I went on Joe Bendel’s radio show this afternoon and he asked me a question that I didn’t answer too well given time to think about it. The question was about the difference between Levance Fields and the previous point guards at Pitt over the last ten years or so? I would say the biggest difference between Levance and say, Bandin Knight or Carl Krauser, is Levance’s ability to create a shot for himself on the perimeter at any time. Knight could get to the rim with his patented spin-dribble move and could hit shots coming off screens. Krauser could get to the rim with sheer straight-ahead determination or crossing you over, but for a lot of his junior and senior season he came off a ton of screens to get open jumpshots. Levance can get to the rim with a tight handle, but he can also get his jumper off the bounce too — way more effectively than either Knight or Krauser. Fields doesn’t defend near as well as the other two, particularly on the ball (a specialty of Krauser that he never got enough credit for — he could jack people up defensively). My answer on the show was Fields’ assist/turnover ratio and propensity to hit big shots. But the answer I thought of later was the more correct one. I’ll be on Bendel’s show starting next week every Wednesday at 4:25. I listened to the next hour of the show because he was going to have DJ Kennedy on from St John’s — Kennedy went to high school here in Pittsburgh with DeJuan Blair and DeAndre Kane. I’m glad I waited because Joe’s show was pretty entertaining — he has some characters call in (Raider Bob is awesome) — and the Kennedy interview shed some more light on the Kane saga that we’ve been posting about lately. Kane was reported to have given Seton Hall a verbal commitment when he visited there a few weeks ago. His prep school coach Chris Chaney told me Kane texted him saying “I didn’t commit” shortly after the verbal was reported. Chaney then told Adam Zagoria of SNY that Kane did verbal, but then Zagoria wrote later that there was some confusion about it and nobody seemed to be sure where Kane stood. To make an already long story longer, Bendel asked Kennedy about Kane and where he thought his buddy was going to play his college ball? Kennedy said he pretty much stays in contact with Kane on a daily basis and that Kane was still wide open, considering St John’s, Pitt and Seton Hall among others. Kennedy also said that Kane is trying to focus on prep school and get his grades right (thought to be part of the reason Kane isn’t a done deal to Pitt already). So that’s the latest with Kane according to his homeboy that he talks with daily////Bud Walton Arena in Fayetville was rocking tonight as Arkansas knocked off the second top-ten team within the last week by beating Texas in an up and down crazy affair! John Pelphrey, in his second season, is looking like a genius hire/////Scottie Reynolds went bannanas against Seton Hall tonight, scoring 40 — THAT’S FORTY — points in an 89-85 overtime win at Seton Hall. Incredible effort by a guard who at times in his career has seemed unguardable (two years ago) and other times up and down like a yo-yo (last season). I think Reynolds has his game back//////UConn beat West Virginia in a defensive struggle that had both teams end in the 50’s. West Virginia had a great opportunity late when they gained possession down two and had a possible three on one break going the other way but both Truck Bryant and Alex Ruoff managed to screw it up (Ruoff probably more than the young guard). Instead of filling the lane and creating the break Ruoff hung back and then flaired out to the three-point-line. Bryant gave him the ball and Ruoff pulled up — clank. UConn promptly came down and scored to go up four with under a minute — ballgame. I could read Huggs’ lips after reading the stare he gave his best shooter as Ruoff walked towards the WVU bench at the next timeout. The stare said if you’ve got the stones to take that — the words were “make the shot!”///////Talor Battle scored 21 points, Danny Morrissey hit a key 3-pointer late and Purdue went eight minutes without a field goal in the second half as the Nittany Lions beat the Boilermakers, 67-64 on Tuesday night. Stanley Pringle added 18 for Penn State (13-3, 2-1 Big Ten), which is off to its best start in 13 seasons. E’Twaun Moore led the short-handed Boilermakers (11-4, 0-2) with 21 points. Purdue, which lost its second straight, played without two injured starters in forward and second-leading scorer Robbie Hummel (back) and guard Chris Kramer (sprained left foot)////////Michigan State beat Ohio State by nine points 67-58 as the Buckeyes continued to flounder without the injured David Lighty. Just a few days ago everything seemed roses for Ohio State but faster than you can say USC, the Buckeyes got blown off their own floor by West Virginia, had their future star point guard bail on them after ten games because he’d rather play major minutes at South Florida than earn an increase from the 10 minutes a game he was getting in Columbus/////////Barack Obama’s brother-in-law just got his first huge win as coach at Oregon State. Craig Robinson’s Beavers beat the Trojans of USC in overtime. The extra session was needed after Robinson drew up a great pick and pop out of a timeout for a wide-open three. The Beavers run the Princeton offense, so the Trojans didn’t see the high pick and pop coming, they thought Oregon State was just rolling into their regular offense and went to trap the ball, leaving the shooter all alone. Oregon State won the overtime because of their point guard, Calvin Haynes, played brilliantly with the ball in his hands. Edit — the Oregon State win was last night (I guess I was watching a taped version). It still broke a 21-game in conference losing streak for the Beavers — yes, the Beavers have been bad. But hope is now making it’s way to Corvallis, in the form of Craig Robinson.
Peace Everyone.

