GTOG's March Madness Preview!

By Finesse

It's tournament time so you know what that means! We re-post our obituary on Pitt from 2 years ago!!

You'll recall that the first 3 months of 2011 were some of the most tumultuous times in Pittsburgh sports in the past several decades -- the Steelers lost the Super Bowl, Crosby and Malkin were out for the season, Alex Kovalev came back weighing 320lbs, and #1 seeded Pitt lost in heartbreaking fashion to #8 seed Butler in the second round.  Looking back on how that game unfolded, with missed free throws and then committing an offensive foul with under 2 seconds left on the missed free throw rebound to put Butler on the line in a tie game, the Pitt lost may have been the hardest of all to stomach.

You can read our not-uplifting recap here.

But this is a new year, so it's time to be optimistic again.

Exactly how we want our college basketball coaches to look.

Beano Cook dies at age 81

By Finesse

News broke today that legendary college football everything-but-player Beano Cook died last night.  He was 81.  Never heard of anyone changing the channel when Beano came on.

My personal Twitter account, my father, informed me via email as follows:

Subject: Beano Cook
Body: Died today

GTOG Podcast: Steelers, Roethlisberger, Sandusky, and more

It's a marathon podcast hitting on all the key topics: the Steelers, fatherhood, Bruce Arians, baseball, Dottie Sandusky, the NHL Lockout, drugs, sex, alcohol, Mario Lemieux, Washington sports fans, Artistry's father, and so much more.  It's the GTOG Podcast.

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A new love for B.A.?

The NCAA's Destructiveness and Penn State's Perpetual State of Apology

By Finesse

Last week I laid out reasons why the NCAA should not have punished Penn State football, but it should come as no surprise that an an organization with a lower approval rating than Obama leading a parade of illegal immigrants to the front of the line at a jobs fair in Flagstaff came down harshly.  This was low-hanging fruit for them.  The consequences of a renegade NCAA are here.  

But as a Penn State alumnus, what's more disappointing to me than the punishment is that Penn State seemingly didn't fight it at all. The public stance taken by the university (though there is at least some internal dissent) is this: Say "thoughts and prayers" as often as possible, be in a perpetual state of apology and hope to "heal" by letting people repeatedly punch you in the face.

Maybe I have more faith in society than most, but I think we have the capacity to process multiple things at once.  You can apologize for what happened without apologizing for absolutely everything you are as an institution.  You can be against child abuse at the same time you're for Penn State.  I have nothing to apologize for and neither does anyone else who went to the school, goes to the school, or is connected with the school, as long as they had nothing to do with Sandusky.  President Rodney Erickson should have stood up for the school and made an argument that we can actually distinguish bad actors from bad places.  

Instead, the Penn State administration is continuously caving to the Outrage Police who swoop in, demand apologies, and then say your apologies will never be enough.  So why not circle the wagons with the people who have been with the school all along the way?  I'm not advocating that the school run from its mistakes or only fight to protect football; just stop volunteering to lay down on the tracks in front of the steamroller.  

By signing the Consent Decree without pushing back at all, Erickson didn't just throw the baby out with the bathwater.  He gave the NCAA the launch codes and let them nuke the whole house.

Why the NCAA shouldn't punish Penn State football

By Finesse

In a lot of places, the Freeh Report released Thursday has ignited an arms race for the dramatic: How badly should the NCAA punish Penn State for the Sandusky scandal? The internet is littered with stories advocating "the death penalty" for Penn State football.

But here's how many Penn State football games the NCAA should cancel: Zero. The NCCA needs to ask itself only 3 questions: 1) What are we preventing? 2) Who are we punishing? and 3) Who are we helping? When the answers to those questions are nothing, everyone, and no one, respectively, then the NCAA shouldn’t cancel a single game.

What are we preventing? 

Everyone agrees this should never happen again. But does ending the Penn State football program get us closer to that?

