Pitt ready for thin air
Salt Lake City isn't the highest point in Utah, but at 4,327 feet, it rises nearly three-quarters of a mile higher than most points in Pittsburgh.
Naturally, Pitt coach Jamie Dixon was asked if the altitude could affect his team Thursday when the Panthers meet Wichita State in the second round of the NCAA tournament West Regional.
Dixon has some experience with basketball played at high altitudes, coaching in the WAC as an assistant at Hawaii and in the Big Sky Conference at Northern Arizona.
"I don't think it's going to be much of a factor," he said. "It's something that gets talked about, but I've seen it on both ends."
Call him 'Baby Jordan'
When Tony Snell was a baby, his mother, Sherika Brown, would put him in a little cart and they would watch basketball on television.
Of special interest: any game in which Michael Jordan played.
Brown also took him to watch games in the neighborhood, and it wasn't too long before older kids were calling him "Baby Jordan."
"I knew he had special gifts," Brown said.
Snell went on to star at Riverside (Calif.) King High and now for the New Mexico Lobos, who have a 29-5 record and won the Mountain West Conference tournament. The Lobos are the No. 3-seeded team in the NCAA West Regional and play Harvard on Thursday in Salt Lake City.
