2-5-15

Vol. 105 Issue 107

@thepittnews

SGB to provide racks for student publications

Thursday, February 5, 2015

Pittnews.com

Trash picking for a cause: Recyclemania continues at Pitt

Emily Ahlin Staff Writer

The Student Government Board will soon begin racking up student publications at Pitt.

Student publication groups, including The Pittiful News and The Original Magazine, will soon be able to display and distribute their wares on publication racks for the first time, according to Student Government Board President Graeme Meyer. Meyer and former Board member Ben West have been working since last October, Meyer said, to purchase and install publication racks for student publications including The Pit-

Racks

2 Students sorted trash from recyclables on Wednesday afternoon as a part of Recyclemania. Christine Lim | Staff Photographer

Liz Lepro Staff Writer

Remodeling at The ‘O’ page 2

The courtyard between Towers Patio and the William Pitt Union got trashy on Wednesday morning.

Student group Free the Planet, as well as other environmental student groups and campus sustainability leaders, coordinated a “waste audit” between 11:30 a.m. and 12:45 p.m . The

event, organized with the Office of Facilities Management, was a part of RecycleMania, an eight-week period during which 600 colleges and universities around the country compete to generate the least waste and the most recycled items in that period of time.

Last year’s RecycleMania produced 740,460 pounds of recycling at Pitt and 85.6 million pounds of recycling and composting nationwide.

The waste audit was “all about visibility,” student sustainability coordinator Sage Lincoln said.

For the audit, three students donned white hazmat suits and matching canvas gloves to rummage through the trash bags picked up from Towers Lobby, the Union, Posvar Hall and other high-traffic locations around campus, creating

Waste

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February 5, 2015 | The Pitt News | www.pittnews.com FROM PAGE 1

Renovations RACKS at the ‘O’ Dale Shoemaker Assistant News Editor French fries, hold the O — Essie’s Original Hot Dog Shop has temporarily closed for renovations.

The Oakland restaurant, located on the corner of South Bouquet Street and Forbes Avenue, displayed white, circular signs with the words, “Sorry, closed for remodeling” scrawled in yellow and pink marker.

Ladders stood inside and outside while two men moved about inside.

One of the men refused to comment on the renovations.

tiful News, Pitt’s student-run satirical newspaper, and The Original Magazine, a student-run arts and culture magazine.

Meyer is finishing the project alone, he said, and will complete it by the end of February.

The Pittiful News, established in 2009, has distributed its printed publication by hand as a group since late 2011, according to Editor-in-Chief Steven Boyd.

“It’s a fun event because we get to talk to more students and expand our readership in a more personal way, but it is too unprofessional,” Boyd said in an email. “For the amount of work that goes into each issue in pitching, writing, editing and forming layouts, I think our staff could have a way to put up their work that reflects our professionalism.”

The Original Magazine, established in 2006, has distributed its magazine in a similar manner, according to Editorin-Chief Karley Snyder, through events

and tabling in the lobby of Litchfield Towers.

“These methods are not sufficient,” Snyder said in an email. “I just want people to be able to enjoy the publication my staff and I have worked so hard on.”

To pay for the publication racks, Meyer said SGB modified its budget for the one-time fee of $1,486.70 to pay for 10 publication racks to arrive in hightraffic areas around campus, including the William Pitt Union and the Cathedral of Learning.

Because most student publications are not published daily, Meyer said, they will share the publication racks.

“For instance, if a publication is released on Tuesday, they might be told they may leave their publication on the top shelf for three days, and then must remove it for the next publication,” Meyer said in an email. “That being said, this all depends on the publication schedules for each individual publication.”

Student publications can apply for rack space on SGB’s website by visiting the Student Publication Racks page, Meyer said, which is located under both

the Student Services and For Student Groups tabs on the website’s menu.

The SGB chief of staff will review the applications and allocate space to each publication. Meyer said he will appoint a chief of staff next week.

Snyder said The Original Magazine has worked to get publication racks for a long time, and the incoming installation sets off a string of positive events for the magazine.

