Lewis Vs. Devine

ESPN.com's Brian Bennett completed his list of Top 25 Big East players and Dion Lewis finished at the top.  As expected, some weren't happy with the choice, thinking WVU's Noel Devine should be first.

It got me to thinking - just who IS better?

Lewis: 325 attempts, 1,799 yards, 5.5 yard average, 25 catches, 189 yards, 18 TDs

Devine: 241 attempts, 1,465 yards, 6.1 yard average, 22 catches, 177 yards, 14 TDs

The first thing you can throw out immediately is rece a iving.  Both have practically identical numbers in that department.

Looking at rushing, you see that Lewis got about 85 more attempts.  That number is fairly surprising considering that Pitt had a capable backup in Ray Graham who got a fair number of carries.  Pitt also had a fairly reliable passing game and could have relied more on that instead of giving a heavy workload to a true freshman.

WVU fans will point to the yard-per-carry as proof of Devine's superiority.  However, I'd counter that argument by saying the more carries a running back has, the more a defense will key on him and prepare themselves to defend against the run.

Here's why I think Lewis is the better back:

1. He has a nose for the end zone.  His 18 TDs were almost as much as Devine had in his entire career.  Yes, Devine was a backup as a freshman, but with over 200 attempts in 2008 as a sophomore, he only found the end zone four times.

2. He was more dominant in conference play.  When the non-conference schedule ended, Lewis was at his best.  He finished the regular season with seven straight 100-yard games and averaged 142 yards in conference playing.  He only failed to reach 100 yards against a Big East opponent once - and that was against Louisville when Ray Graham received a season-high 12 carries.  Devine, on the other hand, was only able to gain 100 yards in TWO conference games.  Further, several times he was shut down (42 yards against South Florida, 65 yards against Rutgers, 56 yards against Louisville).

3. He rushed for nearly 350 yards more.  Part of this goes into the attempts, but to have that many more yards, you've got to be given that many more carries.  To stay healthy and be able to do that has to count for something.

All in all, both are fine backs.  But I give the nod to Lewis.

News and Notes 7/5

After three non-stop days of grilling, finally getting to some links from the holiday weekend and a few random ones over last week.

Chevy Troutman is having a fine career in Italy and the Post-Gazette catches up with him while he's in town for the Greentree Summer League.  He still may play a few games in the league and while he's had offers to play in the NBA's Summer League, he's turned them down:

Troutman receives offers to play in the NBA Summer League in Las Vegas, but he has declined those offers in recent years because he has been under contract in Europe. He makes a six-figure salary and feels comfortable with his situation.

"For my size and the way I was being promoted, it was better for me to go over there than anything else," he said. "I realized that early. I said, 'Let me just start my career off as a pro over there and see how it goes.

"Now I'm very successful over there. I'm known in basketball. I don't think I'll ever have a problem having a job the rest of my career. I actually thought about coming back over here [to give the NBA a try], but for me it's probably not worth it.

"It's kind of difficult to get your foot in the door. They have to show the initiative."

Unfortunately, the most alarming part of the article is his new fashion:

Troutman, the former Pitt star, is no longer playing basketball in this country, and his appearance is proof positive. There was a certain European flair to Troutman last week when he strolled into the Greentree SportsPlex in shorts, T-shirt, sandals and a fanny pack to watch some Pitt players compete in the Pittsburgh Basketball Club Pro-Am.

 A fanny pack?  Really?  I think even senior citizens have moved on from those things.

Andy Katz of ESPN writes a little more about Pitt's trip to Ireland and has a good point about how this glut of forwards and big men will need to figure itself out.

ESPN.com's Brian Bennett looks at revenues of the Big East compared to other BCS conferences.  No, it's not pretty, but we already knew that.  According to the numbers, put together by a writer from Fanhouse, Pitt falls somewhere in the middle of Division I programs.

If you're into video games, NCAA Football '11 has some screenshots out for each of the Top 25 teams.  Pitt is ranked #16 in their game.

And former Pitt baseball star Joe Leonard was named to another All-American team. This time, the ABCA/Rawlings All-American First Team.

