A Win is a Win

Well, the men's basketball team was able to at least win their game unlike another Big East school...*cough* Syracuse *cough*. Seriously, though, this isn't the disaster the sports world is making it out to be. As someone in the comments section pointed out, Michigan State had a similar loss to a D-II team and still managed to make the Sweet 16 that year. Oh, and by the way, that was the year MSU managed to pick apart Pitt on their way to the next round.

Back to the Pitt game.

The story of the 11-point win over Slippery Rock was Dante Taylor, who went for 27 and 9, but didn't even start in the game.

Pitt's starting lineup was small with three guards and Nasir Robinson playing PF. Maybe that's why Gary McGhee got the start, but I'd be shocked if Taylor wasn't the starter for the first regular-season game, so a small lineup will probably get even smaller.

From the box score, you could make an argument that Gary McGhee was the second most productive player behind Taylor with 9 and 5 in only 15 minutes of action. But that's probably partially due to the fact that Slippery Rock's tallest player that saw any action was 6'7".

Slippery Rock also had an interesting statistic, which won't get into the record books:

If the statistics from Sunday’s game counted, which they do not due to the exhibition nature of the game, The Rock’s 3-point attempts total would have set a Petersen Events Center record. Notre Dame held the mark with 36 set on Jan. 4, 2006.

Interesting, but not all that surprising considering they're a smaller team.

46 three-point attempts? Even Ron Everhart thinks they should dial it in a bit.

I might have this one wrong, but this may be the first time in recent memory that the women's team has started off with a higher ranking than the men. That's some disparity in the polls with the Lady Panthers coming in at #22 and #31.