“With more people reading, we can advertise more, we can promote more, we can throw more events and we can increase magazine contributors,” Snyder said.

The Pittiful News staff doesn’t feel “entitled to [their] own publication racks,” Boyd said, though they’re “a huge step forward.”

“We always just thought this student publication rack project was a gesture from the University saying that it respects the creative work of its undergraduates,” Boyd said. “It’d be a shame for our many on-campus writers, even outside of Pittiful, if something this small doesn’t pass through.”

February 5, 2015 | The Pitt News | www.pittnews.com

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WASTE separate piles: one for recyclable items, one for compostable food and another for waste.

These self-proclaimed “Ghostbusters,” resembling the film characters in their puffy Tyvek onesies, are a part of the Pitt Student Environmental Action Coalition. The Coalition is a conglomeration of five student groups:

February 5, 2015 | The Pitt News | www.pittnews.com Fair Food Cooperative, Global Environmental Brigades, Free the Planet, Students for Sustainability and Take Back the Tap. The Coalition meets Wednesday nights to discuss ways in which it can better educate the student body about environmental issues and make Pitt’s campus a more earth-friendly place.

“It’s great because you can get involved in other peoples’ groups and projects,” Arielle Berk, a Take Back the Tap member, said.

Lincoln has worked diligently to increase the consistency and transparency of recycling facilities on campus.

Along with adding 100 new recycling bins around campus, including in Nordenberg dorm rooms, she travelled dorm-to-dorm, reviewing the recycling and waste resources in an effort to transform the entire University into a single-stream recycling system where glass, paper and plastic can all go into the same bins.

Free the Planet co-Presidents Beth

Pindilli and Claire Matway spent more than an hour plucking old banana peels and damp Pizza Hut boxes from the heap.

In the end, the recyclable pile — comprised of Pepsi and Starbucks cups, plastic bottles, receipts and loose paper — was almost equal in size to the amount of waste.

The reason so many of these items don’t make it to the trash can isn’t limited to students who don’t recycle, according to Pindilli, a sophomore English literature, history and political science major. “[Reducing consumption] is something that isn’t ingrained in our society,” Pindilli said. “There are a lot of little things that could be done that would reduce our waste by a whole lot, but the students don’t know they’re available and they aren’t always easily done.”

Paul Heffernan, president of Students for Sustainability, agreed that many students lack knowledge about recycling and sustainability, making decisions that reduce waste and understanding why those decisions are important.

“Students are 17 or 18 years old by the time they get to college. They should know,” Heffernan, a senior environmental studies major, said.

Heffernan added that the real goal is for “all of the piles to be smaller next year,” highlighting a sentiment expressed by each of the students involved — a focus on limiting consumption should come before choosing whether to recycle or not.

The best advice to be more environmentally conscious is to “Stop producing that much waste in the first place,” Lincoln said.

February 5, 2015 | The Pitt News | www.pittnews.com

Students to have a say in next dean of students Dale Shoemaker Assistant News Editor

The Pitt News Crossword, 2/5/2015

This summer, Pitt students can voice their opinions on a to-be-decided dean of students.

The University’s search to replace former Dean of Students Kathy Humphrey will begin this summer, according to Ken Service, vice chancellor for communications. Chancellor Patrick Gallagher appointed Humphrey as senior vice chancellor for engagement and chief of staff on Jan. 14. In the meantime, Kenyon Bonner has assumed the role of interim vice provost and dean of students after working as director of student life for the past 11 years and associate dean of students for the past seven.

The timing of hiring at universities is cyclical, Service said, aligning with the academic year.

ACROSS 1 Explosive sound 5 Outer __ 10 Not even ajar 14 “Born to Die” singer/songwriter Del Rey 15 Stadium divisions 16 Son of Leah 17 “You’re living in the past,” nowadays 20 Flower celebrated in an annual Ottawa festival 21 Move the boat, in a way 22 Painting option 23 Like a typical farmer’s market 25 “Gotcha!”

26 “You can’t go there,” nowadays 32 Peace Nobelist Sakharov 35 Elijah Blue’s mom 36 __ de coeur: impassioned plea 37 “Gone With the Wind” setting 38 “Whew!”

