theWellHungarian: Hi Jerry. I was talking to my buddy Tony yesterday about the possibility of Pitt joining the Big Ten. He thinks they should stay in the Big East. I think he's an idiot. Big Ten hoops is actually pretty decent. They have an agreement with the ACC with the Big 10-ACC Challenge that gets a lot of airtime. As far as football is concerned, Heinz Field, as it stands now, attracts 25,000 unenthused fans to watch the Panthers play. If Pitt joined the Big 10, Heinz Field would sell-out for Michigan, Ohio State, Penn State, Iowa, etc. I think Big East hoops is awesome, but Big 10 basketball is much better than Big East football. What say you?

Jerry Micco: I think you have it pretty down. The Big East is a better, deeper basketball league than the Big Ten, no questions. The opposite is true for football. And while I'm not sure Pitt is the perfect fit for the Big Ten because of TV market, I've got to think if the Big Ten expands, Pitt will be on their list of schools to contact. As much as expansion is being discussed, it may not happen. The Big Ten never said it was definitely expanding. Only taking time to think about it.

theWellHungarian: Am I the only one who doesn't think Kurt Warner is a Hall of Famer? A great guy and a great story, but NO WAY is he a Hall of Famer. He had 2 good seasons in St. Louis (1999 & 2001). He stunk in 2002, lost his job in 2003, was a bust in New York (2004.) He stunk in Arizona his first 2 years, was average in 2007, good in 2008 & 2009. Mind you, he also had the best WR in football to throw to. In my opinion you do not make the Hall of Fame on 1 great year, and 2 good years.

Jerry Micco: I've always wondered about Warner's credentials, but I don't have stats in front of me to see where he stacks up. He's been to a couple Super Bowls and won one, so that says something. And I don't know that you'd find many HOF quarterbacks that had the kind of down cycle you describe in mid-career. John Elway was terrible his first season or two, so was Troy Aikman. But as they went on, they just got better. I'm with you, I'm not ready to put Warner in the Hall either.

Mr_Xiaoqi: Jerry ... I noticed in Ed's chat yesterday he does not think the Steelers will take a NT in the first two rounds. Doesn't it seem like this is a position that needs addressed now due to age?

Jerry Micco: Well, it doesn need to be addressed unless they've decided to franchise Casey Hampton. They have a solid backup in Chris Hoke and frankly, if you can get one more good year out of Hampton, you can probably draft low for a nose tackle this year or high next year. I'd rather see them address needs at corner, safety and linebacker, in that order, rather than go D-line again. Provided Aaron Smith returns and can play a full season, and Ziggy Hood keeps getting better, the D-line should be fine.

Mr_Xiaoqi: Hi Jerry ... Myself & others have noticed that the PBC Blog has appeared to be taken over by a Pro-Nutting faction that feel they have elite knowledge of Pirate baseball. Anyone against Nutting can rarely get posted there now. Doesn't this seem to be a bit biased?

Jerry Micco: We monitor the PBC Blog, but unless comments are in poor taste or vulgar, we generally leave the policing of the blog to the blogees (is that a word?) Maybe several fans of the blog are pro-Nutting, I have no idea. But it's a place for people to post comments, as well as read timely stuff from Dejan Kovacevic and Chuck Finder.

theWellHungarian: Been listening to a few local radio guys and they say that in terms of college athletics, football is the big money maker. I agree that football is probably the biggest money-maker but I have a tough time believing that it is that much bigger than basketball. If it was that much bigger than hoops, wouldn't Pitt have built a state-of-the-art,brand-new football stadium as opposed to a brand-new, state-of-the-art basketball arena?

Jerry Micco: I think they both make money in some cases. Football has fewer games, but you can get more fannies in the seats. For instance, if Pitt has 20 home games a the Pete that's what, 240,000 people? Give them 7 homes games at 40,000 and it's 280,000. Now, they aren't drawing that number, but with games like Cincy and Notre Dame leading the way, they probably drew pretty close.

Add in TV money for football and bowl money, and you've got a big chunk of change. Basketball isn't as expensive to run and certainly makes money at Pitt, but I don't know who brings in more.

Mr_Xiaoqi: What's your thoughts on the timing of Dejan releasing the Lemieux/Burkle interest in the Bucs? A small faction seemed to flip their lids about it, and cry foul.

