West Virginia University president Jim Clements issued a statement Thursday night that criticized the fan behavior during the Pitt-West Virginia game at WVU Coliseum.  Fans threw bottles and T-shirts onto the floor midway through the second half of West Virginia's 70-51 win Wednesday against Pitt. With a little more than five minutes remaining, Pitt associate head coach Tom Herrion was hit near the eye with a coin.  He said increased security measures are being considered to curtail the unruly behavior of fans.

National signing day was yesterday in college football as many of the country’s top recruits decided on which schools they would be attending.  The Pitt Panthers received a number of commitments from student athletes from the WPIAL, including Drew Carswell from Sto-Rox, Aaron Donald from Penn Hills, Brandon Ifill, also from Penn Hills and Todd Thomas from Beaver Falls High School.  Other WPIAL players who made commitments yesterday were linebacker Mike hull from Canon-McMillan who will be heading to Penn State and Kevin Weatherspoon from Clairton who will be heading to Pitt.

Just a few weeks ago, Pitt was sitting at the top of the Big East stats, but now, the Panthers finished the first half of the Big East Conference schedule in a tie for fourth place with a 6-3 record.  After starting the Big East schedule with five consecutive victories the Panthers have dropped three of their past four. Three of the next five Big East games are against top-10 teams. The Panthers are now ranked 22nd in The Associated Press poll and will begin a tough stretch which begins with a game at No. 6 West Virginia Wednesday in Morgantown.

Just a few days after Pitt posted one of its best defensive performances, it had another one of its worst performances of the season.  The Panthers allowed South Florida’s Dominique Jones, the Big East Conference's third-leading scorer, to score 37 points to lead South Florida to a 70-61 victory at the USF Sun Dome yesterday afternoon. Pitt was whistled for a season-high 35 fouls.  Gilbert Brown led Pitt with a career high 24 points while Brad Wannamaker added 14.  It was Pitt's third loss in the past four games.  Pitt senior guard Jermaine Dixon sat out the game yesterday with a sprained right ankle, even though Pitt's top defensive player went through pregame warm-ups and was penciled in as a starter but he ended up as a late scratch.  Pitt is back in action on Wednesday when they take on West Virginia.

The Pitt Panthers are back in action tonight in college basketball taking on St. John’s at the Petersen Events Center at 7 this evening.  The Panthers are coming off 64-61 loss at Seton Hall, which put them on a two-game losing streak for the first time since the 2007-08 season. The Panthers had their 31-game home winning streak snapped last week by Georgetown.  St. John’s on the other hand is coming off 81-71 loss against Villanova. St. John’s has lost six of its past nine after starting the season 9-1.  The Panthers will try to avoid losing their third game in a row, which under Coach Jamie Dixon has lost three consecutive games only twice since he took over in the 2003-04 season.

Pitt strength and conditioning coach Buddy Morris is a strong candidate to take a similar post with the Washington Redskins. He is expected to interview for the position later today down in Washington.  If Morris is hired by the Redskins, it wouldn't be the first time he has worked in the NFL. He was Pitt's strength and conditioning coach before from 1980-90 and then again from 1997 to 2001 before he took a job with the Cleveland Browns. He was hired by coach Dave Wannstedt to return to the Panthers in December 2006.  If he is hired by the Redskins, he would be the third assistant coach to leave the Pitt football team this off-season.

The Pitt Panthers went from an unranked team to being ranked in the top ten in college basketball in just three weeks.  Now, the Panthers have fallen out of the top ten in the more recent college polls released late yesterday afternoon.  Having suffered consecutive losses to Georgetown and Seton Hall, the Panthers fell to No. 17 in the polls. Kentucky is the new number one team with Kansas at number two and Villanova at number three.  West Virginia is now ranked number nine.  Next up for the Panthers is a matchup with St. John’s on Thursday night.

Coming up tonight in high school basketball, in girls’ basketball, Butler will be at home taking on Shaler on WBUT 1050AM beginning at 7:15 with the pre-game show, Seneca Valley will travel to Beaver Falls, the Knoch girls’ will be on the road at Kittanning, Mars will travel down to Hampton, Freeport is also on the road when they travel down to Burrell, the Slippery Rock girls’ will be at home taking on Hickory and the Grove City girls’ will travel to Titusville.  All games are scheduled to begin at 7:30.  The Butler Tornado wrestling team is now ranked seventh in the WPIAL with an overall record of 11-1 after the new standings came out on Sunday.  Nate Cully of Seneca Valley and Cole Baxter are each ranked first in their respective divisions.