Over the course of 100-plus years of college football across hundreds of schools, nothing like this has ever happened before. So before we decide that everything associated with Penn State and college football generally is broken, consider: Is child abuse and the failure to report it really a systemic problem that’s pervasive in college football programs? This isn’t the Catholic Church with its thousands of incidents across the globe and its celibacy vow that, let’s just say, attracts a certain type of person. This is one sick monster who infected an otherwise pretty good institution led by people who did the wrong thing. If there are institutional problems, then do the hard thing that requires thoughtfulness and effort: change the culture of the institution. Don’t take the easy road and destroy it.

If missing football games is needed as a deterrent to other schools, consider what the president of another university would have to think when presented with reports that someone was molesting children on campus.

President: "Ok, so I have this report of child abuse in front of me, what am I going to do. Hmm. If I don't report it, I'll make myself and my university the subject of ridicule for a generation, get arrested, have the football coach's reputation destroyed, and have this be the only thing anyone ever thinks about me or my school for the rest of time. Nah, not going to report it."  

Adviser: "Yeah, but if you don't report it, you will be ineligible for the Capitol One Bowl."  

President: "CALL 911!!!!!" 

Shutting down Penn State football would absolutely send a strong message, but so would exhuming Paterno's body and decapitating him during halftime of the Super Bowl. And you could end petty theft if you cut off pickpockets' hands. But at this point, other schools don’t need to see Penn State’s program destroyed to get the message that they should report child rape any more than a clown needs to see PeeWee Herman go to jail to get the message that it’s a bad idea to masturbate at the movies. 

Who are we punishing? 

Beyond the students and current players, who have done nothing wrong and deserve to play at the school they wanted to, the State College community would bear the enormous economic burden of cancelled games. Some have argued that the State College community is not "innocent" because it helped deify a football program. But does that really make the guy who owns a hotel in Bellefonte or the guy who rents RVs in State College deserving of punishment? If it does, then the entire country is guilty, including the columnists and their media organizations who have done more deification than anyone.

Sure, the community would survive cancelled games -- after all, it’s just football. But they’d be casualties of a vengeful napalming of a football program all in the name of … what exactly? We could have dropped an atomic bomb on Tokyo but the war was over.

Any punishment the NCAA could dole out would have no impact on the actual people responsible. That cast of characters includes a child rapist in jail for life, a dead guy, three guys under indictment and a redhead with terrible judgment. They're all punished. And if you find out more individuals were responsible, punish them, too. 

Who are we helping? 

When this scandal was unfolding back in November, you couldn't find a channel or website that wasn't screaming at you, "This is about the kids!" So if this whole thing should be about the kids, then we have to consider how punishing the Penn State football program helps the kids.

I’m not going to presume that Sandusky’s victims feel one way or the other about punishing the football program, although some people already have, including Jeremy Schapp, who suggested that Paterno’s statue be replaced with one “dedicated to the boys who were raped by Sandusky.” (Do we really think they want a statue of this?)  But even if we knew how they felt, and whether they were all united in feeling that way, it wouldn’t matter.  We don't live in a country where the victims of crimes get to decide the punishment of the people who harmed them.  If that were the case, your neighborhood thief would have his head on a stake outside King's Landing.  I feel bad for Sandusky's victims and what they went through is terrible.  I don’t pretend to know their pain.  But it doesn’t mean they have jurisdiction over the future of Penn State football.

You could actually do a lot more to help the fight against child abuse by not cancelling any football games. Today, the single best resource in perhaps the entire country to raise awareness of child abuse is the Penn State football program. It has a bigger national platform than any university has ever had. They should use it to do something good. Something proactive, not reactive. Because here’s the truth: the same people who are complaining that the football program is too big are only interested in this case to such an extreme degree because the football program is so big. If the football program goes away, so does the spotlight on helping victims of child abuse. 

So here’s what the NCAA should say in a nutshell: What happened at Penn State is terrible and can never happen again. We’re going to work with Penn State, and all of our schools, to make sure that it doesn’t. But shutting down football there gets us no closer to that end, so we’re going to use this opportunity to do something positive, not something borne out of a thirst for vengeance. 

And maybe we’ll even have some fun watching football along the way.

Joe Paterno Passes Away

By Finesse

Joe Paterno passed away this morning.  He was 85.