39 Sit a spell 40 The Pac-12’s Beavers 41 Ego 43 Citrine or amethyst 45 “Nobody can go there,” nowadays 48 A Bobbsey twin 49 Stops 53 Early New Zealand settler 56 “Something __, something ...”

58 Bug 59 “Never heard of you,” nowadays 62 Cinch 63 Sci-fi staple 64 Golf shot 65 Breton, e.g.

66 Band tour stop, perhaps 67 Building additions DOWN 1 Olive Oyl pursuer 2 Eagerly consume 3 One with degrees?

A search committee, which isn’t yet established, will conduct a national search for the new dean, Service said.

Bonner will continue to serve as interim dean of students while the search is underway, according to Service.

Service could not provide details as to how students will provide feedback on the job search, but he said more details will be available closer to the time that the search committee is established.

ICYMI:

Hillman Library was evacuated briefly Wednesday afternoon after a ballast burned out. The evacuation ended 20 minutes later.

For more information, visit pittnews.com

2/19/15

By Robert Fisher

4 Sauce of southern Italy 5 Norm: Abbr.

6 Capital ENE of Custer 7 Prefix with 5Across 8 Intercollegiate sport 9 Lawyer’s letters 10 Moccasin, for one 11 Man around the Haus 12 Layer in the eye 13 Considerable 18 Posthaste 19 Escort 24 “Here,” on Metro maps 25 “__ to Billie Joe” 27 Act the cynic 28 Coming up short 29 Bakery specialist 30 Before, to a bard 31 Scatterbrain 32 On the highest point of 33 Apollo’s creator 34 Pharmacopeia listing 38 Abbreviation on a lunch menu 39 Splendor

Wednesday’s Puzzle Solved

©2015 Tribune Content Agency, LLC

41 Gastropod for a gourmet 42 Geochronological span 43 “¿__ pasa?”

44 Three-time Indy winner Bobby 46 Transported 47 Favored to win 50 “60 Minutes” regular 51 Sri Lankan language

2/19/15

52 What a pedometer counts 53 Catchall file abbr.

54 Archer of “Fatal Attraction” 55 Common face shape 56 Redolence 57 Jiffy __ 60 “Science Friday” radio host Flatow 61 Greek “H”

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EDITORIAL

February 5, 2015 | The Pitt News | www.pittnews.com

OPINIONS

Cal U football making the right call

Western Pennsylvania has a rich football history. In recent months, however, a Pennsylvania Division II program has made the headlines for the wrong reasons. Now, thankfully, it’s implementing measures to discourage criminal activity among athletes.

The California University of Pennsylvania released a report Tuesday announcing reforms to combat the growing number of criminal incidents involving its football players, according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

Three months ago, six Cal U football players were arrested and charged with committing a violent street assault. As a result, the school’s interim President Geraldine Jones told the Post-Gazette that Cal U aims to reevaluate its drugtest policies for athletics, start requiring players to self-report arrests outside the local community and more closely scrutinize high-risk transfers from other programs.

These measures are advantageous to a university trying to hold athletes’ character to high standards. However, Cal U, located in California, Pa., and other programs should outline more specific policies to show that education and character-building should trump football at any school — no matter what division level.

However, we are concerned about Cal U’s decision to make players self-report arrests outside the local community. The plan sounds good, but where are the details about how the

school will actually execute it?

We must remember that college football is not a right, but rather a privilege. It is refreshing to see a university prioritizing character over football. However, perhaps Cal U’s intended reforms do not go far enough.

If athletes have repeated run-ins with the law and do not represent the school in a respectable fashion, then schools should remove them from their respective programs. Playing sports can build character for the athletes involved, but only if the player prioritizes the opportunity to grow over the glory of the game.

Here at Pitt, our athletic programs have displayed a commitment to holding their students accountable for criminal actions. In 2012, basketball coach Jamie Dixon suspended Trey Zeigler for DUI charges. Zeigler later transferred to TCU. Additionally, three Pitt football players were suspended in April 2013 after being charged with possession of drug paraphernalia following an overnight raid on their South Oakland home.