Jerry Micco: Well, since I'm the editor of the sports section and ultimately reporters work for me, I'd say the timing is what it was (Cowher phrase, kind of). When you get good stories and your sources are reliable, you run the story. I'd not have held that story for any reason except if I thought it was a bogus story, which it obviously was not. Dejan had great sources and the story had a lot of impact with readers and fans. It's what we do: get news to people.

Praveen: At least another Black and Gold won the SB. I thought it was an overall good game even if it lacked huge plays from last year. It was still consistently more interesting without any boring quarters like last year's 3rd quarter. Who cares about ads when the games are good and we tend to see better ads from the same vendors earlier in the year anyway(Example: Bud Light's too little too much ad series was superior to their SB ads).

Jerry Micco: I thought the game was a solid B, and the commercials a B-minus or C-plus. Saints and Colts put on a good show. Both QBs, despite Manning's late pick-6, were terrific. I thought the Colts would win by a TD, but it's hard to pull against the Saints. Means so much to that city and those fans. And it's good to get a fresh team a SB title. Now they'll see how hard it is to repeat.

theWellHungarian: For as much credit as Jamie Dixon has received for his coaching job he has done this year, I still don't think he has gotten enough. I was thinking about it yesterday and Roy Williams at UNC lost his starters from last year just like Coach Dixon, but unlike Coach Dixon, Roy Williams consistently has the best recruiting class in the country and should be better prepared for such a loss. UNC stinks this year. The fact that Coach Jamie Dixon has his boys in the Top 25, is a testament to the type of coach he is.

Jerry Micco: Dixon has done an excellent job this year after losing 2 NBA-drafted players and a terrific point guard. Hard to be dominant again after losing that much. I think what we're seeing now is the real Pitt. Picked for the middle of the pack, they had those nice early wins against Syracuse, Cincinnati and UConn, but have come back a bit recently. But still, it has 7 Big East wins and likely will finish at least .500 in the best conference in the nation. A heck of a job for a team that's rebuilding. And Dixon deserves much credit for that.

Praveen: Time to blend in a young act with the old act, if needed. Any fear of something offensive is moot considering the content of some of the ads the kids end up watching.

Jerry Micco: As for The Who, I thought they started real slow and got a bit better. But overall, I was not impressed. I saw the Stones in Detroit for SBXL and thought they did a much better job. But picking that act is tough. Younger bands probably want more money and older folks like me and others, may not want to see a young band. And I wonder if networks have shied away from that type of act since the, uh, flap, with Janet Jackson. I don't know, get some good college bands out there (Grambling and Southern) and do a halftime show. A football halftime show. As for the commercials, my kids pretty much watch for that. And there's little there to offend them.

Mr_Xiaoqi: I noticed the a PG Poll of about a week ago ended with 92% thinking the Pirates would be better off with someone else at the helm than Nutting. How accurate would you guess a poll like that to be? Seems pretty accurate to me.

Jerry Micco: Polls we do are not scientific, so you can take that for what it's worth. I'm not sure if they'd be better if Mario/Burkle owned them, because of the players they currently have. But if you go on track records recently, I emphasize recently, then you'd say Mario has a better chance than Nutting. But I can remember coming here in March 2004 and going to the last Pens home game. There were 10,000 people there for a game with Washington, and people were thinking that was a great crowd, considering. A lockout, a ping-pong ball falls your way, a salary cap levels the field and boom, you got yourself a Cup contender and winner. Sometimes, ownership is only a small part of the equation.

theWellHungarian: My Olympic Hockey prediction... Gold-USA; Silver-Sweden; Bronze-Russia ... Yours?

Jerry Micco: Gold -- Canada; Silver -- Russia; Bronze -- Sweden or USA. I think Team Canada will play Russia in one for the ages for the gold. Team USA is young and not very experienced, but will make a good showing. Watch for the Czech Republic, too.

Mr_Xiaoqi: In your esteemed opinion, what circumstances do you think it would take for Bob Nutting to finally sell the Pirates? Let me know so I can start praying for it!

Jerry Micco: He'd have to get a tremendous offer far above what the team is worth. Again, he's making money with the worst franchise in baseball as far as win-loss record over the last 17 years. He never has to spend much money and he takes in a bunch. We've reported what they make, it's not a mountain of money, but it's a nice chunk. So why sell something that makes you money for minimal investment?

Praveen: Interesting how well the Saints defense has played this year(in terms of getting turnovers) despite the lack of hyped defensive players Gregg Williams has done a great job with the talent he has. Larry Coyer did a pretty good job too despite the injuries his unit faced all year. Not great stats, but clutch play in terms of turnovers or 4th quarter shutdown for most of the year. Would one of them be your Defensive Coordinator of the year?