Notre Dame actually battled defensively last night. Greg Monroe had a big game for the Hoyas. One of my favorite things in all of basketball is to watch a shooter pull up from an ungodly spot and drain a jumper like it’s a bunny — McAlarney is good for one of those a game. Last night he pulled from two dribbles past mid-court…sick range on that kid!

My guy Stephen Bell has a databank of Michigan prospects that he keeps up on — and he has a blog on mlive newspaper site that I’m linking to here. Steve has more reliable information on Michigan prep players than anyone out there, it’s not even close. He also has a site with a great message board on the same topic at bankhoops.com. There’s some young bigs coming out of the glove-state in the next few years (including Al Horford’s little bro) and there’s always gonna be guards! So all you junkies who want the 411 on Michigan players need to check his stuff out.

I’m excited to hear Jeff Van Gundy and Mark Jackson talk about the players in the Duke/Davidson game tomorrow night. If you didn’t know ESPN is sending DICK Vitale to the NBA for a night and having their excellent NBA crew do the college game from Cameron Indoor. Wonder if St John’s would hire Jackson? Would he take the job? Vitale has been making a lot of noise about the need for a coach with a “colorful personality” to be in place at St. John’s to turn it around. I think it’s a bogus claim. Louie Carnesecca was successful because he got players — and yeah, a personality helps with that — but something else he had was a living stipend that St John’s no longer can offer because of the on-campus housing they’ve built. Kids from NYC like Jackson, Mullin and Artest could stay home for school, play in the Garden, and get a check every month equal to what it would cost to rent in the city…now that’s an incentive! The whole personality thing is overblown — you’re telling me right now that Johnnies everywhere wouldn’t sign off on a Jamie Dixon or John Beilein right now? I wonder if Dickie V has a “personality” in mind? I’m sure Norm Roberts is really happy with Dick right now!

I’m thinking this is the first time in history that the Pitt basketball team will be ranked #1 in the nation. That’s an awesome accomplishment for a program that, when I got to this city in the mid-1990’s, was in complete turmoil. And its not a cheap #1 either — as it might have been had the Panthers not lost a New Years Eve game to Georgia a few years back. Those teams were top-10-quality but they had major holes in them. This team has depth, talent and is more athletic than any Pitt team I’ve watched in the Jamie Dixon era — yes, we can and should stop referring to these years as the Ben Howland/Jamie Dixon era. Dixon has manned the ship far too long and far too well not to have complete ownership over it.

Does all this mean the Panthers can’t be beat? Of course not! They could lose Sunday to St. John’s if they don’t come ready to play. But all that speaks to — see ND losing to the Johnnies — is the quality of the individual players in the Big East and the pride these kids play with. Every team has at least one player, if not more, that would start on any other team in the league.

St. John’s version of that player is DJ Kennedy, a Schenley High product that balled with DeJuan Blair since they were knee-high (okay, Blair was probably always at least chest-high). And how awesome is it that Big Fella, the Hill District’s finest, put Pitt in position to be #1 by dominating Georgetown on Saturday with 20 points and 17 rebounds?

Good times for basketball in the ‘burgh.

So do me a favor — let’s forget the Sun Bowl okay? At least don’t turn any conversation about Pitt being #1 towards the Sun Bowl (as I heard on some shows locally).

This Pitt basketball team deserves the city’s attention — the Steelers don’t play until after 4 Sunday — until they play their final game this season…

Drove over to Wheeling, WV on Saturday to watch a ton of high school basketball. One player I saw was Pitt signee Talib Zanna of Bishop McNamara. Zanna was impressive in both play and demeanor — a strictly business type power player that also showed some touch out to 18 feet. He defended the rim with gusto and held a highly ranked, albeit younger, post player in check the entire game. Zanna will be a great ying to the yang of fellow incoming classmate Dante Taylor, a highly ranked power forward.