College should be a place in which students learn not only football or academics, but, most importantly, how to be responsible individuals and citizens. Cal U is taking the right step, but let’s hope the university properly enforces its own rules, and other schools join their commitment to character over football.

Cartoon by Fatima Kizilkaya

MCGRATH

Have we gone too far in our treatment of celebrities?

Katie McGrath For The Pitt News

The tabloid business is a strange one. Magazines such as People, US Weekly and Star stay afloat because of celebrities. The writers use their degrees meant for hard-hitting journalism to report on who Kim Kardashian would like to take a selfie with and Kate Winslet’s strategy for losing baby weight.

To a point, I think this reporting is OK. That’s fair game. Pursuing a career in fashion, film or politics, for example, naturally thrusts one into the public eye — it comes with the job.

In 2015, most of modern media is all about creating snack-sized content and clickbait to generate ad revenue, and public figures realize that their lives are often fueling this strategy. And as long as we keep reading them, magazine outlets will keep producing them.

The problem is that many people scrutinize celebrities’ every move once they’re in the public eye. Our culture has such a hunger for useless knowledge — what celebrities ate for breakfast or at which restaurant they were spotted — that

I think we’ve forgotten where to draw the line — or that there even is a line.

Tabloids often post photos of actors, basketball players, designers, etc. pumping gas, grocery shopping or taking out the trash (“Stars!

They’re just like us!”). Depicting celebrities doing normal human activities attempts to take them down from the pedestal upon which we have placed them. But there is no line of discrepancy, and our culture should strive to define one.

When a celebrity goes to rehab, gets a divorce or anything personal, really, we hear about it. We see photos, read tweets and post blogs with nasty captions to attract attention, weighing in on someone we most likely do not know on a personal level, much less know at all. There is a lot of speculation right now that Bruce Jenner is undergoing a transition to become a woman, and whether he is or not, we should leave him alone. If he makes the decision to share his story with the world (making an agreement with the tabloids to generate that clickbait and ad revenue discussed earlier!), then so be it.

But whatever Bruce is going

through, he deserves nothing but respect and privacy — neither of which he is afforded when the entire pop culture landscape has seen photos of him in his car, ducking down, with his windows rolled up, smoking cigarettes with gel tips on his nails.

Celebrities are “Just Like Us!” — except when they are dealing with something private.

This past fall, Amanda Bynes became America’s New Train Wreck, and in November, Star Magazine posted headlines reading “Amanda Bynes’ Psych Ward Diary.”

Stop right there.

How are we okay with this? Why do we consume news about intimate details of a difficult period in her life and hear about how she refused to shower and used a silver compact mirror as a cell phone? When she tweeted that she was homeless, the paparazzi took photos of her sleeping on benches. The paparazzi are part of the problem, yes, but they are driven by the promise of a reward for the most intimate, revealing photo. If these magazines did not put such a bounty on capturing these moments, the paparazzi

McGrath

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February 5, 2015 | The Pitt News | www.pittnews.com FROM PAGE 6

MCGRATH would not flock to them anymore.

Bynes has tweeted that she suffers from bipolar disorder, but she shouldn’t have to do so in the public eye.

A report released by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services in 2012 found that 45.9 million American adults experience mental illness at least once annually. But we don’t publicly make fun of them, unless they’re

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famous, and it drives web traffic.

Bynes isn’t the first celebrity to suffer in the public eye. Britney Spears and Lindsay Lohan have had their dirty laundry aired out in public as well.

The public shaming and bullying must stop.

Bullying people for their mental illness is neither kind nor appropriate. When Robin Williams committed suicide last August, we collectively mourned his loss. We wrote messages ceremoniously on park benches, changed our profile pictures and tweeted movie quotes. We shared emotional stories of crying and how

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we felt like we had lost a friend.

The Robin Williams we knew publicly was very different than the Robin Williams who committed suicide. When his publicist released a statement that Williams suffered from severe depression, we collectively decided that we should raise awareness about mental health and remove the stigma.

