From the desk of Jim Snyder
An update on center Mike Davis
Many of you will recall that center Mike Davis (6’ 9”) gave the Pitt basketball coaches a verbal commit a couple of years go when he was a junior playing at Xaverian High School in Brooklyn. He then attended Benjamin Banneker High School in Brooklyn as a senior. This past season Mike Davis has been attending Notre Dame Prep in Fitchburg, Massachusetts.
Notre Dame Prep is a high-powered prep program that is currently 25-2 and ranked as the No. 1 prep team in the country. Nine of their 14 players will probably sign Division 1 Letters of Intent this year. Notre Dame Prep has produced 50 Division 1 players in the last 8 years including Pitt’s Carl Krauser. There are only 51 students at this school. Their court in too short to be a considered of regulation size so they seldom play home games. When they do play at home admission is free.
We spoke to Notre Dame coach Bill Button who said, “ The verbal that Mike gave a couple of years ago is really no longer in effect. You could say that he is open. Pitt really is no longer recruiting him although they do keep tabs on him from time to time.”
Mike Davis does not start at Notre Dame Prep. His coach said, “We play up and down and he has a half court game. There are some games he does not play at all. Many schools in the PAC 10, Big East and Atlantic 10 still have an interest in him because he is 6’ 9” tall but he really needs a school that cares about him as a person and not as a basketball player. I would prefer that he not go to a high-powered major college program. He would not be a good fit at Pitt right now.”
We had a long conversation and let’s just say you can take Mike Davis off your radar.
Some more hoops talk
We received several e-mails this week from a reporter covering the Missouri basketball program. He was putting together a list of prospects to replace Quinn Snyder as the head basketball coach at Missouri and Jamie Dixon’s name came up. Missouri pays its head basketball coach about $1.2 million. If you have been following the Quinn Snyder story you would have to wonder why anyone would want this job until they fire the Missouri Athletic Director and have a new one in place. Yesterday the Missouri reporter said he has confirmed Coach Dixon is on the Tigers’ list of potential coaching candidates.
The Arizona State rumor might make more sense. Jamie Dixon and Ben Howland spent time at Northern Arizona and the folks in the Valley of the Sun would be familiar with his work. Many schools in the power conference now paying an experienced head coach $1.2 to $1.3 million for a head basketball coach. In the Southeastern Conference an experienced head coach can make $1.5 to $1.6 million. If you have a successful head coach making a below market salary your name will continue to come up for many of the openings in the power conferences. Jamie Dixon has been at Pitt for seven years now including three as a head coach. He has slowly moved into the category of an experienced head coach.
Having said all that about other schools looking at Dixon it is hard to believe that Pitt AD Jeff Long will not sit down with Coach Dixon after the season is over and make the appropriate adjustments. Pitt has virtually everyone back next year (except Carl) plus they have Mike Cook and two promising freshmen available next year. Herb Pope and Terrelle Pryor are also waiting in the wings. The future of Pitt basketball has never been brighter. My advice is don’t give up your season tickets.
Coach Jim Calhoun said at the press conference yesterday that he thought the new teams coming into the league including Louisville, Cincinnati and Marquette have brought an energy level to the league that seems to have revitalized it. Pitt is playing in what should become the dominant league in college basketball.
Pitt is now 20-4. The Panthers were ranked No. 7 in the RPI rankings yesterday. The stretch drive is all about seedings in the Big East and NCAA tournaments. If Pitt can win the last three regular season games they will get a bye in New York This means beating Providence and Seton Hall at home and West Virginia on the road. Despite how close many games are it still is not easy to pick up road wins in conference play.
Should the Panthers sweep the remaining three regular season games and win two in New York they should end up with a No. 2 seed. This means reaching the Big East finals and a win over UConn or Nova in the semi-finals. If Pitt goes 3-2 down the stretch run they will probably be a No. 4 seed.
They must start the process by taking care of business Saturday night against Providence. Pitt will be honoring 80 former Pitt basketball players on Saturday night.
Hopefully you had a chance to read the article on forward Tyler Smith in the Nashville, Tennessean, which we linked on the Center Court at the Pete message board. It was a very good article. They reported that his father has lung cancer and had to have a lung removed. The article indicated that Pitt, Memphis and Kentucky were Tyler’s top three with Iowa a step behind. Often when there is a health issue in the family geography comes into play. I think Tyler really likes Pittsburgh but he will visit Kentucky and Memphis next month. We will just have to see how much geography comes into play now that we are aware of the family health issues. It worked against Pitt in football with running back Rashaad Jennings and may have helped them on one of the local 2006 football recruits.