Tough times in Happy Valley.

Penn State Reportedly Hires Bill O'Brien; Lavar Arrington Goes Insane

By Finesse

Reports are that Penn State has hired Patriots' offensive coordinator Bill O'Brien as its next head coach.  O'Brien has no head coaching experience and is not from within the Penn State "family."

This has apparently rubbed many Penn State alum the wrong way or, in Lavar Arrington's case, the wrongest way possible.  From his Twitter feed:

Arrington elaborates in Blue White Illustrated:

"I will put my Butkus (Award) in storage. I will put my Alamo Bowl MVP trophy in storage," Arrington said. "Jerseys, anything Penn State, in storage. Wherever Tom Bradley goes, that's the school I will start to put memorabilia up in my home. I'm done. I'm done with Penn State. If they're done with us, I'm done with them."

Former linebacker Brandon Short also went crazy to Blue White Illustrated:

Said former All-American linebacker Brandon Short, "I don't want to be affiliated with the university if they don't choose a Penn State guy because of our standards, our graduation, all the things that have been important... it's no longer Penn State, so we might as well be in the SEC. They are intent on turning it into a booster culture. Ira Lubert went out and purchased a national title with wrestling and he's under the illusion that he can do that in football. Well, ask (Redskins owner) Dan Snyder about that."

"Penn State is a family and it is real and if they choose to get rid of Bradley and not hire a Penn State coach, then they've turned their backs on our entire family."

During the week that the Penn State program was essentially torn to pieces, the majority of the media and public divided into either or both of the following camps: 1) is there a way we can legally kill Joe Paterno?; and 2) ohmygod that 19-year old climbed a street lamp, someone get the National Guard in there and start shooting!

There were very few people who advocated a measured, reasonable response in the face of what looked like, and has proved to be, a terrible situation.  [I did].  One of those people arguing against a rush to judgment of Joe Paterno's legacy was Lavar Arrington.

So much for that.

Obviously, hiring a football coach and reporting child abuse are of wildly different importance, but there is a stunning inconsistency in the way that Arrington, and many other PSU alums, are reacting.  Why bury O'Brien before he's even officially hired?  Why make ridiculous threats to give back your Butkus award when you know nothing about this guy?  Why be so certain that PSU should have hired Tom Bradley, who, sorry to say, may at some point be shown to have had knowledge of some of the stuff that Paterno got canned for knowing?  And who, by the way, didn't show so well during his dry run the last 4 games?

The media rushed to judge Joe Paterno...isn't that exactly what Arrington and Short are doing with O'Brien?

Arrington and Short oppose the hiring of O'Brien under the guise of supporting the Penn State family.  But by publicly destroying the guy and the school before he is even officially announced as the coach is selfish and will turn out to be a self-fulfilling prophecy.  He's stepping into a hard enough situation as it is; for the guys who profess to love Penn State to go out of their way to blast the school and O'Brien makes the situation impossible.

Joe Paterno's tenure was doomed at the end, through no fault of guys like Short and Arrington.  But O'Brien's tenure is doomed from the start, and this time, PSU alums will have no one to blame but themselves.

GTOG Podcast: Pens Lose to Rangers; Was a Certain Star Tentative?

We talk about the Pens' loss to the Rangers, the effects of playing a full season as the favorites, whether a man who owns one suit and has no professional coaching experience is the answer for the Caps, the Steelers' snoozer in K.C, and even the NBA and BCS (but only briefly, we promise).

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On To The Next One: The Swift Takedown of Joe Paterno

By Finesse

Something happened at Penn State these past few days that's going to take a long time to figure out.  But don't worry, there's still time to take a couple more photos of an overturned news van.

Pack up the cameras and the mics.  On to the next one.

[Read my full reaction here: On Penn State, Joe Paterno, and how we react to scandals]

GTOG Podcast: Penn State, Sid’s possible return, and some Steelers reflections

We touch on the Penn State saga, the Letestu trade, Sid's possible return, and some positives and negatives from Steelers-Ravens.


