From the desk of Jim Snyder
Aaron Gray is back
Aaron Gray’s announcement this week was welcome news for the Pitt basketball program. It should give the program an immediate boost. I also like the hiring of Mike Rice as an assistant. It could help the program longer-term boost.
Andy Katz of ESPN.com has Pitt No. 4 in his early poll. Jeff Goodwin of Fox Sports.com has Pitt at No. 3. Quite frankly I figured Pitt would be ranked about No. 8 in the preseason polls if Gray came back and they still might be. Still it does not hurt to have writers with national coverage hyping the Pitt basketball program early in the process. Pitt should get a number of national TV games this year.
Last year Pitt made its way to the Big East tournament finals despite not having a bye. Trying to win four games in four days proved to be a little too much and they ran into a Syracuse team that caught fire. Pitt beat Louisville, West Virginia and Villanova before running out of gas.
As Pitt entered the NCAA tournament Aaron Gray came down with the flu and missed practice time. Keith Benjamin was so sick they thought he had spinal meningitis. He was tested with a spinal tap and spent the tournament watching from his hotel room. Tyrell Biggs suffered a leg injury and had to watch from the bench. Ronald Ramon injured his shoulder in the Big East tournament, which was severe enough that he had to have surgery after the season was over. You have to stay healthy to make big runs.
Who knows maybe this year the Panthers will get a little better draw and stay health. If they do they are going to be a lot of fun to watch and maybe they will make another big run come tournament time. It would not surprise me (or perhaps anyone else) if they are not back in the Big East tournament finals for the 5th time in the last 6 years.
During the 2002-2003 season Pitt went 28-5. They had a pretty good team under Coach Ben Howland. The Panthers lost to Marquette 77-74 in a heartbreaker in the NCAA tournament. I am not a big NBA fan. I have nothing against it I just spent too much time watching college basketball. I did, however, have a chance to watch Dwayne Wade several times during the NBA playoffs. He was a key member of that Marquette team. Wade is certainly one of the best players in the NBA today. He was the difference in the NBA championship series. He was the difference when Pitt played Marquette.
The new Big Ten Channel
The Big Ten Conference announced a partnership with DirecTV (Fox) to launch a new channel. At first it may be available only on DirecTV although they hope to roll it out to cable systems over time. I am not sure what this means to the Big East right now. There are several outlets that may not have the Big Ten available to them going forward. ESPNU, CSTV and Comcast Sports will all need programming. It may open up opportunities for the Big East. I guess its possible to start your own channel but my guess is one of these three will eventually be knocking on the Big East’s door.
Greatest players polls coming
Rivals.com will start a poll on Monday in which you get to vote for the greatest football players of all time. I have not seen the list yet but Tony Dorsett, Hugh Green and Dan Marino figure to be on there. I could also make a case for Bill Fralic, Jimbo Covert, Mike Ditka and Mark May. I am sure we could all add few others. Joe Schmidt might be one if you want to go back a few years. Please vote early and often.
Software updates
Rivals.com has started to release a series of updates. There will be 60 releases in all between now and November. Last week they held a publishers conference in Nashville. We were told change is good. I am sure there will be a few bumps along the way but they are bound a determined to give you a state of the art product. Rivals.com has hired 35 new employees over the past few months. Most have found the restroom and the cafeteria by now and are ready to start helping to improve the product. At the end of the day they want more content, more video and a network that is easier to navigate. They are investing a lot of money to pull it off.
A couple of navigational hints. There will often now be a box in the upper right hand corner of articles with links to video or other articles on the same player that may be of interest. These links use to be at the very bottom of articles. I often worried that many readers would miss them at the bottom of the page. They now have a higher visibility position.
When you are looking at a player’s profile you now have to click on a tab labeled “Ticker” to see articles on the player. My hope is they bring back something that resembles the old article listing. I am not crazy about this format.
One idea they tossed were features that allowed greater participation by subscribers. We will have to see where they go with this one. One suggestion was for subscribers to pass out there own stars after the Rivals recruiting experts have had their turn. I think I saw a couple of them faint on the other side of the ballroom. I think there were eventually able to revive them. It could be fun or it could cause chaos. We will see if they can pull it off.