But a few months later, when Bynes sought psychiatric treatment, many gossiped about her and shamed her for “going off the deep end,” instead of supporting her. If we are going to talk about helping those with mental illness,

as we did following Robin Williams’ suicide, we can’t leave out celebrities such as Bynes.

I write this article and cite these sources, not to draw more attention to them, but to point out our culture’s flaws and illustrate just how personal some of the reported information is.

We have the power to change our consumption. The magazines publish what they think we want to see, and it is up to us to demand better. Humanity deserves better.

Just be kind to one another.

Write to Katie at kmm214@pitt.edu.

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ARTS and ENTERTAINMENT

‘Jupiter Ascending’: The Wachowskis’ latest epic, indulgent misfire Ian Flanagan Staff Writer “Jupiter Ascending” Directed by: The Wachowskis Starring: Channing Tatum, Mila Kunis, Eddie Redmayne, Sean Bean Rated PG-13 for some violence, sequences of sci-fi action, some suggestive content and partial nudity Grade: D The early-year movie dumping ground just received a new shipment: the overblown and thoroughly generic “Jupiter Ascending.”

The Wachowski siblings — Lana and Andy — still living off of goodwill from the first “Matrix” film, have concocted another ambitious sci-fi epic. They seem to hope that it’s in the vein of the scope and intelligence of their last film “Cloud Atlas,” but the end product has far more in common with the colorful, repetitive folly of “Speed Racer.”

The borderline self-parody sounds about

as corny and contrived on paper as it looks onscreen. Jupiter Jones (Mila Kunis) is a disgruntled caretaker, unaware of her status as royalty — she’s something of a reincarnation of the late queen of Abrasax, a powerful alien dynasty. The family has control over the earth, which is ripe for harvesting the human population for an elixir that grants immortality, but Jupiter’s presence makes Earth’s future uncertain. Titus (Douglas Booth), one of three heirs to the throne, hires out hunter and halfwolf, half-man Caine (Channing Tatum) to bring her to him for marriage so that he can take over Earth. Balem (Eddie Redmayne), the other male heir, has equally nefarious plans of his own.

What sounds like it barely qualifies for a TV movie is pumped with a $175 million dollar budget and taken all too seriously. The Wachowskis’ attempt at an original science fiction universe is admirable, but it comes off as a rip of “Star Wars,” “Star Trek” and damn near everything in between — it’s a melting pot of nerdy, half-baked ideas. While the result is visually impressive, it does not elevate the legitimacy of the project, but only makes it more obvious

how little originality and purpose lies in the film’s lifeless script. The same goes for Michael Giacchino’s score, which blows a blood vessel while straining to be epic.

If only its performances could save “As-

Kunis and Booth get swallowed by ‘Jupiter.’

cending.” Kunis has yet to prove that she can

Jupiter

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ʻEmpireʼ pushes against TVʼs status quo in dynamic, entertaining ways Jack Shelly For The Pitt News “Empire” Wednesdays, 9 p.m. on Fox Four episodes viewed for review

Terrence Howard as Lucious Lyon. TNS

After a brutal fall season of underperforming debuts, Fox finally has a new hit on its hands.

The network’s newest primetime drama “Empire” has been the rare freshman frontrunner of ratings

weekly — it debuted to 9.9 million and later netted 11.36 million in its fourth week. Its breakout success speaks both to hip-hop’s integration into mainstream America and middle America’s fascination with the genre. Not only was “Empire” Fox’s most watched debut in the last three years, but it’s also currently the most streamed show online — a testament to its growing, wordof-mouth popularity. Alongside “Empire,” a handful of network TV’s highest rated programs now feature African-American casts and creators, such as “Blackish” and

“Scandal.”

Created by Lee Daniels, “Empire” is a modern-day retelling of Shakespeare’s play “King Lear,” and revolves around a dying hiphop mogul, Lucious Lyon (Terrence Howard), his three ambitious sons and his recently-paroled, scorned ex-wife Cookie Lyon (Taraji P. Henson), who returns to the family.

