Feeling blue without Orange

Dear Mom,

Dad wants me to keep my cell phone minutes down, so I decided to write. Also,… Dear Mom,

Dad wants me to keep my cell phone minutes down, so I decided to write. Also, this might be the easiest way to break the news to you. I won’t be coming home for the Pitt-Syracuse basketball game this year.

I know, this has to come as a complete and utter shock, and I know that we both look forward to this event every single year. I also understand that my being five hours or so away precludes me from coming home very often, but this one isn’t my fault Mom, I swear. At least not completely, but I have a good excuse, so hear me out.

You see, Mom, the Big East has now become the Immense East — 16 teams for basketball, more than anybody else! Two years ago, we pillaged Conference USA of its top-flight basketball programs to try to compensate for the recent losses of Miami, Virginia Tech and Boston College. Sure, we lost three quality football programs and three basketball programs clearly on the rise along the way, but we did get a really cool new logo out of the expansion!

Anyway, since five new schools — Cincinnati, DePaul, Louisville, Marquette and South Florida — officially joined this month, scheduling has gotten all crazy. In the aftermath of this manifest destiny of college basketball, we only play Syracuse once in basketball this year, at the Pete and not the Carrier Dome! That means one less trip home and one less batch of your incredible cookies to take back with me for all of my friends to eat.

Pitt’s basketball schedule, unlike my room here at school (I sent dad pictures, honest!), is a mess. The conference is loaded with talent, and the pre-season top 25 is going to be overflowing with Big East members, creating what we in the biz like to call a “Made-for-TV Conference.” Sounds exhilarating, doesn’t it?

It’s not, Mom. Don’t let them fool you as they once fooled me. I too once was an advocate for this expansion and all of the glamour I thought it would bring to the conference. But look at Pitt’s recently released 2005-2006 Big East schedule and it bears the same level of wretchedness and disappointment as when the dog chewed through the carpet last month.

No trip to Syracuse. No home date with Connecticut. Notre Dame just once, and no Villanova at all. It might ultimately be a good thing that a potentially prospect-less team has a schedule to mirror the expectations for this coming season, but now our rivalries have been tampered with, and that likely will jeopardize our national exposure.

Basically, the conference is one big, fat 16-team blend. Since Pitt only plays 16 conference games each season, the Big East decided to have each team play against 13 other schools — three of them twice — and skip playing the other two altogether. This year, Pitt will play Providence, West Virginia (Pittsnogle, eek!) and Marquette twice, one time home and one time away.

That’s a far cry from the last few years when we doubled up against Connecticut, the 2004 National Champions and quite possibly our most bitter rival of late whom we met in three-straight Big East Championships; Syracuse, the 2003 National Champions and perennial conference powerhouse; and Notre Dame, who, if nothing else, will bring a national audience to complement its annually solid basketball team.

We only get these three strong rivals once this year, which might be nice for a young and inexperienced squad such as ours, but it could hurt us in the long run. Fewer marquee matchups could mean less national exposure, less interest from recruits and less of those free giveaways at games, because who wants to sponsor a middle-of-the-road, our-best-NBA-prospect-in-years-busted-like-a-pinata team?

And what about the casual fans, Mom? The Oakland Zoo has plenty of them, and for some of them, UConn is the only time they brave cardiac hill to venture up to the Pete. Without that game, how do the students make a profit if they can’t scalp that ticket for more than they paid for an entire season ticket package?

I know what you’re thinking, but yes, the online ticket system will work this year. They promised us! (Blank stare as I roll my eyes).

And lastly, what about Villanova, the pre-season conference favorite with a bulk of its players from last season’s Sweet 16 team coming back, which isn’t even on Pitt’s schedule? We don’t even get a shot at them, and that cross-state trip that Brian and I had planned won’t even happen now! Both of us are so disappointed that we may as well have been selected in the second round of the NBA Draft by the Golden State Warriors.

Oh yeah, then there are the players. These guys come to Pitt to play in big games, not to sidestep the top competition. I mean, Pitt already does that with its junior varsity-esque non-conference schedule. Without our top rivalry games, Pitt has no claim to a decent RPI.

Basically, Mom, this has been a roundabout way of explaining to you why I won’t be coming home for our annual get-together. Our rivalries have been destroyed, our team likely has to replace three starters and I will likely have a lot of dirty laundry to do in the winter that I now have to pay for! I’m not sure I like this new Big East. My love to the family and the dog. Tell Dad to stay off my drums.

Love,

Your son

Geoff Dutelle is the sports editor of The Pitt News. Bake him cookies or make change with quarters so he can do his laundry. E-mail him at gmd8@pitt.edu.