Annual subscriptions
Rivals.com made a big push for annual subscriptions at the convention. Please see the pin at the top of the Between Fifth & Forbes Message Board. The Pantherlair is only slightly below the network average on this one. It is probably my fault for not bring it up more often. The vast majority of new subscribers opt for the annual subscription but we still have many long time subscribers that pay month to month. It is time to make the change.
Alums can’t recruit
We have had some posters indicate recently that Tony Dorsett and Russ Grimm have said they are willing to help out Pitt. That may be true but they cannot help recruit. In fact most of you cannot recruit. We really should not allow recruits to post on the message boards. If they do a board monitor should lock the post or maybe even delete it. You are not permitted to respond to his post. This could be considered a minor violation. Historically we may not have monitored this one as well as we should have. I reported recently my uncle helped recruit for Duquesne at one time. He would provide jobs for two players and two assistant coaches each year. It was legal in those days. It is against NCAA regulations these days. Alums and friends of the school are not permitted to recruit. It might sound like a good idea to get former players involved but they are very limited in what they can do. Tell them to make a donation to Team Pittsburgh and buy season tickets if they want to help out.
Football recruiting
Pitt starts their annual passing camp today at the UPMC complex on the Southside. Pitt has limited space so they trying to make sure certain high school teams are involved. Woodland Hills, Thomas Jefferson, Seton LaSalle and Pat Bostick’s team Manheim Township should all be there. It gives potential recruits one more chance to see the Pitt football facilities. The more times you can get them on campus the better off you are.
This past week Pitt got verbal commitments from Thomas Jefferson’s Dom DeCicco and defensive back Anthony “Buddy” Jackson. Chris Peak had an article for the Pantherlair gathered while Buddy was on his way to the airport while he was still leaving Pittsburgh. Today Chris Peak will have a second article based in large part on his conversation with Buddy’s high school coach. It is our understanding that Coach Partridge saw this guy this spring and tried to keep him quiet until they got him to Pittsburgh for their summer camp. It is our understanding that he is 6 feet and ½ inches tall and weighs 167 pounds. He was timed running a 4.31 in the 40 at Pitt. If you are that tall and that fast you can be called a sleeper and most folks won’t mind. Or maybe he isn’t that much of a sleeper after all. It is our understanding that Coach Frank Hepler is now the defensive coordinator at Cypress Bay. He is the same coach that built Plantation High School into a powerhouse before telling a new principal to drop dead when she interfered in his football program. Coach Helper sent Pitt Darrell Strong and H.B. Blades. He is also Charlie Partridge’s old high school coach. This one could be a very good pickup for Pitt. Incidentally Buddy’s team the Cypress Bay Lightening beat Coral Springs 28-8 in their spring game and Buddy had an interception. How many more months until Letter of Intent Day? Only kidding. As long as Hepler is his coach I am not all that worried that he will change his mind.
Nick Sukay is in South Bend, Indiana with the Greensburg Central Catholic team. This will be his third trip to Notre Dame. The conventional wisdom has been for a very long time that Sukay was leaning to Penn State. He has made statements to me and others long before he had an offer from Penn State that suggested that. Sukay now has 35 or 40 offers. Pitt is in his final three. I did not like the comments from the Greensburg CC coach about having a dream to send a player to Notre Dame. Who knows maybe he will surprise folks and end up at Notre Dame and not Penn State. I was talking to area high school coach about Jon Ditto and Nick Sukay being similar players. He was quick to point out that so is Dom DeCicco. All three are big wide receivers that are very athletic. They could all end up playing something other than wide receiver in college despite the fact that that is the position they would prefer to play. We will know Sukay’s decision soon.
Pitt already has a commitment from offensive guard Chris Jacobson. It is our understanding that Pitt will take 4 or maybe 5 offensive linemen in the Class of 2007.
Offensive guard Gino Gradkowski is supposed to go to West Virginia today (Friday) and then to Pitt on Saturday for their passing camp. Gradkowski has appeared to be a West Virginia lean for sometime. He has made numerous trips down I-79 to Morgantown. He is often apologetically indicating it is in part to see his cousin Carmen Connelly. What makes this a little interesting is that Coach Gatusso is a Seton LaSalle alum and was the head coach at Seton LaSalle at one time. I am not sure I would want to be Seton LaSalle head coach Greg Perry right now. This should go to WVU but Pitt is not going down without a fight.