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Pitt Sees Writing on the Wall, Likely Headed to the ACC

By Finesse

Depending on what you're reading, Pitt's move to the ACC is either confirmed or a very very strong rumor.  [Update: Definitely confirmed.]  It's regrettable that the Big East is going in this direction, but if the move goes through, Pitt AD Steve Pederson should be applauded for being proactive.

For a school like Pitt that is competitive in both football and basketball, the current state of the Big East is unacceptable.  The basketball is incredible, but the football is abysmal.  Pitt is situated in an absolute hotbed of football recruits, but why would any of the best ones want to go to Pitt to play against Connecticut, Rutgers, South Florida when they could go to Penn State, Michigan, or The Ohio State Corporation?  ACC football isn't great, but it's better than the Big East.  And the Big East has built itself into a league that has no choice but to shrink -- it can't go poach a Maryland or North Carolina from the ACC because there is simply no room to bring them into an already too-big 16 team basketball conference.  As awesome as Big East basketball has been for the past few years, bringing in Louisville, South Florida, Depaul, etc. may ultimately mean the demise of the conference as we know it.

"I'll still have the best basketball-coach-hair in the ACC, so I don't really care."

It will be unfortunate to watch the Big East dissolve into a true (almost) basketball-only league.  (There is no way that West Virginia football can stay in the Big East without Pitt.  The ACC should welcome the Mountaineers with open arms).  But this is a necessary move for the Panthers.  Pitt, to even the most ardent supporter, is not a driver on the college sports landscape.  It's not Texas or Oklahoma.  Those are the dominoes -- Pitt is just the collateral damage.

So while it will be tough to watch Pitt (and Syracuse, which is also reported to be moving to the ACC) have to pay lip service to the already self-congratulatory "Tobacco Road" contingency, this is a move of necessity.  The train was leaving the station -- kudos to Pederson for hopping on before it was too late.

GTOG's Official 2011 College Football Preview

By Finesse

Conducted with the rhetorical flourish of ESPN's College Game Day, here's a transcript of GTOG's official college football preview.

Generic Host: So GTOG, who do you like this year in college football?

Artistry: Well, you look at Oklahoma and you look at Alabama.  And then obviously you have the Pac-10 and Oregon and then Texas and the Big 12.  Ohio St., obviously.  And Florida with the SEC and Coach Hoke with Michigan.  Obviously there's that and then you have the SEC the best conference.  But Wisconsin and even of course Florida St.  What about you, Finesse?

Finesse: Well, you have the running game obviously with what they do with the football on the offensive side of the football.  But I like the Big 10, though it's more like the Big-12.  HAHAHAHA.  You have South Carolina, of course, and what they're doing.  Boise St. with the blue field and Stanford with the west coast and everything they have going on there.  Then there's the coaches at Arkansas and Notre Dame.  And you know, you have Auburn, Florida and Missouri, too.

Artistry: I agree with you about the running game, but you also have to look at the spread offense.  Of course you have Nebraska and Georgia with their defenses and what they're doing on the defensive lines.  All the stunting.  You look at LSU and then you have to look at Texas too with that program.

Finesse: I disagree. I think you have to look at the coaching situations at Texas A&M and Oklahoma St. and with their secondaries and everything on the defensive side of the football.  I like Oregon and what Coach Saban does at Alabama with the turnaround at Nebraska you could see, too.  But their schedule is tough, though the linebackers and of course the quarterback situation with Virginia Tech and everything that's going on there.

Artistry: On the football field you look at what's happening on the offensive side of the football field and you look at that what with the quarterbacking and the spread offense and I think that's a dangerous combination. I like them, too.

Wake Up With GTOG: You Don't F**k With Joe Paterno

By Finesse

He may be old, he may be frail, and he may constantly get run over by his own players in practice, but Joe Paterno will not tolerate your nonsense.  Word emerged yesterday that Paterno has kicked starting senior running back Stephfon Green off the team, saying “Stephfon had some problems with me, and I think right now, for the benefit of everybody, especially the benefit of the football team, it might be better if he backs away.”