The Nike Camps are coming
Student Sports, which is affiliated with the Rivals network, sent out over 2,000 invitations to high school players this past week. This number should grow to approximately 3,500 before the process is complete. There will be a dozen camps this year around the country. The Nike Camps begin in Miami on April 9th.
Another big weekend for Pitt prospects starts on Friday May 5th at Columbus, Ohio, on Saturday they move to State College, Pa. (May 6th) and on Sunday the finish up at West Point (May 7th). They should process approximately a thousand athletes the first weekend in May alone.
Junior Day at Pitt this weekend
The football coaching staff will hold a Junior Day at Pitt on Saturday, as will many schools around the country. We are currently in a “Quiet Period” and these Juniors Day get players on campus where the coaches can have some face-to-face conversations. Last year Coach Wannstedt complained that because Pitt sold out the “Pete” on a season basis he was limited in how many he could invite. I am sure that will probably be the case this year. This is particularly true with the basketball program honoring 80 former players.
Jordan Mabin from Nordonia High School in Ohio, [/B]Nick Sukay[/B] from Greensburg CC and Toney Clemons from Valley are all expecting written offers on their visit. There are reports there will also be others.
We have shown below a partial list of those that were invited based on conversations with players and coaches. It is certainly not a complete list but it will give you some feel for a few of the players that will attend. A few prospects may not attend for personal reasons. This is a partial list:
Pat Bostick-QB (Manheim Twp), Corey Pfautz-OL (Manheim Twp), Lamont Smith-RB/DB (Central Catholic), Anthony Bailey-CB (Central Catholic), Joe Rash-DE (Penn Hills), Derek Drummond TE (Penn Hills), Chris Jacobson-OL- (Keystone Oaks), Andrew Devlin-TE/OL (Mount Lebanon), Jared Williams-DB-Perry, Harold Tardy-DB/WR (Perry), Chris Draeger-DE/TE (Thomas Jefferson), Dom DeCicco-WR/DB (Thomas Jefferson), Marcel Washington –DL (Clairton), Jon Ditto (Gateway), Brandon Waters-DB (Woodland Hills), Marcell Farrish-RB(Woodland Hills), Steve Paskorz-RB (Hampton), Derick Gooden OL (Hampton), Bob Bartley-QB (Hampton), Chris Lorditch-WR (Archbishop Wood), Matt Rogers-QB-Seton LaSalle, Gino Gradkowski-OL (Seton LaSalle), Toney Clemons-WR (Valley), Matt Ostrowski-OL-(Highlands), Fitzgerald Bobo-WR (Duquesne), Nick Monteleone-QB-(Butler), Brandon Lindsey –LB (Aliquippa), Antonio Reddic-CB (Aliquippa), Derek Moye WR-(Rochester),Evan Blankenship-OL (Center), Bo Williams-RB (Oakland Park, FL), Dane Conwell-LB (Upper St Clair), Pete Papas –OL (Upper St Clair), Tim Cortazzo-WR (Penn-Trafford), Nick Sukay-WR-(Greensburg Central Catholic), Cody Catalina QB (Greensburg CC), Max Sutter RB/DB (Greensburg CC), Jacob Kaiser –OL (Greensburg CC), Greg Meisner –OL (Hempfield), Jake Anderson-OL (Erie McDowell), Dan Matha (Erie McDowell), Justin Schaaf-LB (Erie McDowell), Fred Maldonado WR/DB Erie East, Josh Woods-OL (Grove City), Zane Parr-OL/DL Williamsport), Shaamar Coates-WR (Williamsport), Alex Atiyeh- QB (Bethlehem Catholic), Matt Balsavage -TE (Lancaster Catholic), Henry Hynoski-FB (Southern Columbia), Josh Marks-OL (Southern Columbia), Josh Smail-DE (Austintown Fitch), Greg McGlynn-FB/LB (Austintown Fitch), Jordan Mabin-RB/DB (Nordonia, OH), Brady DeMell –DE- (Mentor, OH), Ted Jones –TE (Akron Buchtel), Sidney Glover-DB(Warren Harding), Zac Kasparek (OL (New Brighton), Ben Graeff-LB (Massillon Jackson), Rob Reiland-TE (Massillon Jackson), Jordan Thomas –WR (Elyria) and Danny Noble -LB (Elyria).