Pitt Basketball Lands Mystery Man

I put off mentioning the apparent verbal of center Steve Adams, mostly because there was little information out there on him.  I'm sure it was partially due to the holiday weekend, but more due to the fact that he plays in New Zealand.  The Post-Gazette broke the news yesterday, but haven't had an update about it.

Scout has a page, but no ranking for him.  Rivals has no page at all from what I've been able to find.

In 2009, Adams was named the MVP of the New Zealand U17 National Championships, finishing third in scoring, first in rebounding, and first in blocks on his team.  He was also the MVP of the New Zealand U19 National Championships that ended last month.

He appears to be athletic and has NBA aspirations:

Toss in some spectacular alley-oop dunks and blocked shots, and Adams is clearly a young man going places.

"I want to try and make the NBA," Adams said. "My hero is [Orlando Magic superstar] Dwight Howard."

Chris Dokish makes a good point in that Pitt will now be able to recruit other smaller players as power forwards now as Adams would be a center.  That makes a world of sense to me as I'm sure some potential recruits have been following the Dante Taylor situation and wondering if they may be put in a similar situation - a true power forward that is asked to play center.  Then again, that is dependent on Adams being a quality center and able to handle the position.

Since he's going to be in the 2012 recruiting class, I'm a little surprised that Pitt would come out and accept a verbal from a potential question mark.  2012 is a ways off, so this is far from a done deal.  Still, to essentially offer him at this point, they must be extremely high on him. 

Tony Dorsett Casts A Vote For Reggie

Pitt Heisman winner may have shocked some with his recent comments about Reggie Bush keeping the Heisman trophy at a recent golf outing:

"I don't see any reason to take it back from him. Anybody that watched college football during his time will tell you Reggie Bush was the most exciting football player on earth at the college level," said Tony Dorsett, the former Pittsburgh Panthers and Dallas Cowboys great.

"I think he was a very justified winner. His numbers were right. He meant as much as anybody has ever meant to their team."

Dorsett, the 1976 Heisman winner, believes Southern Cal officials should share the blame.

"It's not Reggie Bush. I don't know what his economic background was at that time, but that's what a lot of these universities do. They get these great talents and they get them to go to their higher institutions of learning because they shell out a little cheese for them," Dorsett said.

"And sometimes these kids need that. They all know it's wrong. But in most cases, they don't ask (schools) for it. They offer it. Those people that are doing that need to be sanctioned."

Though the Heisman ballot states "recipients must be in compliance with the (NCAA) bylaws," Rogers, South Carolina's lone Heisman winner, and others said the most important criteria are Bush's football accomplishments.

Frankly, I would expect most Heisman winners to fall in line with those same sentiments.  I think that most athletes feel college players get the short end of the stick when it comes to being unpaid, so his comments don't surprise me.

 

But I think he's wrong on this one.  The rules state that winners have to be compliant with NCAA rules and if Bush has not been, then I think he should lose the trophy.  Those are the rules and regardless of his actual performance on the field, if he's found guilty of cheating, then he deserves to lose the trophy.  True, an argument can be made that it didn't affect his on-field performance.  I would be inclined to agree with that.  But let's create a different scenario.  Instead of attending USC, what if he had attended a school with less talented athletes?  If he didn't have the opportunity to play on an outstanding team loaded with weapons, would he have still put up the same numbers?

 

I don't know - I always hate saying an athlete or team should lose an award after the fact...especially YEARS after the fact.  Still, I'm not exactly on board with the idea of saying that the rules shouldn't count. 

Inside The Numbers

If you've been anywhere online over the past couple of weeks, you know that stat totals for some players have been out there and readily available through Scout and Rivals.  Both sites have done an amazing job providing quality, and more importantly, free, recaps for each game.  What I hadn't seen (at least without paying a subscription fee) is averages for players through all the games.  With that said, I spent a little bit of time compiling the numbers and figuring out averages for the Pitt players from the information out there (Nerd chants begin in 3...2...).

At any rate, what I quickly found out is that the numbers between the two sites differ.  Even in points.  For example, Rivals lists Gary McGhee with 25 points in his most recent game this past Wednesday, while Scout has him at 24.  So for the sake of argument, I've simply used Scout's numbers while filling in any missing holes with Rivals'.  Take these numbers with an unusually large grain of salt.