We obviously have no idea what happened, but we will say this: If you're a rising senior tailback who rushed for over 1,000 yards the previous year, and you are slotted in as the unquestioned #1 back after the school's all-time leading rusher (Evan Royster) graduated last year, and you can't find a way to get along with your 84-year old coach, then you should probably be looking in the mirror to find out what went wrong.

Because Joe Paterno won't put up with your nonsense.

Long Live The King.

GTOG's First Annual Heroes and Villains List

By GTOG Staff

During the 14 months of GTOG's existence, we've experienced our share of highs and lows.  We've seen GTOG become the most-visited website in Indonesia because of that country's obsession with Step Up 3-D; we've been called out on Twitter by the NBA player who organizes "Lapdance Tuesday;" we've spent entire mornings bombarding the Twitter accounts of ex-Bachelor contestants, to varying degrees of success; we've been shunned by the most unreadable reality TV blogger on the Internet; and we've recorded podcasts from hospital rooms.  Through it all, we made a list.  We checked it over once, briefly.  And if you're on it, we feel strongly about you, for better or worse.  If you're new to the site, consider this a primer of where our loyalties lie.  Without further adieu, and in no particular order, we bring you GTOG's heroes and villains of Year 1.

Read on for the full list of Heroes and Villains....

Heroes

Bob Pompeani - We've admired the well-coiffed KDKA sports anchor for nearly 30 years. We see a lot of ourselves in him.  So smart.  So steady.  So serviceable.  One day we did a light-hearted post about Pomp, and he took the time to let us know he enjoyed it.  All that talent, and a sense of humor to boot?  That's heroic.

Jamie Dixon - In a world where no blue-chippers stay in school anymore, he doesn't rely on blue-chippers.  In a city where Hurdle, Tomlin, and Bylsma live, he might be the best coach in town.  He rescues strangers from car accidents.  And forget Pitino and Calipari.  Nobody looks more like a basketball coach should look than Jamie Dixon.

Justin Bieber - If you're a fan of things that are excellent, then you probably already love Justin Bieber.  We like to think that we are at least partially responsible for his meteoric rise to stardom because we went to a theater packed with 6 people to take vigorous notes on his movie so we could give you this movie review.

Chris Harrison - No one gets more out of doing less than Chris Harrison.  He may conduct interviews without asking questions and he may get upstaged at his own job by a jeweler, but he brings the one thing GTOG respects the most: Consistency.  Witness the flawless execution:

Harrison's locker room on-set in Fiji.

Rick Malambri - Who is Rick Malambri?  Everything you need to know is in his dancing.  How does he do it?  Well, some people learn to dance.  Others are born to.  Why does he do it?  Because one move can set a whole generation free.  If that doesn't define "hero," we don't know what does.  And if you live in Southeast Asia and do a Google Image search for Rick Malambri, there's a good chance you're going to spend the afternoon reading recaps of Penguin games.

Polarizing figure in Jakarta.

Shawntel Newton - You already know she's attractive.  But did you also know that the former Bachelor contestant known to GTOG as the Comely Embalmer, AKA the Smoking Hot Undertaker, is one of the most down-to-earth Ladies you'll ever encounter?  Let's get #ShawntelYouShouldDateFinesse trending on Twitter.

Stan and Guy - Things that never should have happened: 1) KBL going away; 2) Brett Favre thinking, "nah, she'll never forward this to Deadspin" and 3) Stan and Guy getting at least 10 of their shows cancelled.  In an industry where most hosts are uninformed blowhards, these guys sweat Reasonableness.

Andray Blatche - He's 6'11," plays in the NBA and is the host of "Lapdance Tuesday."  In other words, he's our target demo.  And when we pondered what Ted's Take would be on Blatche going "hard n' the paint," he eloquently responded on Twitter, "why u wanna do all that."  So well put.

Huge fans.

Ames - Imagine if Gullibility had a baby with Naiveté, and the baby was home-schooled before suffering a severe concussion.  That's Ames.  He has an unparalleled depth of knowledge of things women don't care about, and is the inspiration for our newest refrigerator magnet, The Many Faces of Ames.

Clint Hurdle - Because he's a good manager, even if the Pirates haven't won in two weeks.