Note: Linebacker Kellen Harris from Sharon and DE/TE Myles Caragein from Keystone Oaks were invited but cannot attend because of wrestling commitments others may have conflicts with high school basketball playoff games. We spoke to Andrew Devlin from Mount Lebanon last night. He said he has a playoff basketball game with Shaler on Saturday afternoon at 2:30 PM but will try to get to Pitt for the Providence game that night.
Quarterback Gene Delle Donne
We caught up with Gene Delle Donne earlier this week. He is still taking classes at Duke. Pitt has asked him to walk-on this summer with the prospect that he could earn a scholarship by next January. We think he had a very good visit to Pitt.
We also talked to the Rivals reporter that covers Middle Tennessee State. The Blue Raiders have offered Gene a scholarship. His sources say he had also had a very good visit to MTSU, which is located outside of Nashville, Tennessee. I guess this may all come down to are his parents willing to spend cash to give him an opportunity to win a scholarship at Pitt. Gene told us he us now 6’ 6” 240 pounds so he is one big guy. We will follow up in a few days to see if he has made a decision.
We are batting a thousand
This morning we will have video of defensive end Greg Romeus who signed with Pitt earlier this month. This means the Pantherlair will have video on all 25 players that signed Letters of intent this month.
We will also have video later today on quarterback Bob Bartley of Hampton. Bartley was invited to Pitt’s Junior Day tomorrow.
The War Room is targeted towards our premium customers. We ask that all information reported in the War Room MUST stay right here! That’s the way this deal works. When this information is repeated outside of the Between Fifth and Forbes forum it only cheapens the price of yours and every other die-hard who have purchased premium services. The War Room is one of our more popular features...thank you all for keeping the information on this board.
This post was edited on 2/24 6:43 AM by Jim Pantherlairif(GetAdminCookie() != 0) {document.write(' (Revisions[/URL])');}
This post was edited on 2/24 7:02 AM by Jim Pantherlairif(GetAdminCookie() != 0) {document.write(' (Revisions[/URL])');}
An update on center Mike Davis
Many of you will recall that center Mike Davis (6’ 9”) gave the Pitt basketball coaches a verbal commit a couple of years go when he was a junior playing at Xaverian High School in Brooklyn. He then attended Benjamin Banneker High School in Brooklyn as a senior. This past season Mike Davis has been attending Notre Dame Prep in Fitchburg, Massachusetts.
Notre Dame Prep is a high-powered prep program that is currently 25-2 and ranked as the No. 1 prep team in the country. Nine of their 14 players will probably sign Division 1 Letters of Intent this year. Notre Dame Prep has produced 50 Division 1 players in the last 8 years including Pitt’s Carl Krauser. There are only 51 students at this school. Their court in too short to be a considered of regulation size so they seldom play home games. When they do play at home admission is free.
We spoke to Notre Dame coach Bill Button who said, “ The verbal that Mike gave a couple of years ago is really no longer in effect. You could say that he is open. Pitt really is no longer recruiting him although they do keep tabs on him from time to time.”
Mike Davis does not start at Notre Dame Prep. His coach said, “We play up and down and he has a half court game. There are some games he does not play at all. Many schools in the PAC 10, Big East and Atlantic 10 still have an interest in him because he is 6’ 9” tall but he really needs a school that cares about him as a person and not as a basketball player. I would prefer that he not go to a high-powered major college program. He would not be a good fit at Pitt right now.”
We had a long conversation and let’s just say you can take Mike Davis off your radar.
Some more hoops talk
We received several e-mails this week from a reporter covering the Missouri basketball program. He was putting together a list of prospects to replace Quinn Snyder as the head basketball coach at Missouri and Jamie Dixon’s name came up. Missouri pays its head basketball coach about $1.2 million. If you have been following the Quinn Snyder story you would have to wonder why anyone would want this job until they fire the Missouri Athletic Director and have a new one in place. Yesterday the Missouri reporter said he has confirmed Coach Dixon is on the Tigers’ list of potential coaching candidates.
