Thank you, Pitt basketball, for all of the great memories

Dear Jaron Brown, Julius Page and Toree Morris,

Thank you for an amazing four-year run.

In… Dear Jaron Brown, Julius Page and Toree Morris,

Thank you for an amazing four-year run.

In high school, I can remember the headlines of all the newspapers when Pitt basketball player Fred Primus was arrested near Philadelphia. Pitt was put to shame. When I came to Pitt two years later, I came to what I thought was a football school, but thanks in a major part to you three, I can now proudly raise my head come March and say, yes I go to Pitt and am a proud Pitt Panther fan.

As a freshman, I went to the Fitzgerald Field House and watched a young team begin to gel. The moment in time that put Pitt’s basketball program back on the map was a game at Georgetown.

On January 20, 2001, Pitt upended a then-undefeated Georgetown Hoyas team that was thought to be among the top teams in the country. But not only did Pitt land back on the basketball map with this win, at a moment in this game, Page became a household name in Pittsburgh, dunking the ball over 7-footer Ruben Boumtje-Boumtje.

As sports journalists, we only get to go as far as the team we are covering goes. Starting in that magical 2000-01 season, the run to the Big East Conference Championship game began a stretch of media opportunities I was given, thanks to the will of a Pitt basketball team to win.

This year, Pitt played in its fourth consecutive Big East Tournament Championship game. How many student journalists can say they have been to four conference championship games? Not many.

But if that wasn’t enough, you three brought Pitt to three consecutive NCAA Tournaments and three consecutive Sweet 16s. Only four other schools in the nation can say they have been to the past three Sweet 16s, and for a program like Pitt’s to go from jail to three Sweet 16s in just a couple of years is remarkable.

Everyone wanted Pitt to go to the Final Four this year. How sweet it would have been for the seniors who built Pitt’s basketball program back up to go out on top. Unfortunately, things didn’t end the way everyone dreamed they would, but please don’t take away from what they have accomplished.

You have become Pitt’s winningest senior class ever. You have already done more than anyone at Pitt four years ago could have dreamed. You have endured through two coaches, two arenas, lack of fan support, lack of respect, and yet have still prevailed.

The basketball program will move on. Chris Taft, Chevon Troutman and Carl Krauser, just to name a few, will not let this program go downhill, but while they are phenomenal athletes and personalities, Pitt is losing three key components of its heart and soul.

Not many college athletes stay in school for four years anymore. This senior class kept all three of you for your entire eligibility. That is dedication and commitment. This city and school has grown with you. You are a part of Pitt, a part of Pittsburgh and part of our families.

After Pitt beat Villanova this year on Senior Day, standing behind the scenes as he always does was assistant coach Barry Rohrssen. As I sat there trying not to cry during the emotional senior day ceremonies, I looked to my right to see Rohrssen, maybe one of the toughest characters I know, sobbing, with tears rolling down his checks as if he’d lost a loved one. Rohrssen and Pitt hadn’t lost a loved one — they had lost three loved ones.

Thank you Jaron, Julius and Toree. No matter how well Pitt basketball does in the upcoming years, no one will ever match what the three of you guys did for this basketball program and this university.

Brian Goldman is a staff writer for The Pitt News, and to say he is thankful to these seniors for giving him the opportunity to meet amazing people and go amazing places would be an understatement.