Much like King Lear, Lucious has to sort out who gets which pieces of “the empire.”

Described as a “musical drama,”

Empire 10

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February 5, 2015 | The Pitt News | www.pittnews.com FROM PAGE 9

JUPITER

EMPIRE

headline any sort of dramatic material, but her lack of charisma and presence is almost befitting of such schlock. Tatum is fine, and he pulls off his elf ears better than expected, but his emotionless character gives him little room to turn in a strong performance. The only consistent redemptions is Redmayne, clearly aware of the ridiculousness of the laughable space opera surrounding him, whose villainous turn is both menacing and slyly tongue-in-cheek.

“Jupiter Ascending” is, at the very least, watchable trash. Caine’s anti-gravity boots, which he uses to skate through space, are neat but shamelessly overused, being the basis of nearly every action scene. Jupiter Jones falls, enter slo-mo, Caine catches her — the exact sequence is repeated multiple times. Despite one long slog of a midsection and an overly generous runtime, the Wachowskis squeeze every bit of underdeveloped drama, hackneyed romance and unneeded visual bedazzlement they can out of their “original” creation.

As risky as it is terrible, “Jupiter Ascending” makes you wonder how it possibly got made at every turn.

the cast performs sporadic musical numbers produced by Timbaland. But the magic behind “Empire” is not in its music, which is fairly mediocre, or even the cliché-dotted script. It is rather the powerful performances from Howard, Henson and, to a lesser extent, their onscreen children.

Howard is convincing as a streetsmart business mogul who will do practically anything to get his way. He plays a ruthless drug dealer-turned-rapper while his three sons also each deliver solid performances as an Ivy Leagueeducated suit, a gay singer-songwriter in the vein of Frank Ocean and an obnoxious, yet talented, emerging rap star, respectively.

But the breakout character of “Empire” is undoubtedly Henson’s Cookie, who takes the beyond overdone, archetypal “angry black woman” and makes it entirely her own. Henson creates a complex character who is attention-seeking, bitter, intuitive and formidable — often

all in the same scene. The narrative of a mother who gave birth to three children and then spent most of their childhood behind bars adds another intriguing dimension to the storyline.

“Empire” is not just the story of Lucious Lyon and his dysfunctional family — it also mirrors the current hip-hop scene . Lucious’ character is, in many ways, little more than a thinly veiled fictionalization of Russell Simmons or Jay-Z — men who, born to inner city abuse and neglect, hustled every day to break out of the projects and write a new future for themselves. The many unsavory things they did to create a better life — from selling drugs to getting involved in gang-related violence — were perhaps unavoidable in order for them to achieve success.

After decades of crossover appeal and enormous philanthropy, Lucious Lyon’s murky past comes back to haunt him, raising the question of whether anyone can truly escape their past.

“Empire” also raises questions about the future of hip-hop. Lyon’s youngest son, the aspiring rapper, faces the

challenge of writing lyrics that will resonate with hip-hop’s traditionally underprivileged fan base, despite his highly privileged upbringing. As hiphop has found fans among the bourgeois masses, many of its new artists no longer have the same rags-to-riches life stories that were once a cornerstone of rap music. For example, Drake — one of the most successful contemporary rappers — grew up in an affluent suburb of Toronto. Kanye West grew up in a middle-class household in Chicago with his mother, a college professor with her doctorate. As upward mobility and increased social opportunities for African-Americans lifts many of hiphop’s most devoted fans out of poverty, what direction will the music take? How do artists remain connected to the history of rap, hip-hop and urban R&B for decades while remaining authentic to their life experiences?

No matter the answers, the growing popularity of “Empire” speaks to the changing demographics and sensibilities of television as well as music audiences.

February 5, 2015 | The Pitt News | www.pittnews.com

T P N S U D O K U

Today’s difficulty level: Hard Puzzles by Dailysudoku.com

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February 5, 2015 | The Pitt News | www.pittnews.com

SPORTS

BASKETBALL

Panthers begin weekend road trip at NC State

Jeremy Tepper Staff Writer Unsurprisingly, Pitt’s women’s basketball team has had more success in the friendly confines of its home court than when facing foes on the road.