The Arizona State rumor might make more sense. Jamie Dixon and Ben Howland spent time at Northern Arizona and the folks in the Valley of the Sun would be familiar with his work. Many schools in the power conference now paying an experienced head coach $1.2 to $1.3 million for a head basketball coach. In the Southeastern Conference an experienced head coach can make $1.5 to $1.6 million. If you have a successful head coach making a below market salary your name will continue to come up for many of the openings in the power conferences. Jamie Dixon has been at Pitt for seven years now including three as a head coach. He has slowly moved into the category of an experienced head coach.
Having said all that about other schools looking at Dixon it is hard to believe that Pitt AD Jeff Long will not sit down with Coach Dixon after the season is over and make the appropriate adjustments. Pitt has virtually everyone back next year (except Carl) plus they have Mike Cook and two promising freshmen available next year. Herb Pope and Terrelle Pryor are also waiting in the wings. The future of Pitt basketball has never been brighter. My advice is don’t give up your season tickets.
Coach Jim Calhoun said at the press conference yesterday that he thought the new teams coming into the league including Louisville, Cincinnati and Marquette have brought an energy level to the league that seems to have revitalized it. Pitt is playing in what should become the dominant league in college basketball.
Pitt is now 20-4. The Panthers were ranked No. 7 in the RPI rankings yesterday. The stretch drive is all about seedings in the Big East and NCAA tournaments. If Pitt can win the last three regular season games they will get a bye in New York This means beating Providence and Seton Hall at home and West Virginia on the road. Despite how close many games are it still is not easy to pick up road wins in conference play.
Should the Panthers sweep the remaining three regular season games and win two in New York they should end up with a No. 2 seed. This means reaching the Big East finals and a win over UConn or Nova in the semi-finals. If Pitt goes 3-2 down the stretch run they will probably be a No. 4 seed.
They must start the process by taking care of business Saturday night against Providence. Pitt will be honoring 80 former Pitt basketball players on Saturday night.
Hopefully you had a chance to read the article on forward Tyler Smith in the Nashville, Tennessean, which we linked on the Center Court at the Pete message board. It was a very good article. They reported that his father has lung cancer and had to have a lung removed. The article indicated that Pitt, Memphis and Kentucky were Tyler’s top three with Iowa a step behind. Often when there is a health issue in the family geography comes into play. I think Tyler really likes Pittsburgh but he will visit Kentucky and Memphis next month. We will just have to see how much geography comes into play now that we are aware of the family health issues. It worked against Pitt in football with running back Rashaad Jennings and may have helped them on one of the local 2006 football recruits.
The Nike Camps are coming
Student Sports, which is affiliated with the Rivals network, sent out over 2,000 invitations to high school players this past week. This number should grow to approximately 3,500 before the process is complete. There will be a dozen camps this year around the country. The Nike Camps begin in Miami on April 9th.
Another big weekend for Pitt prospects starts on Friday May 5th at Columbus, Ohio, on Saturday they move to State College, Pa. (May 6th) and on Sunday the finish up at West Point (May 7th). They should process approximately a thousand athletes the first weekend in May alone.
Junior Day at Pitt this weekend
The football coaching staff will hold a Junior Day at Pitt on Saturday, as will many schools around the country. We are currently in a “Quiet Period” and these Juniors Day get players on campus where the coaches can have some face-to-face conversations. Last year Coach Wannstedt complained that because Pitt sold out the “Pete” on a season basis he was limited in how many he could invite. I am sure that will probably be the case this year. This is particularly true with the basketball program honoring 80 former players.
Jordan Mabin from Nordonia High School in Ohio, [/B]Nick Sukay[/B] from Greensburg CC and Toney Clemons from Valley are all expecting written offers on their visit. There are reports there will also be others.
