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The Countdown: 42 Days until the ACC

2013-05-20T17:00:06Z

Pitt and Wake Forest have never met on the gridiron. Obviously with virtually no history among the two schools, most Pitt fans probably do not know much about the Demon Deacons. So what about our new friends from Winston-Salem?

To put it likely, Wake Forest is not a football power. The Demon Deacons have only won 41% of their games dating back to 1888. Wake Forest has only won the ACC twice in its history, most recently in 2006 as they represented the league in the Orange Bowl. In fact, Wake has only gone bowling ten times in its history, with a 6-4 record. Five of those bowl appearances have come since 2002, making this one of the more successful eras in Wake Forest history. Wake Forest currently has twelve NFL players - perhaps most notably is Calvin Pace of the Jets.

Wake Forest plays their games on campus at BB&T Field. The facility in the smallest in the ACC, and one of the smallest among major conference teams. Panthers fans will have to wait to make the trip there because Wake Forest is not on the 2013 schedule. They are coached by Jim Grobe, who has been there since 2001. He was behind a very successful three year run from 2006-2008 that saw the school win 28 games.

The school has had some recent success, but like Pitt, they could use a lot more.

Be sure to join Cardiac Hill's Facebook page and follow us on Twitter @PittPantherBlog for our regular updates on Pitt athletics.

Pitt loses out on Big East baseball title after being swept by Louisville

2013-05-20T14:00:04Z

Pitt's baseball team had high hopes heading into this past weekend. Holding a one-game lead in the Big East conference, the Panthers controlled their own destiny with three games remaining in the season against Louisville - widely considered the better team.

The Cardinals proved that with a sweep against Pitt, winning all three games.

Pitt showed their ability and had some bright spots in keeping a couple of games close. They lost the first game 5-2, but had plenty of opportunities, stranding 16 runners. The second game, a 12-4 loss, wasn't close, but Pitt again had opportunities on Sunday to win. Down 7-4, they had the bases loaded in the ninth inning but couldn't push any runners across.

For maybe the first time all season, the Panthers' starting pitching failed to deliver. The ace of the staff, Ethan Mildren, was roughed up for five runs in seven innings in the opener. Matt Wotherspoon was far worse in the second game, giving up ten earned in only 4 2/3 innings in the second game. And on Saturday in the finale, Rhys Aldenhoven lost his first game of the year with four earned runs in five innings.

The bottom line is that the Cardinals pretty much showed they're significantly better than Pitt. That's not to say they'd be unbeatable in another series, but it's hard to argue that they're not the better team at this point.

It's also not a time to bury the starters. Those three guys have been flat out dominant all season and while they struggled this weekend Louisville is a top ten team. The Panthers weren't completely dominated, but they were soundly defeated. As a result, Pitt will take on St. John's as the third seed in the Big East Tournament on Wednesday.

So what's it mean for Pitt's NCAA Tournament hopes? The sweep doesn't help, obviously, and with a loss against Kent State last week, that's four straight games Pitt has lost. That game against Kent State really was a missed opportunity for another quality win. And if any stock is placed on how a team finishes, an early exit in the Big East Tournament could make things very interesting for the team's NCAA Tourney hopes.

Be sure to join Cardiac Hill's Facebook page and follow us on Twitter @PittPantherBlog for our regular updates on Pitt athletics. Follow the author, the manager/editor of Cardiac Hill, @AnsonWhaley

All the Links: Weekly Pitt link dump

2013-05-20T12:00:04Z

Didn't have time to dig up a video this week, but here's your weekly collection of Pitt-related links that we didn't cover last week:

Football coach Paul Chryst is holding players to high standards so far

Defensive lineman Aaron Donald was named to the watch list for the Lott IMPACT Award for work on and off the field

Pitt athletes went back to Haiti for another special trip

EDSBS pictures Paul Chryst with Dana Holgorsen hair (h/t to Pitt Blather)

