Rohrssen keeps Pitt’s NYC pipeline flowing

Believe me, I am the last person that you need to remind that football season has arrived. I… Believe me, I am the last person that you need to remind that football season has arrived. I even cheered on the illustrious Michael Irvin in a SportsCenter debate with Stephen A. Smith over which is better, the Olympics or pre-season football. There are few things I would rather do than waste a Sunday afternoon on my couch watching my Bills falter in new and unprecedented fashions year after year.

Alright, I need to get out more.

Anyway, there was a rumbling in Oakland late last spring in the Pitt men’s basketball program, a rumbling that may have flown under the radar with pre-season Steeler hysteria and the now-dead quarterback controversy surrounding Panther football grabbing all Steel City headlines.

Pitt’s men’s basketball team, which enjoyed three consecutive Sweet-16 appearances, retained one of the parts of the program that has given it so much recent success. Ladies and gentlemen, meet Barry Rohrssen, the program’s top recruiter and inside-New-York-City connection, whom Pitt re-signed onto its staff as new associate head coach.

I know what a lot of you are thinking: Barry who?

Rohrssen, a graduate of Bronx public school Xavieran High School (the same school that current Pitt standout Chris Taft came from), has all but taken the New York City talent Pitt has amassed over the past few years, put it in his car, and driven it across the George Washington Bridge over to Pitt. His New York City background has enticed Taft and point guard Carl Krauser, among others, to leave the Big Apple in hopes of taking the Panthers to the top of the Big East.

With this year’s freshman class, Pitt now has five players on its current roster from the New York City area. Taft, Krauser, red shirt freshman Dante Milligan, forward Mark McCarroll and current freshman Ronald Ramon are all New York City products on the Panther roster. Several of these players have cited Rohrssen as a major reason for coming to Pitt.

We all remember Pitt basketball — or maybe some of us are still trying to forget it — before the program started to get such quality players. It was about as much of a laughingstock as last year’s St. John’s squad. With Rohrssen bringing in these players year after year, Pitt is basically fielding the teams that St. John’s should be having.

St. John’s, at the expense of losing its local recruits to Pitt in particular, has imploded, to say the least, over the past few years. This is the same program that won the Big East in 2000 and went on to make a run in the NCAA Tournament. Since Rohrssen has been diligently plucking the Red Storm’s local recruits out of the Bronx and installing them in Pitt’s rugged, grind-it-out system, the scale has started to tilt in Pitt’s favor.

Now, St. John’s fans can see the local players who got away roam the court while Pitt claws through the Big East Tournament year after year. This is a party the Red Storm wasn’t invited to last year — a party that is in their own house.

Luckily, Rohrssen didn’t take up St. Johns’ proposal to join its staff last spring, opting instead to stay at Pitt to try to elevate the program to the next level. And with each incoming class stronger than the last, (and this year’s class is no exception) that is a very attainable goal.

Who knows; maybe one of this year’s recruits can shoot from outside of the paint.

So, while this football season unravels and eventually fades into basketball season, and you gaze at the Pete’s scoreboard wondering how Pitt has managed to get so good so quickly, glance toward the Panther bench for Rohrssen and hope that the next trick he has up his sleeve can bring Pitt past the Sweet 16.

Geoff Dutelle is a staff writer for The Pitt News and while he waits for basketball season to roll around, he’ll be praying the Bills reach the playoffs.