Men’s hoops makes soft debut tonight

The Pitt men’s basketball team’s quest to finally advance past the Sweet 16 begins tonight… The Pitt men’s basketball team’s quest to finally advance past the Sweet 16 begins tonight against Houston Baptist in the opening of the 2007-08 season.

The game is the first of three games in three days for the Panthers. The Petersen Events Center is hosting the Hispanic College Fund Challenge Friday through Sunday.

Pitt follows Houston Baptist with North Carolina A’T on Saturday afternoon and Saint Louis on Sunday.

Pitt (No. 22 AP, No. 20 ESPN/USA Today) seeks its 11th straight home opener victory on Friday and looks to do so with a mixture of veterans and newcomers.

“The young guys are the old Panthers again,” coach Jamie Dixon laughed. “We have six very experienced guys and seven new guys.

The squad returns only two definite starters in senior forward Mike Cook and junior point guard Levance Fields, but four other experienced players are expected to make huge impacts.

Shooting guard Ronald Ramon slides into a starting role and fits the title as the team’s best long-range marksman. Junior forward Sam Young should take a leap as well in his first year as a starter.

Tyrell Biggs and Keith Benjamin will contribute off the bench and play many minutes in reserve, but how far the team goes may depend on the freshmen who will see their first real game action tonight.

DeJuan Blair is expected to start his first career college game against Houston Baptist at center despite being slightly undersized for your typical big man.

“It’s every kid’s dream,” Blair said, talking about starting his first regular season game. “I couldn’t ask for anything else.”

If there is a perceived weakness of the Panthers, it is a lack of height. With Aaron Gray and Levon Kendall gone, the two tallest players on the team are junior college transfer Cassin Diggs and freshman Gary McGhee. Blair and Biggs are expected to get most of the minutes at center.

“This year we’re gonna be a lot smaller, but we’ve got a lot of tough guys,” Cook said.

Dixon doesn’t see a problem in starting the 6-foot-7 Blair in the middle.

“We’ve played with Ontario Lett at center. He was smaller than DeJuan,” Dixon said. “We played with Chevy Troutman. He was smaller than DeJuan.”

Blair and the rest of the crew will get much needed experience this weekend to prepare for the tougher part of Pitt’s non-conference schedule. The three teams in town this weekend aren’t exactly the toughest competition, but there is much to be learned from these games.

“We really don’t know too much about these teams right now,” Dixon said. “That’s always [the case] with early season games.”

Houston Baptist is first up for the Panthers, and the Huskies were a late addition to the tournament after a team dropped out. This season is the first for Houston Baptist back at the Division I level.

“They’re a program that has won games in the past,” Dixon said. “They’re small from what I understand and they shoot threes.”

North Carolina A’T has two top-10 programs on its schedule in Tennessee and Washington State, along with Pitt. They finished with a 15-17 overall record last year.

Saint Louis is the real wildcard of the bunch. In April, the Billikens hired former Utah coach and ESPN analyst Rick Majerus as their head coach. Majerus has been to the Final Four with the Utes and brings a fiery and dedicated personality to the Atlantic 10 squad. Saint Louis finished in the middle of the pack of the A-10 last year with an 8-8 conference record.

Pitt isn’t completely healthy going into the weekend tournament, but no players are expected to miss any time. Redshirt freshman Gilbert Brown has an injured right shoulder and true freshman Brad Wanamaker has an ankle issue, but both should be fine.

A primary debate arising from these early season tournaments is the wear and tear the players and coaches both inherit by playing three games in three days. Dixon argues that such tournaments help prepare for the postseason.

“As a coach, you want the two days to prepare, but you know you can’t have that for the Big East tournament,” Dixon said.

“It’s going to be fun,” Cook said.