ACCFootballRx looks at Pitt playing Penn State and West Virginia in football

Former Pitt player Doug Whaley was named the Buffalo Bills' GM

The Trib had a feature on baseball coach Joe Jordano

The softball team had a disappointing year

Not much came from the ACC league meetings last week

Here are some notes from ESPN on the ACC meetings

More talk about the ACC Conference basketball tournament possibly being played at Madison Square Garden

Be sure to join Cardiac Hill's Facebook page and follow us on Twitter @PittPantherBlog for our regular updates on Pitt athletics. Follow the author @AnsonWhaley.

Weekly Pitt Open Thread (5/20/13)

2013-05-20T04:00:06Z

Here's your weekly open thread.

Just like a gamethread, this post will remain open and at the top of the page for you to readily drop your comments, thoughts, links, questions, rumors, etc. throughout the week. Think of it as a giant message board, but with a little more functionality since every topic covered is in the same place and you can reply just as easily to specific comments - just like you can for all of our other posts.

Use this thread for:

Comments about any Pitt stuff that's unrelated to the current posts
Breaking Pitt news as it happens
Pitt links you found on the internet that we haven't posted
Links about potential Pitt recruits
Funny GIFs. Who doesn't love funny GIFs?

This thread will be left up until the end of the day on Sunday and then we'll begin a new one starting on Monday at midnight.

No major rules here, but keep it civil, folks.

Other than that, post away.

Be sure to join Cardiac Hill's Facebook page and follow us on Twitter @PittPantherBlog for our regular updates on Pitt athletics. Follow the author @AnsonWhaley.

The Countdown: 43 days until the ACC

2013-05-19T16:00:04Z

43 days until the ACC: The home of the ACC Champion

The Orange Bowl was first played in 1935 and has matched up opponents in sunny Miami every year since, making it the second oldest bowl game today, along with the Sugar Bowl and the Sun Bowl. While the game has been known as the home of the ACC Champion, it hasn't always had ACC ties.

In 1968, the Big 8 sent their champion to Miami, but once they joined schools from the Southwest Conference to form the Big 12, the Orange Bowl instead became attached to either the ACC or Big East Champion. In 2006, the tie-in belonged exclusively to the ACC and that marriage figures to continue for years to come.

But even before the ACC-Orange Bowl relationship started, the ACC, with it's Southern presence, has long had a part in the Orange Bowl. Current/future ACC teams have had a combined 43 appearances in the bowl game, starting with the very first Orange Bowl back in 1935, when Miami was shut out by Bucknell 26-0. 3 times the bowl game has matched up two eventual ACC teams. In 1951, Clemson beat Miami 15-14. In their final game as a Big East school, Miami beat Florida State 16-14 in the 2004 game. And most recently, Louisville beat Wake Forest in the 2007 game 24-13.

Overall, ACC schools are a combined 18-25 in the Orange Bowl, and every ACC school except for Pitt, NC State, Virginia, and North Carolina has made an appearance in the bowl game. It is the only BCS Bowl that the Panthers have yet to make an appearance in and, along with the Peach Bowl, the only other College Football Playoff bowl that has yet to host the Panthers. But with Pitt in the ACC, that figures to change someday.

Jamie Dixon downplays potential Pitt-Penn State basketball series

2013-05-19T13:00:08Z

With news of Pitt and Penn State possibly starting up another annual football series, you knew it was a matter of time before things switched to the basketball side.

The Post-Gazette's Sam Werner did a great interview with Jamie Dixon at the ACC meetings. So be sure to read the thing in its entirety. Among other things, Dixon addressed playing Penn State in basketball:

"There are obviously limitations on what you can do. You can’t please everybody. If you look at scheduling, there’s really no way you can do it. You’ve got to satisfy so many different components, whether it be revenue, whether it be ACC, your conference schedule, your non-conference schedule, rivalry games, exempt tournaments. It really takes care of itself if you sit down and look at it."

