Panther Rants 2011 Blue-Gold Game Diary

Another exciting year of Spring Drills were upon us. Out goes the Power Football......In comes High Octane. While I don't have the liberty of 'tweeting' or 'live blogging', I kept a running diary with my thoughts and analysis. Here goes.......

1:00pm - Getting ready for the spring game. Yes it's 1pm. It's 1pm Central time. That's what's great about living here. Everything starts an hour early.

1:05pm - Outside enjoying the nice weather with my son. We're bike riding. It's 85 degrees here....you really think I would be inside watching a glorified practice?

1:30pm- Nicki Minaj is playing in Houston tonight and I can tell. Almost every girl I see....even a grown ass woman....has their hair like Nicki Minaj in some way. Houston's local hip hop station had a Nicki Minaj lookalike contest. The majority of the contestants I swear I've seen at Walmart.

1:40pm - A woman with a hot pink wig on....eating pork skins...and drinking a red soda walks by. We exchange hellos and tells me how cute my son is. She's heading to see Nicki tonight. If this was the Burgh, she'd probably ask me what the fuck am I looking at.

2:10pm - We decided to go in and cool off. I get to watch the same episode of Mickey Mouse Clubhouse for the 1000th time.

2:30pm - I got the characters figured out:

Mickey Mouse - He represents domestic abuse. He beats the shit out of Minnie and they both act as if everything is okay so no one questions it. Eventually one of them is going to be found on a hillside.

Minnie Mouse - Represents 'Pharming' and 'Free Basing'. To deal with Mickey, she needs an outlet. Which is why she probably has a big cabinet full of prescription drugs.

Donald Duck - Represents Alcoholism. He's dressed as a sailor for fuck's sake. He's the old married dude who hangs at the bar and tries to cock-block every guy from getting the hot chick that even he can't bang.

Daisy Duck - Represents Infidelity. While Donald's out getting juiced, she's out getting banged. She's probably a swinger too.

Goofy - Represents Rehab and Relapse. Don't invite him over to hang out, some of your belongings may come up missing.

Pluto - Represnts Dog-fighting. Don't fuck with him. Don't let your kid pet him. He's not friendly.

3:00pm - Son's asleep and I'm checking the boards. They're saying over 1,000 in attendance. Guess that will be blamed on Steve. Tino's having a good day passing so every Pitt poster with WPIAL ties are jerking themselves off.

3:10pm - Everyone is happy with the offense performing well on a rainy day, but the defense is getting ripped.

3:30pm - If Pitt gave me press credentials, I'd either show up drunk or sell them to a homeless guy for his bottle of Gin.

JJ Richardson 2010-2011 John DeGroat Award Winner

Panther Rants is happy to announce the 2010-2011 John Degroat Award. This year, the award goes to seldomly-used JJ Richardson. JJ is transferring out of Pitt. Not to pick on him, but we wish him well. He didn't do bad when he was called to go in. Maybe if Dante Taylor doesn't have the McDonalds AA tag slapped on him, JJ stays and Dante's the one being sent to Towson with his paperwork.

You know Dante has shown some flashes he's Mickie D's AA that Pitt recruited. Other times, he looks like he's eaten at Mickie D's. If he doesn't get his act together, he'll receive the 'Gilbert Brown' Award. The award will go the player who takes 4 years to get his shit together.

Who will winThe John Degroat Award?

The John Degroat Award was originally awarded to the seldom-used JUCO player on the basketball team. Every other year, Jamie would recruit a JUCO player....and well..he would never play them. Here's a look at our previous winners:

2006-2007 - Doyle Hudson

Doyle was recruited by Jamie because he saw him play against Levon Kendall in some league in the offseason and Jamie liked how Doyle played against him. You know Levon was that guy who scored 50 points in some Canadian national game. Doyle didn't see much playing time in his two years.

2007-2008 - Cassin Diggs

Cassin was cut when the season ended to make room for Jermaine Dixon. That's really about it.

2008-2009 - Austin Wallace

Here's where the Degroat Award changes. We didn't have any Juco's that flamed out that year...so we had to give it to someone.

2009-2010 - Dwight Miller

Dwight just never panned out. People liked him when he would play at Greentree, but Greentree is nothing but a glorified AND-1 tournament.

Candidates for 2010-2011 are: JJ Richardson, Isaiah Epps, Lamar Patterson, Dante Taylor, Cameron Wright, and Talib Zanna.

So who will win?

The Mike Gansey Award

Every year at Pantherrants, we have the prestigious "Mike Gansey Award". Okay, we don't give it out every year. For some reason every time Pitt has gone against a team with white players, the white players have the games of their lives. Maybe it's because Pitt players took them too lightly. It's like watching a boxing match and being the only person to bet on the white guy...and win. Let's look at the previous winners:

2007-2008 - Drew Neitzel: I think Ronald Ramon is still chasing him around the court.

2008-2009 - Alex Ruoff: Killed Pitt in the Big East Tournament

2009-2010 - The white players on the Notre Dame team.

And the 2010-2011 winner......is........

It's a tie between The white players on the Notre Dame team and Matt Howard. I honestly thought it would be Jimmy Fredette as I had nightmares of Gary McGhee guarding him.

Notre Dame wins for obvious reasons. They exposed our weaknesses which is taking advantage of our center who tends to have the hand-eye coordination of a drunk driver at times and our passive aggressive defense on the perimeter. In football terms, it's like having Brian Bennett cover Larry Fitzgerald.

Matt Howard wins for obvious reasons. I don't hate Matt Howard. I don't fault him for flopping. If he can't get away with it by drawing fouls, more power to him. It was fun to witness the refs put their whistles away in Houston.