Happy New Year — the last few days, at least for junkies like me (and you if you’re reading this) have been a great time to watch hoop.

So I give you the first installment of “HoopWatch.”

My cat Coco is excited about this new idea because when I watch hoop all day he’s been on my lap for most of it, with little breaks for play and food. And Coco pretty much loves to sit on my lap. Funny story about Coco and my lap: About seven years ago my then-girlfriend — and now Mrs. HoopWise — Janet was struggling to find a suitable home for him after she’d moved into my place due to my allergy to cats. He first went to my buddy Joseph, but the other two cats at his place weren’t happy with that. Then he went to her brother’s house, but Coco was terrified of the other 34 animals they had (slight exaggeration) especially the huge dog that wanted to play with him all the time, and stayed under the bed 24/7 making a terrible noise. So Jan opened the door of the apartment right as a Steelers game was about to start and said, “he’s only staying here while I go to work, we’ll figure something out when I get home.”

Well, Coco looked up at me with his caramel-colored eyes and flat-face, meowed a whisper-like hello, figured out I was the guy he had to impress to stay in this relatively peaceful place and jumped up on my lap. He’s been my cat ever since, allergies be damned. Read the rest of this entry »

Greg Monroe showed why he was so highly recruited last night as the Hoya freshman dominated 7′3 Hasheem Thabeet in a surprisingly easy win over UConn in Hartford. Here’s a column I wrote following the game for NBE Basketball Report — the best site out there for Big East hoops coverage…Buffalo took down Colorado to advance to the championship of the Rainbow Classic. I had the pleasure to attend the Rainbow a few years back with my Mom, who was fighting her third form of cancer at the third time. It was a trip I’ll always cherish as it gave me countless hours of conversation with my best friend of all time before she passed. So congrats to the Bulls and let me give a shout out to my man Kaipo! Here’s a link to the story on MRO — the best site out there covering all things MAC-related! Both these sites are helping me continue to write for a living and I appreciate them big-time…Going to a HS basketball extravaganza this Saturday in Wheeling, WV. Should be some good players to watch…

One thing that’s been bothering the hell out of me is this: when did people in the TV/Radio business decide it would be cool to call the NFL Playoffs “the tournament?” It really doesn’t fit and I’ve heard it more frequently in the last month (Bob Costas said it last night on NBC). It’s the NFL Playoffs you jagoffs — Just call it what it is already!

UConn vs Georgetown tonight at 7pm. Nice way to start the Big East season. Oh yeah, have you heard that Big Ten basketball is better than people think? That’s why WVU can go into Columbus and win by 70 right? The Big Ten is decent but I’d believe all the hosannas a bit more if they weren’t coming from the normal college basketball shills.

So Eric Devendorf, as it turns out, didn’t hit anybody, right? I’m working on a column about it right now that might run here later today. We’ll see. The link is to NBEbasketball.com and it’s the best source for Big East hoops going right now, with daily updates from around the league and a Belly of the Beast column by your’s truly.

I’ll be watching former Seton Hall coach Louis Orr’s Bowling Green squad play Duquesne on Wednesday afternoon. Speaking of Seton Hall, after a fast start the Pirates lost back-to-back games to IUPUI and James Madison last week and big man John Garcia went down with an injury depleting an already thin roster to about seven useable D-1 players. Apparently, DeAndre Kane did verbal to the Hall, as his coach Chris Chaney told Jeff Goodman at Fox just that a few days ago.

Peace!

I watched Arizona beat the living tar out of Kansas last night and two things came to my mind 1)Mike Dunlap is an idiot — nothing personal as I don’t know him, and 2) Cole Aldrich plays softer than a Barry Manilow ballad from the 70’s — lets make it Mandy for all the older folks. Arizona, as I believed before the season got underway, is pretty darn good (and could win a Pac 10 that’s a little down this year). Russ Pennell is the interim coach of the Wildcats only because Dunlap refused the job if the interim title wasn’t lifted. Look, no way in hell Arizona hires Pennell after this season, but if AZ continues to play up to their considerable short-term talent, somebody will (see Andy Kennedy parlaying a year as interim at Cincinnati into Ole Miss). So that only leaves me with one conclusion: Mike Dunlap, maybe allowing the two D-2 titles on his resume to blur the big picture for him, made a huge blunder on this one…Patterson coach Chris Chaney checked in yesterday with his take on his star DeAndre Kane’s alleged verbal commit to Seton Hall: “The kid texted me before he got on the plane (after the Jersey visit) that he did not verbal. I haven’t been in touch with him since as we’re on break right now,” said Chaney. Chaney also laughed when asked if Pitt was still on Kane hard and said, “that’s a really good question, it seems like they don’t want to close the deal, but they don’t want anyone else too either.” Kane is a very underrated player. I’m not sure if he’s qualified yet and maybe that’s what was holding up Pitt, because Kane has the kind of stroke the Panthers never seem to have on their roster.