Paul Martin - Because we defend him.

Sheer Elegance - Because she did what no sane human being should ever do and watched an entire season of the Real Housewives of New York and wrote about it for us.  She's a better Mario-Adjective than we are [see below].

George and Randy! - These guys started reading GTOG before our parents did. We don't know them personally, but we feel like we do.  They're smart, loyal, they get the joke, and you know what?  They're our heroes.

Loyalty.

The Pensblog - Talk about commitment.  If every American applied themselves to the task at hand like these guys cover our Pittsburgh Penguins, we wouldn't be worried about the Chinese.  Consistently creative.  Consistently funny.  And consistently generous to certain upstart bloggers.

Villains

Adam Schefter - One year ago we were anti-Schefty because he played Bob Woodward and cited anonymous sources to report that a guy who everyone knew had blown out his ACL did, in fact, blow out his ACL.  This year, he's checking his email live on SportsCenter and incoherently shouting "Nnamdi Asomugha!"

Nnamdi Asomugha!!!!!!  Nnamdi Asomugha!!!!!

Ted Leonsis - Our position on Ted has been beaten into the ground, but we're flattered that he briefly left the front lines of the War on Hearing to take a shot at GTOG on his blog and on Puck Daddy.  There's only one thing left to say:

Are we sure that isn't Boyd Gordon?

Jaden Smith - When you're born with a golden spoon in your mouth but trade it in for a spoon made out of diamonds, that's inflammatory.  But when you choose to hitch your private luxury helicopter to the coattails of Justin Bieber and insert yourself repeatedly in his movie for no apparent reason, we have to draw the line.

"I can't reach Daddy because his pilot asked him to turn his phone off for the landing."

"That football coach Pitt hired" - If it wasn't for a Ron Cook Poem asking so pointedly, "Really, is it so wrong to give Haywood a chance?" then we would have absolutely no idea what this guy's name was.  He was hired on December 16th, Ron Cook pronounced him a great hire on December 17th, he was arrested for domestic violence on December 31st, and was fired on January 2nd.  He would have been more memorable if he had just lit a turd on fire on the steps of the Cathedral of Learning.

Face of the University.

William Gay - Are you a struggling NFL receiver?  Do you need a chance to unwind and recharge your batteries?  Spend some time on Gay Island.  It's always open, and, unfortunately, so are you.

Reality Steve - Where to begin.  Somehow this blowhard has amassed a huge following among Bachelor Nation.  We attribute this to the fact that he has some source that gives him Bachelor and Bachelorette "spoilers."  Forgive us, but we thought these shows were about the Journey, not the Destination.  Anyway, for a long time, we tried to post links to our recaps in his comments section.  Each time, he removed them.  Then, he solicited applications for guest bloggers to help make his website readable.  We put the past aside and volunteered our services.  He ignored us, and made his website worse as a result.  So we loaded up the flame thrower and napalmed all bridges between us.

Peter King - Ah, the self-indulgent author of Monday Morning Quarterback. First, thanks for all the good reporting you do.  But let's get something straight:  we don't care about what happened to you on your flight from Detroit to Dallas.  We don't care about what you put in your coffee this morning.  And we really don't care what you think about the New Jersey Devils.  But we know a website that may have a column for you to write.

Long Island - You brought out the worst that the NHL has to offer and then threw a nuclear bomb on top of it to give us one of the more unfortunate nights in Penguins' history.  You were apparently upset that 1) your goalie started a fight; 2) your goalie got his face shattered in one punch in said fight; 3) Brent Johnson ran up and down the Jersey Shore yelling, "One Shot, Bro!!!" and 4) the Penguins laughed about it because, well, it was hilarious.  Then you convinced yourselves that YOU were the victim.



Dale Tallon - One summer before it's time for the Penguins to try and extend Jordan Staal and Sidney Crosby, the Florida GM handed the not-prolific Tomas Fleischmann a 4 yr./$18 million contract.  Among other things.  Thanks.