My hope is that the game this year in the B1G-ACC Challenge will renew some interest in the game. As I said last year, I'd rather see Pitt play a marquee team from the conference and save Penn State for an annual game. But as I noted this week, it's a more attractive matchup than playing a middle-of-the-road B1G team.

Committing to a non-conference opponent in football on an annual basis is far more difficult. But in basketball, teams have any number of chances to schedule a team regularly. It'd be one thing if the Panthers were rolling out games against top opponents, but Kennesaw State? North Florida? Bethune-Cookman? I'd much rather see Pitt square off against Penn State than any of those teams.

Dixon is right that many components are involved - trying to play near hometowns of players, 'finding new rivalries, facing opponents with coaches that may have ties to Dixon or to Pitt, etc. And I get that the Nittany Lions many years may not boost the RPI. But neither do some of the teams that Pitt faces. There's little reason that Pitt couldn't play Penn State every year in basketball with so many non-conference slots.

I typically agree with Dixon, but this isn't one of those times.

Be sure to join Cardiac Hill's Facebook page and follow us on Twitter @PittPantherBlog for our regular updates on Pitt athletics. Also follow the author @AnsonWhaley.

The Countdown: 44 days until the ACC

2013-05-18T19:00:05Z

44 days until the ACC: Pitt baseball + ACC = Omaha?

With Pitt having such a successful baseball season, it's time to look at the baseball conference the Panthers will enter in 2014. Simply put - the ACC is the best baseball conference this season. It has the top rated RPI, with four schools in the top ten and nine in the top 26. The ACC also has five or six ranked teams depending on the poll, as well as the top ranked team in the country in North Carolina. Good thing Pitt's on the upswing this season...

Speaking of this season, the Panthers are looking towards the goal of reaching Omaha for the College World Series, something that the school has never done. But after watching Stony Brook and Kent State punch tickets to Omaha last season, Sam Werner of the Post Gazette writes that this team has a "Why not us?" attitude.

As Pitt baseball coach Joe Jordano watched Cinderella stories Stony Brook and Kent State crash the College World Series a year ago, he couldn't shake one thought in his mind: "Why not Pitt?"

A bit ambitious for a team most pegged to finish in the middle of the pack in the Big East Conference? Maybe. But Jordano and, more importantly, his players believed reaching Omaha, Neb., the longtime site of the College World Series, was a realistic goal.

"We knew we were going to have a solid team, but why not raise the expectation?" Jordano said.

Considering the baseball program's general lack of success, too many eyebrows shouldn't be raised at the fact that Pitt has never appeared in the College World Series. But even if they don't make it to Omaha in 2013, joining the ACC will give Pitt a great shot at getting there. The ACC has sent 44 teams to Omaha, 15 since 2006, although only once has the ACC been home to the national champion (Wake Forest in 1955). Perhaps this year will be different, with highly ranked teams in North Carolina, Virginia, NC State, and Florida State. Out of the 15 ACC schools, only Pitt, Maryland, and Virginia Tech have yet to reach Omaha.

At the very least, the increased level of talent will help continue to build Pitt's program, regardless of when Pitt's season ends in 2013.

Be sure to join Cardiac Hill's Facebook page and follow us on Twitter @PittPantherBlog for our regular updates on Pitt athletics.

2013 NBA Combine: A breakdown of the strong performance of Pitt center Steven Adams

2013-05-18T16:11:08Z

So earlier this week, I wondered aloud about Steven Adams and the NBA Combine. Specifically, I wasn't sure if Adams would even be helped that much by it, in part because the things he does well may not be tangibly measured all that much. The one glaring hole, for sure, would be that he has no jump shot.

Hold that thought - per NBC Sports with original link from ESPN.com:

• Great note from Chad Ford at ESPN on Pitt’s Steven Adams (Insider, and a great overall read).

