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Santos

Hes taken a lot of grief on this board but I think the kid is easy to root for.

Despite his difficulties shooting the ball, hes played exceptionally well in other areas (defense and rebounding). He actually is far better than Hinson in those other areas. (IMO)

And perhaps we are now seeing he start to gain confidence in his offensive game. Not just the three but also the drive to the hoop was something at least I havnt seen and was impressed with.

If he can continue to grow on the offensive side of the ball that will be huge for this year and beyond.

Hes another in a long line of kids that fans wanted to run off early in their careers (Lamar and Wann are two others)

Finally seems like a great kid based on his recent interview. Good to see him have some success

Pitt wrestlers in coaches' rankings

The NCAA released the first set of coaches' rankings on Thursday.
The link is above if you want to see the whole article. I'll list Pitt guys below, but first, take note of these two paragraphs:
  • The coaches’ rankings are determined by a vote of 14 coaches in each weight class with two head coaches from each of the seven conferences. For ranking purposes, coaches may only consider a wrestler that has been designated as a starter at a respective weight class. Wrestlers must have eight Division I matches in the weight class to be considered with at least one within the last 30 days.
  • The coaches’ ranking is one of several criteria that will be evaluated by the NCAA Division I Wrestling Committee during the at-large selection and seeding process along with head-to-head competition, quality wins, Ratings Percentage Index (RPI), conference tournament placement, results versus common opponents and win percentage.
125-Camacho 30
133-Micky 6
141-Cole 2
149-None
157-Badgett 28
165-Holden Heller 29
174-Luca 32
184-Reece Heller 15
197-Nino 1
285-None

Not too much different than what InterMat has. It's nice to see Nino at No. 1. I also like seeing Luca in there at 32. There are so many matches between now and the conference tournaments, that it isn't worth getting too worked up over these, but these projections would have eight NCAA qualifiers for Pitt, plus the two unranked weights have Casto, who was a blood-round guy last year, and Pitzer, who is No. 5 in InterMat's rankings.
Looking at it that way, if everyone wrestles up to their potential, Pitt could send all 10 starters to nationals. Do I think that's likely? No. But they have a far better shot than any year that I can remember.
Of course, the flip side of this is if you have a solid guy at every weight class, how do you lose to Maryland and WVU and nearly lose to Columbia?

interesting article about player ratings

this year's NFL all pro team. Defensive players averaged 4.5 stars coming out of high school. offensive players averaged.....2.

The Morning Pitt: 1/20/2023 - Who are you taking? The 2013-14 Pitt team or this year?

After a week of talking about losing WPIAL recruits and the thin receiver room, I thought we could have some fun on today's Morning Pitt.

Pitt is 6-2 in ACC games, the Panthers' best start to the ACC schedule since joining the conference in 2013. So that got me to thinking:

Which Pitt team would you take: the 2013-14 team that won 26 games and won a game in the NCAA Tournament (the Colorado blowout) or this year's team? I went position-by-position, and I have to say, the comparison was a little closer than I expected.

January

FSU
Miami
Wake

We are hovering around the top of the league, along with Wake and Miami. These next 3 games are huge. Win them, or win 2 of the 3, and we won’t be just wondering how we will be positioned for the NCAA tourney…but we will be talking about something else. I’m not going to say it yet because it’s too early and I’m not jinxing it. But if we can somehow take care of business the rest of this month, things can get very exciting.

Hoops recruiting to replicate this years success.

It was mentioned on the livestream about enjoying the moment and not looking past this years team BUT I couldn’t help myself.

So, Burton, Cummings, Sibande, and Elliott are all out of eligibility am I right?

If we assume (just for now) that everyone else returns. Hugley, Jeffress, Dior AND add in the 3 incoming freshman the roster looks like 11 Scholarships and two available spots to add.
By my count I see
3 guards for 2 spots
3 wings for 1 spot
2 power forwards
3 centers

1. Dior
2. Lowe
3. Carrington
4. Santos
5. Jeffress
6. Barnes
7. Hinson
8. J. Diaz Graham
9. Hugley
10. Federiko
11. G. Diaz Graham
Two spots that I would use to hunt for a veteran Point Guard and a 3 point shooter as to not rely on such a young backcourt. Then of course outgoing transfers could blow this thing up.

It’s fun having Pitt hoops relevant again isn’t it?
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