PSR Showdown
What is national reputation of Pitt basketball?
By Bill Dwyre
The Los Angeles Times

Good and Growing

The best ambassador for Pittsburgh's basketball program is a fellow named Ben Howland.

Remember him?

Balding. Jaw set. Patrolling sidelines like a hawk, ready to pounce on any of his players who make a mistake on defense. Offensive mistakes? Yes, whatever. Those are important, too.

Howland, of course, was the man credited with much of Pitt's current basketball image, not to mention a lot of its success. He quickly deflects any of that credit to the current man in charge, Jamie Dixon, who was, by no coincidence, Howland's assistant at Pitt and hand-picked successor when Howland headed west for UCLA.

Dixon has carried on Howland's winning ways, as well as his winning. And that is not lost on fans nationwide. Nor is that image hindered in the least by having Howland at a national collegiate basketball power and eager to talk up Pitt at the drop of a hat.

Every time UCLA is on TV, broadcasters are compelled to recite where this defensive genius came from, and the Pitt legacy gets yet another bump.

And with every bump, the fan who hears it pays more attention to Pitt. If you are a fan in Florida, or North Dakota, or New Mexico-places where Pittsburgh's general image might be Ben Roethlisberger's jersey or a coal mine, and little else-you now stop a little longer to check out last night's score from the Big East.

Now, the general fan doesn't have to look at scores. He can just check the national rankings, expecting that Pitt will be there. It's a cumulative thing, and Howland remains proud of it and tied to it.

Success and great NCAA Tournament results build legacies. Dixon is doing nicely along those lines. Pitt basketball is no stranger on either side of the Rockies, nor either side of the Mason-Dixon Line, and that has been earned nicely in the last decade.

But it also doesn't hurt to have, as one of your best public relations spokesmen, the man who is sitting in the chair once occupied by John Wooden.

Bill Dwyre is a sports columnist for The Los Angeles Times.