Bentley - You know just how to talk to a Lady in an almost incoherent mumble. But that "narrating the present" technique can only work for so long when all you're offering is a "dot dot dot."  You do realize your daughter Cozy is going to one day be able to access the GTOG Bachelorette Recap archives in the U.S. Library of Congress, right?  Just saying.  [Are we putting Bentley in the Villains section and not the Heroes section so as not to infuriate our substantial female readership?  For you to decide.]

There, there.

Skype - Where were you when we were trying to record that Raw Emotion podcast in June?  We don't forget.

Petr Svoboda - Hello, Petr?  Oh, we're so sorry.  We didn't realize it was already 9 pm.  It's down to Detroit and Pittsburgh, is it Petr?  Oh, Jaromir will make his decision by Wednesday?  Is that a fact?  What's that?  You've lost track of his whereabouts?  Now additional teams with inferior - but right-handed - centers have entered the bidding?  Have you taken leave of your senses?  Petr?  Petr?  He hung up.

All of the Real Housewives of New York - We tried to watch this show. We really did. We thought that maybe, against the odds, we could find some of the Bachelor/Bachelorette magic in another absurd but satire-friendly reality show.  We made it through about 20 minutes of the first episode, we were horrified, and we both blacked out.  Neither of us know what happened, but we're still having night terrors, and and it's hard to talk about. 

ESPN - For making us watch hockey on NBC for at least the next 10 years.  For making poor Scott Burnside broadcast from his grandmother's living room.  For ignoring the Pirates.  For making Buccigross do "vlogumns."  For SportsCenter's free agent FRENZY!  For taking Jay Harris from Pittsburgh, but leaving Alby Oxenreiter behind.  By the way, this is a great read.

Rebecca Black - You had us when you pointed out that yesterday was Thursday.  To-day it is Friday.  Tomorrow is Saturday.  And Sunday comes afterwaaaards.  You lost us when you decided this is Your Moment.  But let's be clear: we'd love to have you on the podcast, and to have you follow us on Twitter. 

Coach Sheshevsky Loses Top Recruit Because Duke Can't Spell

By Finesse

Sometimes, attention to detail matters.  Long ago, an intern at a big company sent out a mass email that was supposed to have an attachment.  Like we've all done, he forgot the attachment.  He sent a second email two minutes later with the file attached, and wrote "Sorry for the incontinence."

Apology accepted?

Anyway, a top basketball recruit from North Carolina has apparently decided to attend UNC over Duke, at least in part because Duke consistently misspelled his name in letters they sent him.  The recruit, P.J. Hairston, complained that Duke routinely called him P.J. Harrison.  Via Fox Sports via some newspaper in North Carolina:

"The thing about Duke was, every time they sent me a letter, they wouldn’t spell my name right,” Hairston said. “They would have ‘T.J. Harrison’ or something like that. And I’m like, ‘OK. How can I go here? You can’t even spell my name right.’ It’s only two letters and HAIR and STON. I’m trying to figure out how that’s so hard.”

The lesson: it's impossible to overestimate people's incontinence.

GTOPG: Cleaning up the skid marks; Pitt Loses 76-74

By Finesse

If you tuned in to ESPN's coverage of Pitt's Big East Tournament opener against UConn this afternoon -- and with the amount of publicity ESPN annually puts behind this thing, you couldn't miss it -- you had the pleasure of experiencing the good and the bad of college basketball.  Unless you are Gary McGhee.  Then, it was just the bad.

For those who watched the game, you can come to your own conclusions about the performance of Pitt's big men today, but at this blog, because we have hearts, we will not completely demolish Mr. McGhee as no one could have expected him to be able to stick with Kemba Walker on UConn's final possession -- one is a top flight NBA prospect, and the other is still having his skid marks cleaned off the MSG floor.