Here's what I came up with:

J.J. Richardson - 12.5 ppg / 7.3 rpg

Ashton Gibbs - 20.8 ppg

Dante Taylor - 15.5 ppg / 8.5 rpg

Travon Woodall - 15.3 ppg

Gilbert Brown - 23.8 ppg

Talib Zanna - 12.8 ppg / 9.8 rpg

Cameron Wright - 10.5 ppg

J.J. Moore - 14.0 ppg

Nasir Robinson - 14.8 ppg / 5.8 rpg

Gary McGhee - 19.8 ppg / 8.5 rpg

Lamar Patterson - 15.5

Brad Wanamaker - INCOMPLETE (Could not find stats from all games)

The first thing you notice is that everyone seemingly has been doing well.  Keep in mind that I don't have shooting percentages.  The other thing to remember is that the players were split up among four teams and in some cases, even some of our bench players were the best players on their respective teams.  Thus, they got more shots - far more than some might get in the regular season.

So with that said, let's look at some of the more intriguing stats:

1. Gary McGhee has been an absolute monster.  As I pointed out, though, in an earlier post about Dante Taylor, the frontcourt competition is considerably lesser than that the team will face in Big East play.  Like most, I don't see any way McGhee puts up these numbers in the regular season.  Still, his play has been encouraging.

2. Talib Zanna leads the team in rebounds with nearly ten per game.  To me, one of the underlying story lines will be to see who will step in and get quality minutes out of Zanna and Lamar Patterson.  Both were fairly good recruits and I think it's a lock that at least one of them will come in and contribute this year.

3. Along those same lines, will Nasir Robinson see fewer minutes in the regular season?  Someone's got to lose minutes in the frontcourt if Dante Taylor is to play more and if Zanna/Patterson are to contribute.  I wonder if it might be Nasir since his offense is not all that great.  If Zanna or Patterson can rebound as well, they may get the nod if they can score a little more.  Nasir may still start, but he might lose some minutes.

4. Gil leads the team in scoring.  True, this is due in large part due to a huge 37 point effort he had in the last game.  But even taking out that game and he still averaged about 19.0 points per game.  His shooting hasn't always been great (including a 6-24 effort), but it's encouraging to see his lowest point total so far has been 16.

5. Both rookies appear to be fitting right in.  J.J. Moore and Cameron Wright have stepped right in and been able to score some points.  Again, since we don't have numbers for turnovers, shooting percentage, rebounds, assists, etc. on all the games, you can't make a good determination on how well they've actually played.  But they've at least been able to score against D-1 players and both have had at least one great game in terms of scoring, reaching 20 points.

Lots of interesting stuff and still some more games to play. 

News and Notes

Haven't had a news and notes section in a little while - lots of small tidbits out there recently:

ESPN.com's Brian Bennett has a Top 30 Big East list and he's down to his final two.  Pitt will wind up with five players in the list as the top two will be Dion Lewis and Noel Devine.  Even better, Pitt has three of the top four in the list with Greg Romeus, Jonathan Baldwin, and Lewis.

Along those lines, Bennett lists his top triplets in the Big East and to no surprise, Pitt is #1 with Lewis, Baldwin, and Tino Sunseri.

Top triplets?  Yes, things are officially slow.

Here's an interview with former Pitt player and new Seton Hall coach, Kevin Willard.  Judging by the length of some of these answers, it looks like Willard was either not in the mood to talk or standing on a tee box with driver firmly in hand. 

And speaking of Seton Hall, Willard says in another article that Herb Pope is recovering nicely:

“Herb’s doing great, Herb’s doing great,” Willard said Thursday. “Taking classes, working, getting back because he did miss quite a few classes. He’s really working hard to get back academically what he needs to do and get back on track for graduation. Herb’s doing pretty good.”

Former Pitt great and current Pope mentor, Charles Smith, also comments briefly via text in the article.

And Bob Smizik of the PG notes that the negotiations to move Pitt games to the new radio station The Fan may hinge on coverage of women's basketball.  I can't make this stuff up.