Jerry Micco: I think I'd give the nod to Coyer because the Colts have battled through some key injuries all year and played excellent defense. Losing Sanders for most of the year, going down a couple corners during the playoffs and then having Freeney at probably 75 percent for the SB, and they still played very well. Nothing against the Saints defense, but they gave up a lot of points on some occasions. The Colts made it to the SB on defense as much as offense, I thought.

Praveen: I live in Atlanta. It's amusing to see that the Pirates are so bad that they have become the team to use, not the Clippers, when fans want to complain about their ownership. I have seen many references to the Pirates when fans vented after the Kovulchuck trade.

Jerry Micco: When you lose for 17 seasons in a row, you're going to get that type of negative publicity. You can expect nothing different until you show you can turn things around. And while I think they will be maybe 8-10 wins better this year, that only gets them to 70-72 wins. And 18 consecutive losing seasons.

Praveen: Malkin was good Sunday against the Caps, but he needed to be "malkin" for the Pens to win that game. Crosby is pretty much carrying the team now. Except Dupuis and Guerin, a lot of the wingers are underachieving, including the 4th liners. I guess the pressure will be on Kunitz considering he is the highest paid winger.

Jerry Micco: I don't know, didn't Malkin have a couple terrific assists and play very good defense in that game? As many of you know I'm a Malkin fan, and I think he's played very well over the past couple of weeks, becoming more involved in the offense. But certainly, you can ask more of him because there's more there to give. As for the scoring, I don't think that's their problem. I'm seeing a goalie who is leaky, and maybe his finger is bothering him, and a defense that gets pushed around except for Orpik.

Mr_Xiaoqi: I applaud (standing up) the PG for posting the editorial that it is time for Nutting to sell the team. Some Pro-Nutters felt it was a cheap shot because it wasn't signed. Isn't this standard procedure for an editorial?

Jerry Micco: Editorials that run on our Opinion page are never signed. They are the opinion of the newspaper, the Publisher and Editorial Board.

Mr_Xiaoqi: Do you get any feel as to what free agents of their own the Steelers want to sign at this point?

Jerry Micco: The person I hear the most about is Jeff Reed. I'd think they'd want to keep a kicker who has been very consistent, despite a couple off-field problems. Other than that, and probably keeping an eye on restricted free agent Willie Colon, I don't think the Steelers will keep anyone else. And they'll likely franchise Hampton.

theWellHungarian: Is Geno gonna turn it around or what this year? I know he's been picking it up of late, but I expect a little more ... I think he's hurt. He's not taking shots & burying pucks like he has done the past 3 years ... Thoughts?

Jerry Micco: See my answer above. He's on pace to score around 100 points and leads the team in assists, which is great for most guys, but average for Geno. He's not having his best offensive year, but I think he's still passing the puck extremely well and his defense has been very good. Also, no one gets the building buzzing like Geno racing up the ice. He's still the most interesting guy on the ice to me when he's there. If he had Ilya Kovalchuk as a winger, I think you'd see better numbers, but you have to score with what you have, right?

theWellHungarian: Will the running game ever return to the NFL and be a vital part of the offense?

Jerry Micco: I think teams with great sustained success have to run the ball some. At least enough to balance the offense a bit. At some point, NFL defenses are going to go into all-pass mode and start to shut down parts of the passing game. But for the foreseeable future, colleges are producing passing offense types of players. Big WRs who can run; shotgun QBs; pass-blocking linemen. All of it set for a quick-strike offense. But someone will figure out a way to stop it and then it'll tilt back a bit toward running the ball.

Mr_Xiaoqi: In regards to your prior answer about the PBC Blog - Is it being monitored by "blog-ees"? Or by someone that Dejan or the PG has brought in to keep an eye on it. Again - It's become very biased favoring Bob Nutting. I don't know that it is representing the majority of Pirate fans.

Jerry Micco: Reporters monitor the blog, but as far as posts, anyone can post there. If the majority of the posters are pro-Nutting it is what it is. It's not there for balanced comment. A blog in and of itself has some opinion and fact blended in. So if fans are anti-Nutting, they can feel free to post there. We don't take down someone's opinion unless it's pretty far out of bounds. Have you posted on the blog? I'm curious.