We have shown below a partial list of those that were invited based on conversations with players and coaches. It is certainly not a complete list but it will give you some feel for a few of the players that will attend. A few prospects may not attend for personal reasons. This is a partial list:
Pat Bostick-QB (Manheim Twp), Corey Pfautz-OL (Manheim Twp), Lamont Smith-RB/DB (Central Catholic), Anthony Bailey-CB (Central Catholic), Joe Rash-DE (Penn Hills), Derek Drummond TE (Penn Hills), Chris Jacobson-OL- (Keystone Oaks), Andrew Devlin-TE/OL (Mount Lebanon), Jared Williams-DB-Perry, Harold Tardy-DB/WR (Perry), Chris Draeger-DE/TE (Thomas Jefferson), Dom DeCicco-WR/DB (Thomas Jefferson), Marcel Washington –DL (Clairton), Jon Ditto (Gateway), Brandon Waters-DB (Woodland Hills), Marcell Farrish-RB(Woodland Hills), Steve Paskorz-RB (Hampton), Derick Gooden OL (Hampton), Bob Bartley-QB (Hampton), Chris Lorditch-WR (Archbishop Wood), Matt Rogers-QB-Seton LaSalle, Gino Gradkowski-OL (Seton LaSalle), Toney Clemons-WR (Valley), Matt Ostrowski-OL-(Highlands), Fitzgerald Bobo-WR (Duquesne), Nick Monteleone-QB-(Butler), Brandon Lindsey –LB (Aliquippa), Antonio Reddic-CB (Aliquippa), Derek Moye WR-(Rochester),Evan Blankenship-OL (Center), Bo Williams-RB (Oakland Park, FL), Dane Conwell-LB (Upper St Clair), Pete Papas –OL (Upper St Clair), Tim Cortazzo-WR (Penn-Trafford), Nick Sukay-WR-(Greensburg Central Catholic), Cody Catalina QB (Greensburg CC), Max Sutter RB/DB (Greensburg CC), Jacob Kaiser –OL (Greensburg CC), Greg Meisner –OL (Hempfield), Jake Anderson-OL (Erie McDowell), Dan Matha (Erie McDowell), Justin Schaaf-LB (Erie McDowell), Fred Maldonado WR/DB Erie East, Josh Woods-OL (Grove City), Zane Parr-OL/DL Williamsport), Shaamar Coates-WR (Williamsport), Alex Atiyeh- QB (Bethlehem Catholic), Matt Balsavage -TE (Lancaster Catholic), Henry Hynoski-FB (Southern Columbia), Josh Marks-OL (Southern Columbia), Josh Smail-DE (Austintown Fitch), Greg McGlynn-FB/LB (Austintown Fitch), Jordan Mabin-RB/DB (Nordonia, OH), Brady DeMell –DE- (Mentor, OH), Ted Jones –TE (Akron Buchtel), Sidney Glover-DB(Warren Harding), Zac Kasparek (OL (New Brighton), Ben Graeff-LB (Massillon Jackson), Rob Reiland-TE (Massillon Jackson), Jordan Thomas –WR (Elyria) and Danny Noble -LB (Elyria).
Note: Linebacker Kellen Harris from Sharon and DE/TE Myles Caragein from Keystone Oaks were invited but cannot attend because of wrestling commitments others may have conflicts with high school basketball playoff games. We spoke to Andrew Devlin from Mount Lebanon last night. He said he has a playoff basketball game with Shaler on Saturday afternoon at 2:30 PM but will try to get to Pitt for the Providence game that night.
Quarterback Gene Delle Donne
We caught up with Gene Delle Donne earlier this week. He is still taking classes at Duke. Pitt has asked him to walk-on this summer with the prospect that he could earn a scholarship by next January. We think he had a very good visit to Pitt.
We also talked to the Rivals reporter that covers Middle Tennessee State. The Blue Raiders have offered Gene a scholarship. His sources say he had also had a very good visit to MTSU, which is located outside of Nashville, Tennessee. I guess this may all come down to are his parents willing to spend cash to give him an opportunity to win a scholarship at Pitt. Gene told us he us now 6’ 6” 240 pounds so he is one big guy. We will follow up in a few days to see if he has made a decision.
We are batting a thousand
This morning we will have video of defensive end Greg Romeus who signed with Pitt earlier this month. This means the Pantherlair will have video on all 25 players that signed Letters of intent this month.
We will also have video later today on quarterback Bob Bartley of Hampton. Bartley was invited to Pitt’s Junior Day tomorrow.
The War Room is targeted towards our premium customers. We ask that all information reported in the War Room MUST stay right here! That’s the way this deal works. When this information is repeated outside of the Between Fifth and Forbes forum it only cheapens the price of yours and every other die-hard who have purchased premium services. The War Room is one of our more popular features...thank you all for keeping the information on this board.
This post was edited on 2/24 6:43 AM by Jim Pantherlairif(GetAdminCookie() != 0) {document.write(' (Revisions[/URL])');}
This post was edited on 2/24 7:02 AM by Jim Pantherlairif(GetAdminCookie() != 0) {document.write(' (Revisions[/URL])');}
