Ancillary Stuff

Not a lot going on. Sure there was a football scrimmage Saturday, but I can only take so much Spring stuff until it feels as if sticking sharpened pencils directly into my retinas might be more entertaining.

That said, though, there are quite a few minor things out there or things indirectly related to Pitt:

- Well, well, well - looks like Rich Rod may have found yet another way to harm his former employer. As if he wasn't hated enough, now WVU is dealing with potential violations. I'm wondering if it's similar to the type of stuff he's been going through at Michigan with too much practicing. Hmm....

- Joe Pa thinks Big Ten expansion will happen:

"I think the trend is there are going to be bigger conferences. I think there are going to be 12-, 14-team conferences and maybe even 16-team conferences. Do I know what I'm talking about, who knows?

"It would appear to me that with the television situation what it is and the great impact that it has on exposure and what that exposure does to recruiting, we're naive to think ... we can sit back and see everybody else move ahead because they're going to move ahead. We better start thinking about where we're going."

I've not been commenting on the expansion stuff and that's been by design. Just too many variables and unknowns at this point and no real advantage to commenting on it every week until we get closer to something actually happening.

- Brian Bennett over at ESPN.com hints that he may be picking Pitt to win the Big East this year.

- In the wayyyyy to early Bracketology for the 2010-11 season, Joe Lunardi lists Pitt as a 3 seed. He has Georgetown as a 2-seed, highest in the Big East. I'm guessing that's dependent upon Greg Monroe coming back, though they should have a good team even without him. Along those same lines, Andy Katz loves, loves, LOVES Pitt next year. And so does Gary Parrish. I wouldn't put Pitt this high, but to each his own.

- I never got around to mentioning the whole Fred Hill/Pitt baseball thing mostly because I didn't really care all that much. But it was an interesting story nonetheless. Anyway, it appears Rutgers and Hill are at a standstill as far as him coming back to coach. Jon over at Rutgers blog Bleed Scarlet has plenty of good posts analyzing the situation as well as a possible replacement for Hill.

- Former Pitt coach and current Pitt villain Ben Howland gets some votes as one of the decade's top coaches.

- Finally, this happened several days ago, but thought it was worth a mention. Mike Rice agreed to stay at Robert Morris, despite interest from Seton Hall and Tulane. Rice handled the situation exactly how fans want. He ackonwledged interest in listening to both offers, acknowledged interviewing with both schools, and ended up staying. I believe he would have taken the Seton Hall job had he been offered it, but that's not the point. He was as honest and straight forward as could reasonably be expected throughout the process and Robert Morris should be proud of the way he handled the entire process. Jamie Dixon is in a much higher profile situation and the two situations were not the same. But maybe Jamie Dixon should take a note or two about how to handle these types of things rather than essentially playing grab ass with fans and media, and going into hiding every time his name comes up for a job.

Just sayin'.

NOT A Done Deal

The news of the day was obviously the McCoy story. News broke later today that McCoy leaving is not a done deal.

"Nothing is final. We just talked about the whole issue," McCoy said while walking out of the South Side facility after meeting with Pitt coach Dave Wannstedt for 11/2 hours. McCoy's parents and his brother accompanied him to the meeting.

This isn't entirely a surprise. Even when the stories broke yesterday that he was leaving, while it looked that way, nothing was ever confirmed.

I don't know, I almost don't really want to comment on this until something happens either way. But I will say this -

I'm pleasantly surprised at the lack of backlash that seems to be out there among Pitt fans. I'm glad they are looking at the situation as a whole and not really bashing him...at least from the talk show callers and message boards I've seen/heard. Even though Shady did say he wasn't leaving, this is an entirely different situation from Ben Howland going to UCLA. Many Pitt fans (including myself) think that Howland could have handled his departure better and were especially upset when Howland seemed to deny any interest in leaving before taking the job.

Ben Howland was a full-grown adult. While Shady is technically an adult, he's still a kid. You can't take the same stance against him and say, "he went back on his word." Did he? Of course. But people realize that if he can reasonably be a first-round pick, it's not a bad move. Really, he has to do what's best for himself. If he wants to come back for another year because he loves college, there's no harm in that - despite what people calling for him to go to the NFL might say.

The bad news for him is that so many top running backs are declaring for this year. But while we can project what will happen next year and say there may be fewer quality backs, we'll never know. Right now, there are some sophomores out there that will have breakout years and consider leaving early. No one can tell how many.

Being selfish, of course I'd like to see him back. But if he doesn't, I'd certainly understand.