While Pitt only lost one more game at home than its three defeats on the road , the away games saw the Panthers playing their worst this season. Part of that has been a drop in shooting once the team leaves the Petersen Events Center.

To prove their competitiveness among upper-tier teams and compete in postseason

play, the Panthers must show resolve away from home. They’ll travel to face North Carolina State on Thursday and No. 8 Louisville Sunday.

“We have to embrace playing in those environments and playing in front of opposing fans. So much of it is mental,” Pitt head coach Suzie McConnell-Serio said. “Great teams win on the road and that’s what we need to do.”

In their last game away, the Panthers lost to No. 15 Duke, 62-45. In that game, Pitt shot 18-62 from the field and 7-29 from 3-point range.

“Offensively, shooting the ball well has been the biggest detriment for our team [on

the road],” McConnell-Serio said.

Senior guard Brianna Kiesel said acclimating to the rims on the baskets is one of the main adjustments that a player needs to make when playing on the road, which could correlate with the Panthers’ shooting struggles.

Even if the rims aren’t necessarily different, the constant shooting practice at home can typically get a player more accustomed to shooting on home baskets than away ones.

“It’s just getting adjusted to the rims, trying to get adjusted to different courts,” Kiesel said. “Some rims are harder, some rims are softer.”

The hostile and opposing atmosphere also

slightly impacts the team’s performance, according to sophomore guard Chelsea Welch.

“I wouldn’t say the atmosphere is a big part, but it does have some type of effect,” she said.

Perhaps most importantly, Pitt has just happened to play tougher teams on the road.

Of those three losses, one was against Duke, another was against No. 9 Florida State and the other was against James Madison, who received top-25 votes in the most recent AP and USA Today Coaches Poll rankings.

While North Carolina State isn’t quite the

Basketball

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COLUMN

Dust clears between Pitt, PSU after National Signing Day Alex Wise Staff Writer

Another year, another National Signing Day in which Pennsylvania received little national attention. Maybe it’s the media’s way of punishing us non-Ohio State-loving northerners for our crazy notion that life exists outside of football.

Locally, however, the brewing recruiting rivalry between Pitt and Penn State looks to bubble over. Second-year Penn State head coach James Franklin made it a point of pride on Twitter and in press conferences to

“dominate the state” in recruiting. Franklin sought to make State College the only destination in Pennsylvania for top local players, and his recruiting class this year gives a backbone to that pledge. Recruiting often comes down to what angles and weaknesses a rival coach can exploit. One advantage that Penn State has over Pitt is stadium attendance rates, and Franklin could have played that card to get 10 more recruits than Pitt head coach Pat Narduzzi did.

Franklin’s first full class features 25 players, 11 of whom are four-star recruits and 14 recruits who are three-stars. Compare that

to Pitt’s class of 15 players, which includes three four-star recruits, 11 three-stars and a quarterback transfer from Tennessee.

Of Pennsylvania’s top seven recruits, six stayed in-state, and five of those chose Penn State. Baldwin High School’s Sterling Jenkins and Whitehall High School’s Saquon Barkley, a massive offensive tackle and a talented running back respectively, are bound for State College. Both are from Pittsburgh’s South Hills. The only notable western Pennsylvania recruit that Pitt scored is Jordan Whitehead, a highly sought-after cornerback from Monaca, northwest of the city.

2015 Pitt Football Recruiting Class Saleem Brightwell

LB

Anthony McKee

LB

Ben DiNucci

QB

Alex Paulina

OL

Allen Edwards

DL

Nathan Peterman

QB

Darrin Hall

RB

Tony Pilato

OL

Malik Henderson

DB

Jay Stocker

DB

Quadree Henderson

WR

Tre Tipton

WR

Gentry Ivery

WR

Jordan Whitehead

DB

Dane Jackson

DB

Why does Penn State hold such a dominant edge in local recruiting, even in western Pennsylvania?