KS_Steeler: Before I write this; I am not Kurt Warner's mom, but to not put him in the HOF would be a joke; he qb'd two teams that have been historically bad and went too 3 Super Bowls, won one. I don't know if it is still true, but before SB 44, he had the 3 highest SB QB ratings. He had some down years, mostly because of injury, but to not put him in the HOF would be a grave injustice.

Jerry Micco: As I said before, and I stand corrected, he did make 3 SBs, I think he's borderline for me, but most other NFL people I hear say he's in on the first ballot. I don't know, injuries or not, he had some tough years. And while his passer rating might be high, I just never equate him with Marino, Montana, Favre, Aikman, Kelly, etc. Maybe because he played indoors when he made SBs and maybe because his offenses were pass-first, but I'm not sold on him.

Praveen: One of the better officiated games this playoffs? The refs let the players play. No ticky tacky calls like a possible block in the back on the Saints after the Peyton INT since Peyton was out of the way anyway. Even the 2 point conversion seemed to be handled well by the refs.

Jerry Micco: I thought the game was well officiated. And the teams played pretty clean ball, so there were few calls that needed to be made. I can't think of any controversies, either.

Grumper: Kudos to your reporters who had to travel through the snow. I think people might take all that for granted.

Jerry Micco: Well, thank you for that. Shelly Anderson and Colin Dunlap were in DC this weekend and made it home, thankfully. We have some very good reporters and people who are dedicated to their profession. They know people look for their stories, blogs, etc., and they will do everything to deliver. We're just really glad people are reading and commenting. Getting information to readers is our main goal, and our reporting staff does it as well as any in the country.

Mr_Xiaoqi: Jerry - I've posted on the PBC Blog, but it doesn't always make it up there. In recent weeks, they have filtered out many comments that question the current ownership. I know vulgarity, etc. is out of bounds. But I don't think they should limit comments on negative points regarding the ownership. Obviously, it's a pretty high percentile that feel Nutting needs to go.

Jerry Micco: How do you know they've been filtered out if you never see them? No, we don't do that. I assure you that I've seen hundreds of posts there over the last season alone that were not pro ownership. If your posts are not making it, you should contact our Web staff to ask why. Perhaps it's a technical problem. But rest assured we would never purposely skew comments in a certain direction. What good would that do? Maybe in the microcosm of that blog, most of the fans are pro-Nutting. I have no idea.

Mr_Xiaoqi: Thanks so much for your time on this by the way!

Jerry Micco: I try to answer what I can.

theWellHungarian: I started gambling again because there is nothing else to do in this weather ... Who do you like in these games tonight (disclaimer: for entertainment purposes only): 'Cuse-UConn, Duke-UNC, Pens-Islanders, Nevada-Idaho? The Nevada-Idaho game is the 11:00pm ESPN2 game

Jerry Micco: If you are using my acumen to predict games, you need to go to Gamblers' Anonymous. I'm terrible at that. That said, 'Cuse, UNC, Pens and I have no idea on the latter.

Jerry Micco: Oh, check that, make it Duke.

Mr_Xiaoqi: Who should the Pens fear more - Washington or NJ?

Jerry Micco: They have a tough time with both. I'm thinking if the defense and goaltending holds up, they can beat Washington, who I don't think can win the Cup with Jose Theodore. New Jersey, because of Brodeur and now Kovalchuk, scares me.

Praveen: I think the reason why you probably see many pro_nutting opinions is the ones that can't stand his ownership do not care to spend much energy replying to the comments . I take part in a lot of the forums in PG Plus and the free site. But I have posted very rarely on the PBC Blog.

Jerry Micco: As I said before, it's not a scientific poll, nor should blogs be used for such things. I'm sure a lot of folks do not agree with Pirates ownership, but I can remember a couple years ago when a fan walkout failed miserably. People like going to games despite the ownership.

theWellHungarian: If Bryce Harper is available and the Buccos do not draft him. My MLB fanhood is going to either the Cubs or the Tigers.

Jerry Micco: You know, if they don't, but they take a guy in the top 4, then I can handle that. Harper is well hyped, but who knows if he'll be the real deal. But if you can take a top corner outfielder or stud starting pitcher, preferably from college, you can get him with the No. 2 pick. You don't absolutely need to take Harper.

Jerry Micco: Well folks, I need to run back to work. Thanks so much for being here today and for all of your questions. You make the week go by much faster! Have a great weekend and I'll see you next Wednesday at noon.

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