Kane is a Pittsburgh kid that played at Schenley with both DeJuan Blair and DJ Kennedy (he was a year younger). Smooth as silk with uncommon range on his jumper. He didn’t qualify out of high school so he went to one of the better prep programs in the country (Patterson) and has played very well on the #1 prep team in the country. A ton of schools were on him but it was expected he would return to the Steel City and ball for Jamie Dixon’s Panthers. There are numerous reports out there that say Kane verbally committed to Seton Hall after a weekend visit during which the Hall lost to IUPUI. Patterson coach Chris Chaney says Kane didn’t commit, although he liked the visit. Well of course he liked the visit, with his homey Herb Pope welcoming him with open arms how could Kane not like the visit! Does anyone have confirmation that Herb and DeAndre actually made it to the game Saturday?

The alleged Kane commit comes after a JC big man reported that he was pressured on his visit to Jersey and went back on his verbal once he left town. So, did Kane verbal to Gonzo?

Stay tuned I guess.

Kent State got the services of Tyree Evans for the first time last night and the results make him, undoubtedly, the best walkon in the nation! 21 points in 24 minutes, 5-8 from 3, 7-11 from the floor. Chris Singletary had 10 assists to go with his 10 points and Brandon Parks had 17 as the Flashes beat UNC-Greensboro.

Siena looked like they were ready to give Pitt a battle last night on two or three different occassions. But Pitt had DeJuan Blair and Siena didn’t — that pretty much sums up the game…Duquesne got blitzed at home by Old Dominion — by 26 — after playing WVU tough over the weekend and Ron Everhart isn’t happy. “The worst effort we’ve had this year,” said Everhart. Ouch….Ohio lost a really well-shot game (both teams over 60%) to Marshall in Huntington, WV. The transfer from Purdue — Lutz — was the difference…

Tyree Evans
Dave Carducci has a piece in today about Tyree Evans’ debut later tonight at Kent State. One of the quotes in it bothers me and I’ll italicize it below.

He also knows there are still members of the media who eager to re-hash all of the stories from his past.
“I’d ask them, what about the guys that don’t make it that you don’t have a reason to write about?” said KSU assistant coach Bobby Steinburg, who was Evans’ coach at Motlow last season and remains one of his biggest supporters. “Tyree is still living. He’s still kicking. He may have taken a long, long path to get to where he wanted to go, but there are so many guys from backgrounds like his who didn’t get this far.”

Here’s my beef with the quote: What about the guys that don’t make it? I’ll tell you about the guys that don’t make it — they usually don’t shoot, pass, defend, and play ball like Tyree Evans allegedly does. My other problem with it is that there are plenty of guys from destitute backgrounds that do make it. One of them cooks my dinner twice a week at a deli I eat at. Another one makes the pizzas I order far too often. Another one picks up my garbage. Another one writes for a living. The ones that really don’t make it coach? They’re dead or locked up. Like Matt P (dead at 23 in 1996) Roscoe H (26) and Eric T (od’d three years ago at 22). All the people above — the one’s who have made it and those who haven’t — were from families where the people that were taking care of them sold drugs, robbed drug dealers and liquor stores — all while actively engaged in addiction/alcoholism themselves. And nobody writes about them because they’re either (A) just ordinary folks — and in the eyes of the media — without extraordinary talents or (B) dead.

But make no mistake, Tyree Evans, to this point in his life, doesn’t deserve any medals for how far he’s gotten. In fact, with some of the choices he’s made as an adult, he’s lucky he hasn’t been killed. He’s 23 years old and about to play in his first D-1 game — as a walkon in the MAC — after being regarded as one of the top players in his class and a sure-fire NBA player five or six years ago. Kent State has given the man an unbelievable opportunity…because they think he can help them win games (no sin in that, just the truth). So I hope he does well with the opportunity.

Because in reality, it might be the last opportunity before he has to make do in life without the chances his basketball talent brings him. The truth is the pizza maker, the cook and the sanitation guy have come amazingly far from where they started.

Evans, at 23, is still trying to make that journey. The question that really begs asking: Is basketball, and all the chances it provides, helping him make it?