(pic will be replaced when the one of McGhee on floor is available)

We don't want to be reactionary here, as we haven't had the pleasure of watching the majority of Pitt's games this season.  But what stood out today, and what has stood out for most of the Howland/Dixon era, is Pitt's lack of a thoroughbred, top-flight, sure-fire NBA prospect. Yes, Ashton Gibbs went for a career-high 27 points today.  But isn't that the problem...that 27 points is his career high?  More on him later, but you can't help leaving this game with the takeaway that this year just might be more of the same for Pitt - a phenomenal regular season built largely on cliches about being a "team" followed up with post-season disappointment because of the lack of a true stud to make a heroic play when it is called for, whether it's a rebound (wouldn't that have been nice with 18 seconds left?) or a buzzer-beater.  We aren't giving up all hope yet, because Pitt does have the horses to make a long run in this year's relatively weak tournament field.  All we're saying is that we won't be surprised if they don't.

More thoughts on the game and Pitt's NCCA hopes after the jump
- Just the other day, a stranger approached me on the street and asked, "Do you know where I could watch 12 straight hours of masturbatory montages of net-less rims scattered across Manhattan's five boroughs?"  I can only hope he found a TV for today.

- I was prepared to write very complimentary things about Nasir Robinson, but it was his man who got the offensive rebound for UConn with 18 seconds left and if you watch the replay, Robinson could have, and should have, boxed him out.  That's the type of play that this Pitt team absolutely has to make.  Once UConn got that rebound and could run out the clock before taking the last shot, this thing was in the bag.

- Much was made of the terrible officiating, or "non-officiating," at the end of yesterday's Rutgers v. St. John's game and there is no doubt that the refs blew the call.  But what is even more appalling about Big East officials - and remember, we are not a blog that complains about bad calls - is the theatrics with which they officiate the games.  No one is paying to go to MSG to watch a 62-year-old man high-step for 15 feet before dramatically pointing left or right to signal which team the ball went out of bounds off of.  Well, except for Jim Burr, one of the culprits of yesterday's disaster, who fired himself from the rest of the Big East Tournament but nevertheless showed up at today's game.  I wonder if he ordered two sandwiches by pointing both of his thumbs up in the air like the jump-ball signal and then gyrating through a series of embarrassing histrionics.

Didn't have enough flair when not blowing whistle

- Ashton Gibbs is a deadly jump shooter, but the glaring weakness in his game is that he either cannot or will not attack the rim.  He seems reasonably quick on the dribble, although certainly not NBA-level quick, but he never goes all the way to the basket.

- Pitt was outrebounded in this game 27-24, which normally wouldn't be considered a huge margin, but is alarming given that Pitt was something like 2nd in the NCAA in rebounding margin (+11, not looking it up).  Here's my theory: Pitt is well-coached and lives up to the cliches about being hard-working in every game, even the most meaningless ones.  Throughout the season, that translates into rebounding advantages even if your big men are Gary McGhee and Dante Taylor.  But, when you get in a one-and-done scenario against a team with superior athletes that is also highly motivated because of the possibility of being eliminated, it's no surprise that the advantage disappears. 

- Pitt plays below the rim.  So do the Sparxx and the Mystics.

- Here are two text messages I received about the game:

     1) "Gilbert Brown equals turnover every time"
     2) "Gary mghee is the worst thing to ever happen to pittsburgh"

- Finally, this heartbreaking loss will suddenly not be so heartbreaking if Pitt can do the one thing that it hasn't been able to do in a long time: make the Final Four.  In fact, they haven't made the Final Four since 1941, when it was also named the Second Round.  The big question -- Can they?

If you thought that Pitt could make the Final Four before this game, then nothing that happened today should change your mind.  Pitt lost to a very talented team on a neutral floor on a last second shot by one of the best players in the country.  No shame in that.  But if you were skeptical about Pitt before this game, then today reinforces a lot of your concerns.  In no particular order, those concerns might be: bad rebounding in big spots, minimal interior scoring, terrible body language when things start to go wrong, Gilbert Brown's hands, history, the tendency to foul too much, and lack of a true #1 guy who, like Kemba Walker, can create space for himself in the closing seconds.  I know Gibbs is great, but what I don't know is whether he can touch rim.

So it's another unsatisfying exit from the Big East Tournament and, more importantly, another trip to the NCAA Tournament with that familiar feeling of impending disappointment.  We've been burned before, but this time, we are still holding out hope. 

Do it.