It’s a cold but clear day here in Pittsburgh, which is a lot better than when I was here last year and it was cold and snowy and travel was a nightmare. It will be Senior Night at the Palumbo Center at Duquesne, and it should be a far better crowd than SLU’s first trip here four years ago, when there were about 300 people on hand and everyone in the building could hear Frank Cusamano doing the play by play, whether they wanted to or not.

It will be a tough game. SLU still isn’t very consistent on the road and SLU has to control the tempo, something they did in the first meeting. SLU beat Duquesne in overtime earlier this season and would have won in regulation if they’d been able to make free throws. SLU went with a short lineup in that game — Brett Thompson played 0 minutes — and that will likely happen again tonight.

“No question,” SLU coach Rick Majerus said. “Last time we did a good job of getting back defensively and boxing out, defending the three ball. In conjunction with that, we have to score. We’ll probably play small a lot, and we have only four scholarship smalls. … I really have a concern for our depth and its effect. There’s nothing we can do to resolve that, the matchup are such as they are. It’s not a good game for Brett to play. It’s going to be a difficult job ahead.”

At stake today is fifth place in the league. The winner will be alone there for at least a day, until Temple and St. Joe’s play on Thursday. If St. Joe’s were to win that game, you’d have three teams tied for fourth at 9-6, SLU or Duquesne, Temple and St. Joe’s. (FYI: In a three-way tie between SLU, Temple and St. Joe’s, Temple wins.) I’ll cross some of those bridges when I come to them.

Here’s a link to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette story.

As for the St. Bonaventure misadventure, Majerus said there were several problems.

“There were three big issues,” he said. “I overpracticed them. Two, I complicated the game plan. Thirdly, I don’t think Tommie and Barry came with the energy and effort they had been coming with. When they don’t compete at the level they had been competing at, we don’t have the numbers or depth to sustain it.”

I should note that some of Tommie Liddell’s best games have come against Duquesne. As a freshman, he had 12 points, 13 rebounds and eight assists as he just missed having SLU’s first triple-double. (He would have had it had some of his teammates not missed shots he would have gotten assists on.) As a sophomore, he had 28 points and eight rebounds in the first meeting, 14 points and eight rebounds in the second. His only really bad game was a s junior, when he had six points and five rebounds. Earlier this year, he had 13 points, seven rebounds and six assists.

The Pittsburgh airport has both good and bad things about it. The Sunoco station on the airport property is a joy for returning your rental car. No need to hunt around side streets for a place to fill up. (The airport in Portland, Ore., is good for that too.) But the airport is also out in the boonies. I can understand it being out in the country, but it’s way out in the country, and after all these years, development still hasn’t caught up with the airport. Seems to me they could have moved it a few miles closer and it wouldn’t have been a problem.

And for those who have ever been here, the statue of George Washington in the terminal is just too lifelike for my taste. It’s kind of freaky. And, in a Pittsburgh thing, it’s right next to a statue of Franco Harris making the Immaculate Reception.