Pitt is still trying to land Evan Blankenship from Center who was camping at Pitt this past week. This one should get down to Pitt and Ohio State.
Perry’s Cameron Holland picked up an offer and then said his favorites were Pitt and North Carolina. Woodland Hills Mike Dykes does not yet have an offer from Pitt and appears to be leaning to North Carolina. Could the Tarheels end up with two guards from Allegheny County?
Pitt has offered offensive tackles Dan Matha from Erie and John Fieger from Upper Perkiomen. It sure would be nice to get both of these guys although Matha could still be a WVU lean. New Brighton’s Zac Kasparek is still a possibility. He has his supporters on the Southside although he may have to wait until Pitt has a clearer picture of exactly where they stand with Matha and Fieger. We will have an article on Kasparek later today.
John Fieger picked up an offer from Temple yesterday. He has now camped at Akron, Pitt and Temple and all three have offered scholarships. He will now camp at Connecticut, Rutgers and Virginia. His coach reports he will make a decision July 4th weekend.
Players usually bring their high school helmet to summer camps. One of our “birdies” thought he saw an offensive line candidate in a Pitt helmet recently. Hmmm!
Yesterday we had a story on Michigan tight end Cameron Joplin. A “birdie stopped by and said if Pitt or Virginia offer he will accept. The “birdie” said Joplin loved Coach Wannstedt.
Pitt has offers out to the two top running backs in the state of Florida. Armando Allen and Bo Williams both have offers. Wanny is not shy about asking for the order. So far Pitt is hanging in there with both of them although they are much further ahead with Bo Williams right now. Bo was in Pittsburgh so long this week it looked like he was vacationing in the Burg. I thought Pittsburghers vacationed in Florida and now I find Floridians vacationing in Pittsburgh.
A few prospects will be making decisions soon. It could prompt other fence sitters to make decisions.
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.
Aaron Gray is back
Aaron Gray’s announcement this week was welcome news for the Pitt basketball program. It should give the program an immediate boost. I also like the hiring of Mike Rice as an assistant. It could help the program longer-term boost.
Andy Katz of ESPN.com has Pitt No. 4 in his early poll. Jeff Goodwin of Fox Sports.com has Pitt at No. 3. Quite frankly I figured Pitt would be ranked about No. 8 in the preseason polls if Gray came back and they still might be. Still it does not hurt to have writers with national coverage hyping the Pitt basketball program early in the process. Pitt should get a number of national TV games this year.
Last year Pitt made its way to the Big East tournament finals despite not having a bye. Trying to win four games in four days proved to be a little too much and they ran into a Syracuse team that caught fire. Pitt beat Louisville, West Virginia and Villanova before running out of gas.
As Pitt entered the NCAA tournament Aaron Gray came down with the flu and missed practice time. Keith Benjamin was so sick they thought he had spinal meningitis. He was tested with a spinal tap and spent the tournament watching from his hotel room. Tyrell Biggs suffered a leg injury and had to watch from the bench. Ronald Ramon injured his shoulder in the Big East tournament, which was severe enough that he had to have surgery after the season was over. You have to stay healthy to make big runs.
Who knows maybe this year the Panthers will get a little better draw and stay health. If they do they are going to be a lot of fun to watch and maybe they will make another big run come tournament time. It would not surprise me (or perhaps anyone else) if they are not back in the Big East tournament finals for the 5th time in the last 6 years.
During the 2002-2003 season Pitt went 28-5. They had a pretty good team under Coach Ben Howland. The Panthers lost to Marquette 77-74 in a heartbreaker in the NCAA tournament. I am not a big NBA fan. I have nothing against it I just spent too much time watching college basketball. I did, however, have a chance to watch Dwayne Wade several times during the NBA playoffs. He was a key member of that Marquette team. Wade is certainly one of the best players in the NBA today. He was the difference in the NBA championship series. He was the difference when Pitt played Marquette.