Pittsburgh’s Steven Adams was the big winner on Day 1. Not only did Adams look the part of a NBA center (he measured 7 feet, 250 pounds with a 7-foot-4.5 span), but he showed off some terrific athleticism and toughness on the defensive end. However, that’s not what wowed scouts. Adams showed off a surprising — no, shocking — offensive game, hitting jump shot after jump shot with a feathery touch.

"I can say I was honestly stunned," one NBA GM said. "Where did that come from? That’s not something you develop with a few weeks with a trainer. He was way more skilled than we thought. That makes a huge difference in our evaluation of him."

Fear the Sword, SB Nation's Cleveland Cavs blog, also chimes in about Adams' newfound shot:

Steven Adams looked pretty good from what we saw. His coach at Pittsburgh said that people would be surprised by how well he shot the ball. The ESPN guys mocked him for that and said that every coach or agent says we'll be surprised by how well their guy shoots. Well guess what, we were all surprised by how well Adams shot the ball.

/CricketsChirping

To say that this comes as a surprise is about as big an understatement as you can make. Adams didn't display ~~much of~~ any kind of a jump shot during his time at Pitt and based on the high amount of blown shots around the rim, no one could have reasonably expected that buried in his game was a mini Dell Curry.

So ... the next question is too obvious - where was this at Pitt? Beats me. But this much is clear - if Adams can now shoot a jump shot with regularity, it's not something that was developed in a few weeks as the NBA GM says in the above link. Players shoot tens of thousands of jump shots over summers hoping to improve a few percentage point during the season. There's no way that Adams suddenly developed one since the season ended. Barring an unbelievably lucky streak, this has always been there.

And if we're being honest here, if that's true, can't a little of that fall on Jamie Dixon? I'm not in the 'Fire Dixon' crowd so please, don't label me among the Dixon haters. Or even those that dislike him. He's a great coach - end of discussion. But seriously, for Pitt to not have taken advantage of this skill during the season doesn't make sense to me. If he had this skill set, it was up to the coaches to make sure he tried to use it - even if only sparingly since the whole style of play was so new to him.

Keep in mind, though, it also depends greatly on Adams' level of comfort in game situations. And we're also talking about drills here. In-game competition is far, far different. Adams looked uncomfortable plenty of times this season, and chances are he wasn't sure just how much he could step out and do some of that instead of just trying to fit within the system. Still, I'd be lying if I said I wasn't feeling at least a little robbed out of all of this.

And Adams, for his part, downplayed that the system was the problem in an interview at the Combine as well. He even went on to say that Dixon's been so successful that you don't just come in expecting the system to change for an individual player. Wise beyond his years, folks, and he just came across as so likeable in that interview. Definitely another intangible that will help his stock.

I don't know what to make of all of this ... so I'm moving on.

On Thursday, ESPN's Chad Ford called Adams one of the best two players that day:

Best two players I've seen at the Combine today have been Steven Adams and Rudy Gobert. Both helping themselves a lot here
— Chad Ford (@chadfordinsider) May 16, 2013

Beyond the on-court action, there were also the measurements - and Adams fared well there, too.

Adams checked in at a legitimate 7'0" and 254 pounds. According to NBADraft.net, his 7'4.5" wing span was good for second among all players and his hand width was the largest at 11". The site also called him one of the winners when it came to measurements.

Scoff all you want at the measurements portion. But even if you don't personally buy into its importance, just know that it matters to scouts and teams. And the fact is that a lot of those guys check in shorter than their advertised height. Adams' measurements will certainly help him.

When you add it all up, this has done nothing but help his stock. Adams was already being projected as a solid first-rounder. His strong performance could now have him as high as the edge of the lottery.

Be sure to join Cardiac Hill's Facebook page and follow us on Twitter @PittPantherBlog for our regular updates on Pitt athletics. Follow the author, the manager/editor of Cardiac Hill, @AnsonWhaley