Analysts and media members will point to Pitt’s coaching instability. In my four years at Pitt, I’ve seen a coach hired and fired in two weeks, a coach bolt before a bowl game without addressing his players and a coach return to the school from which he came after two years. Brand new head coach Pat Narduzzi entered the game late when he joined the program in December,

Column

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Recruits per coach 7 Recruits 8 Recruits

February 5, 2015 | The Pitt News | www.pittnews.com FROM PAGE 12

COLUMN and probably focused on convincing current Pitt commits to stay with the school.

But coaching changes aren’t an acceptable excuse for losing recruiting battles to Penn State, which, as most will remember, is fresh off of the most crippling NCAA sanctions since penalties cut Southern Methodist University’s program in 1987. Over the past three years, players still chose Penn State over Pitt when the sanctions made it so the school couldn’t even promise them a bowl game opportunity. Hell, the school couldn’t promise scholarships to them.

So why can’t Pitt do better?

While I could write a manifesto on why we need a stadium on campus in Oakland, I’d prefer not to start my day angry and bitter, so I’ll avoid that topic. But stadium atmosphere must have something to do with it.

By my calculations (by adding every game’s attendance and dividing the

total by the number of home games — easy), Pitt’s average game attendance this year was 41,315 at Heinz Field, which seats roughly 65,000. Penn State’s average attendance at Beaver Stadium, which holds around 107,000, exceeded 101,000.

I don’t think it’s necessary to have a massive stadium in order to have a great game day atmosphere. Heinz Field can be an insane venue when full — just ask the rest of the NFL’s AFC North division. But, as a big time recruit, why would I want to play in a stadium that leaves close to 40 percent of its seats unfilled and where the majority of students leave immediately following their drunken rendition of a Neil Diamond classic?

This must all add up for some recruits, as evidenced by Altoona High School linebacker Kevin Givens flipping his commitment from the Panthers to the Nittany Lions earlier this week.

James Franklin has set the tone for the future of Pennsylvania college football. It’s up to Pitt to respond.

FROM PAGE 12

BASKETBALL same caliber of those teams, McConnell-Serio, Kiesel and Welch said the Wolfpack is better than their 12-9 and 3-5 ACC record indicates. The secondyear head coach pointed out that North Carolina State team stays close in many games until the end.

Though it lost, North Carolina State fell by seven points to No. 8 Louisville and by only four to No. 13 North Carolina. “[North Carolina State has] a lot of talent, they do a lot of great things defensively, their guards are very quick,” McConnell-Serio said.

North Carolina’s biggest strength may come in its varied, balanced scoring. Six players on the Wolfpack’s roster have scored seven or more points per game, with half of the group scoring in double digits. Those three include guards sophomore Dominique Wilson (14.4), sophomore Miah Spencer (13.0) and senior Len’Nique Brown-Hoskin (10.1).

“They all can shoot and they all can drive.

That’s something that we have to focus on, which is defending multiple aspects,” Welch said.

McConnell-Serio said the Panthers will have to respect the shooting ability of several scorers on their team.

13 “All five starters — any of them can have a great night. I don’t think you can key on one player to shut down NC State,” McConnell-Serio said.

Pitt has also tried to spread its scoring around, making use of these strong shooters.

“It really does help a lot. A lot of teams focus on keying on that one good players, that one shooter, that one driver,” Welch said. “The fact that we have three, four people scoring in double digits, it makes it harder.”

The similarities continue as the Wolfpack also starts a power forward who shoots threes: their sophomore Jennifer Mathurin, who is similar to Pitt’s Monica Wignot.

“They have really balanced scoring, and they have a stretch four just like us. It’s almost like we’re the epitome of the same teams,” Kiesel said.

Though they’re similar, Kiesel knows for certain what it takes for her and her teammates to win on the road.

“We know what we’re good at. We know what’s going to be successful. And we just got to go in and execute our game plan,” she said.

It’s just a matter of being able to translate those strengths on the road to come out successful.

“We’re just trying to keep our energy, we’re trying to stay positive and take the confidence that we have at home on the road,” McConnell-Serio said.