The new Big Ten Channel
The Big Ten Conference announced a partnership with DirecTV (Fox) to launch a new channel. At first it may be available only on DirecTV although they hope to roll it out to cable systems over time. I am not sure what this means to the Big East right now. There are several outlets that may not have the Big Ten available to them going forward. ESPNU, CSTV and Comcast Sports will all need programming. It may open up opportunities for the Big East. I guess its possible to start your own channel but my guess is one of these three will eventually be knocking on the Big East’s door.
Greatest players polls coming
Rivals.com will start a poll on Monday in which you get to vote for the greatest football players of all time. I have not seen the list yet but Tony Dorsett, Hugh Green and Dan Marino figure to be on there. I could also make a case for Bill Fralic, Jimbo Covert, Mike Ditka and Mark May. I am sure we could all add few others. Joe Schmidt might be one if you want to go back a few years. Please vote early and often.
Software updates
Rivals.com has started to release a series of updates. There will be 60 releases in all between now and November. Last week they held a publishers conference in Nashville. We were told change is good. I am sure there will be a few bumps along the way but they are bound a determined to give you a state of the art product. Rivals.com has hired 35 new employees over the past few months. Most have found the restroom and the cafeteria by now and are ready to start helping to improve the product. At the end of the day they want more content, more video and a network that is easier to navigate. They are investing a lot of money to pull it off.
A couple of navigational hints. There will often now be a box in the upper right hand corner of articles with links to video or other articles on the same player that may be of interest. These links use to be at the very bottom of articles. I often worried that many readers would miss them at the bottom of the page. They now have a higher visibility position.
When you are looking at a player’s profile you now have to click on a tab labeled “Ticker” to see articles on the player. My hope is they bring back something that resembles the old article listing. I am not crazy about this format.
One idea they tossed were features that allowed greater participation by subscribers. We will have to see where they go with this one. One suggestion was for subscribers to pass out there own stars after the Rivals recruiting experts have had their turn. I think I saw a couple of them faint on the other side of the ballroom. I think there were eventually able to revive them. It could be fun or it could cause chaos. We will see if they can pull it off.
Annual subscriptions
Rivals.com made a big push for annual subscriptions at the convention. Please see the pin at the top of the Between Fifth & Forbes Message Board. The Pantherlair is only slightly below the network average on this one. It is probably my fault for not bring it up more often. The vast majority of new subscribers opt for the annual subscription but we still have many long time subscribers that pay month to month. It is time to make the change.
Alums can’t recruit
We have had some posters indicate recently that Tony Dorsett and Russ Grimm have said they are willing to help out Pitt. That may be true but they cannot help recruit. In fact most of you cannot recruit. We really should not allow recruits to post on the message boards. If they do a board monitor should lock the post or maybe even delete it. You are not permitted to respond to his post. This could be considered a minor violation. Historically we may not have monitored this one as well as we should have. I reported recently my uncle helped recruit for Duquesne at one time. He would provide jobs for two players and two assistant coaches each year. It was legal in those days. It is against NCAA regulations these days. Alums and friends of the school are not permitted to recruit. It might sound like a good idea to get former players involved but they are very limited in what they can do. Tell them to make a donation to Team Pittsburgh and buy season tickets if they want to help out.
Football recruiting
Pitt starts their annual passing camp today at the UPMC complex on the Southside. Pitt has limited space so they trying to make sure certain high school teams are involved. Woodland Hills, Thomas Jefferson, Seton LaSalle and Pat Bostick’s team Manheim Township should all be there. It gives potential recruits one more chance to see the Pitt football facilities. The more times you can get them on campus the better off you are.
