Big East’s best test the NBA Draft

With the college basketball season still four-plus months away, Pitt basketball may already… With the college basketball season still four-plus months away, Pitt basketball may already have its biggest victories of the 2007-2008 campaign.

Georgetown’s do-it-all forward and Big East Player of the Year Jeff Green is staying in the 2007 NBA Draft.

The Big East schedule expands to 18 games next season, making a showdown (or maybe two) with Georgetown – a Final Four team with lots of talent returning – imminent.

Green’s versatility, unusual quickness and innate passing ability generated plenty of problems for Pitt in each of the three contests between Green’s Hoyas and the Panthers’ last season.

I’ll be honest – Georgetown will still win any games it plays against Pitt this coming year. Mark it down. But Green’s decision at least minimizes the chances of a blowout when the two teams meet this upcoming season.

Monday’s passing deadline for withdrawing from the Draft handed Pitt several other smaller wins as well.

Washington center Spencer Hawes, who is considered one of the top freshmen in the United States after Draft headliners Kevin Durant and Greg Oden, will also stay in the Draft, foregoing his final three years of school in Seattle.

Sure, the decision is a bad one – Hawes’ arms look like putter shafts – but it means the best inside player on Washington’s roster is now 6-7 power forward Jon Brockman. And with Pitt’s current roster absent of any true center – or player over 6’9 – the 6’11 Hawes would have dominated the Panthers.

Brockman, despite his impressive game against Pitt last season, is a more manageable matchup than the lengthy Hawes.

Pitt travels to Washington to face the Huskies in the second game of a home-and-home series. The Panthers won the first meeting, 65-61, in an ugly donnybrook at the Petersen Events Center in February.