for a variety of reasons:

• Going 9-3 gives Pitt a great shot at an upper tier bowl game like the Gator, Mayo or Sun Bowl. These bowl games are played around NYD against a quality P4 opponent and have much higher visibility than the slate of mid-tier bowl games available to ACC teams the weekend before.
• Heading into a high visibility bowl game with a 9-3 record and chance to win 10 games is huge not only for team pride but for recruiting and program recognition.
• I don’t think we will see many (or any) major players (i.e. Holstein or Reid) going into the portal. So, I expect them to also play in the bowl game if they are healthy. Pitt really needs to compete in the bowl game as if it’s the first game for next season. A win or close loss against a high-level opponent with set the plate for the program and how it’s viewed by the national media heading next year.

So, with all that top of mind, I am excited for this week’s game against Louisville! I know they lost a shocker against Stanford last week. But they are an extremely good and dangerous football team. But so is Pitt! Just hoping we can sustain some drives on offense and give our defense an opportunity to make some plays and get a big win on national TV.

H2P!

man this looks pretty nice. 35k seems a tad small but im not too sure of NW's fanbase.. would absolutely love something like this if we had the room (and money)..

could do without the ice rink and santa village outside the stadium in the last pic, not sure what that's about..

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I have seen every argument possible about why we need an on campus stadium (of which I am not in favor). An issue that most people missed during this election was the future administration's disdain for higher education both because of political leanings (left) and the absurd price. It is early but it does sound like Trump's administration is going to closely look at endowments and taxing them along with potential penalties. They plan to create the "American Academy" with these funds. It was explained to me that the best way to move around those punitive measures would be to spend the endowment. Real estate and construction are the most conservative measures and would easily move around any type of federal tax scrutiny. PITT has the 29th largest endowment ($5.5 billion) in the country and would certainly be under attack. I think much depends on how aggressive the endowment tax would be (it could be upwards of 20%) but PITT would need to quickly take money out of the endowment for a project to benefit the University. A stadium is a no brainer. They would actually lose money by not buying land and building the stadium.

I liked Pitt against the spread last week against Clemson but this week I unfortunately see a blowout for a fourth straight loss. Louisville seems like the best team in the ACC with a crappy record.

Interesting game… first game between ranked teams I have seen this year.

The high school seasons officially starts here in the coming week. We might begin to see reports on Pitt coaches at different events.

Hoping for a good locale. I was going to do Greenbrier but didnt realize it was a Friday afternoon, and not Black Friday. Not taking the kids out of school for that. Have to save those for March Madness!

Hoping for the Disney tournament or Bahamas

I know we all rip on Lunardi, but his latest now his Pitt as last four bye. He has Wisconsin and UCF in next four out, so winning against one of those teams may prove vital for post-season chances. Miss State is in as a 9. Ohio State is a 5.

Clemson 8, Miami last in, Pitt last bye, UNC 3, Duke 1 and Wake 7, are the 6 projected ACC right now.