This past week Pitt got verbal commitments from Thomas Jefferson’s Dom DeCicco and defensive back Anthony “Buddy” Jackson. Chris Peak had an article for the Pantherlair gathered while Buddy was on his way to the airport while he was still leaving Pittsburgh. Today Chris Peak will have a second article based in large part on his conversation with Buddy’s high school coach. It is our understanding that Coach Partridge saw this guy this spring and tried to keep him quiet until they got him to Pittsburgh for their summer camp. It is our understanding that he is 6 feet and ½ inches tall and weighs 167 pounds. He was timed running a 4.31 in the 40 at Pitt. If you are that tall and that fast you can be called a sleeper and most folks won’t mind. Or maybe he isn’t that much of a sleeper after all. It is our understanding that Coach Frank Hepler is now the defensive coordinator at Cypress Bay. He is the same coach that built Plantation High School into a powerhouse before telling a new principal to drop dead when she interfered in his football program. Coach Helper sent Pitt Darrell Strong and H.B. Blades. He is also Charlie Partridge’s old high school coach. This one could be a very good pickup for Pitt. Incidentally Buddy’s team the Cypress Bay Lightening beat Coral Springs 28-8 in their spring game and Buddy had an interception. How many more months until Letter of Intent Day? Only kidding. As long as Hepler is his coach I am not all that worried that he will change his mind.
Nick Sukay is in South Bend, Indiana with the Greensburg Central Catholic team. This will be his third trip to Notre Dame. The conventional wisdom has been for a very long time that Sukay was leaning to Penn State. He has made statements to me and others long before he had an offer from Penn State that suggested that. Sukay now has 35 or 40 offers. Pitt is in his final three. I did not like the comments from the Greensburg CC coach about having a dream to send a player to Notre Dame. Who knows maybe he will surprise folks and end up at Notre Dame and not Penn State. I was talking to area high school coach about Jon Ditto and Nick Sukay being similar players. He was quick to point out that so is Dom DeCicco. All three are big wide receivers that are very athletic. They could all end up playing something other than wide receiver in college despite the fact that that is the position they would prefer to play. We will know Sukay’s decision soon.
Pitt already has a commitment from offensive guard Chris Jacobson. It is our understanding that Pitt will take 4 or maybe 5 offensive linemen in the Class of 2007.
Offensive guard Gino Gradkowski is supposed to go to West Virginia today (Friday) and then to Pitt on Saturday for their passing camp. Gradkowski has appeared to be a West Virginia lean for sometime. He has made numerous trips down I-79 to Morgantown. He is often apologetically indicating it is in part to see his cousin Carmen Connelly. What makes this a little interesting is that Coach Gatusso is a Seton LaSalle alum and was the head coach at Seton LaSalle at one time. I am not sure I would want to be Seton LaSalle head coach Greg Perry right now. This should go to WVU but Pitt is not going down without a fight.
Pitt is still trying to land Evan Blankenship from Center who was camping at Pitt this past week. This one should get down to Pitt and Ohio State.
Perry’s Cameron Holland picked up an offer and then said his favorites were Pitt and North Carolina. Woodland Hills Mike Dykes does not yet have an offer from Pitt and appears to be leaning to North Carolina. Could the Tarheels end up with two guards from Allegheny County?
Pitt has offered offensive tackles Dan Matha from Erie and John Fieger from Upper Perkiomen. It sure would be nice to get both of these guys although Matha could still be a WVU lean. New Brighton’s Zac Kasparek is still a possibility. He has his supporters on the Southside although he may have to wait until Pitt has a clearer picture of exactly where they stand with Matha and Fieger. We will have an article on Kasparek later today.
John Fieger picked up an offer from Temple yesterday. He has now camped at Akron, Pitt and Temple and all three have offered scholarships. He will now camp at Connecticut, Rutgers and Virginia. His coach reports he will make a decision July 4th weekend.
Players usually bring their high school helmet to summer camps. One of our “birdies” thought he saw an offensive line candidate in a Pitt helmet recently. Hmmm!
Yesterday we had a story on Michigan tight end Cameron Joplin. A “birdie stopped by and said if Pitt or Virginia offer he will accept. The “birdie” said Joplin loved Coach Wannstedt.
Pitt has offers out to the two top running backs in the state of Florida. Armando Allen and Bo Williams both have offers. Wanny is not shy about asking for the order. So far Pitt is hanging in there with both of them although they are much further ahead with Bo Williams right now. Bo was in Pittsburgh so long this week it looked like he was vacationing in the Burg. I thought Pittsburghers vacationed in Florida and now I find Floridians vacationing in Pittsburgh.
A few prospects will be making decisions soon. It could prompt other fence sitters to make decisions.
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.
