2-17-15

@thepittnews

Vol. 105Issue 115

Tuesday, February 17, 2015Pittnews.com

Pitt has been ranked as the 29th best public university in the United States, according to a study released Thursday by American City Business Journals.

The ACBJ pulled raw data from the National Center for Education Statis-tics and the five-year version of the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2013 American Com-munity Survey to assess 484 four-year public colleges.

The study measured Pitt and the 483 other schools on 19 accounts includ-ing graduation rate, gender and racial diversity, unemployment rate of gradu-ates and quality-affordability ratio. Ac-cording the study’s methods, the high-est marks went to schools with “highly selective admissions processes, strong retention and graduation rates, presti-gious reputations, affordable tuitions and housing costs, diverse faculties and student bodies, and economically robust communities.”

On a scale of one to five stars, Pitt

Pitt ranked among

top public universities

Dale Shoemaker Assistant News Editor

Rankings 3

A squirrel braves the cold to munch on an acorn on the Cathedral lawn. Nicole Gye | Staff Photographer

SQUIRREL CHILL

ARTART

If public art in Pittsburgh had a Face-book page, it would be in a “compli-cated relationship” with the city — a relationship worthy of a dramatic soap

opera script. Last Thursday, the city and the Public

Art division of the Department of City Planning sat down to talk. This formal meeting was a post-agenda — called by Councilman Corey O’Connor — that served as an opportunity for the City

Council and the general public to hear from experts in a particular field. The is-sue at hand was “the percent for art law,” formally known as the Ornamentation for Municipal Projects Law instituted by

Local artists vow to revamp city public art lawsGrace Kelly Staff Writer

Public Art 7

2 February 17, 2015 | The Pitt News | www.pittnews.com

T P NS U DO K U

Today’s di! culty level: Very HardPuzzles by Dailysudoku.com

LOS ANGELES — The current crop of college freshmen showed up at school as less-experienced party animals than their older peers, but with more mental health and emotional issues, according to a national survey by the University of California, Los Angeles researchers.

At the same time, the new college students — who entered their teens when many of their parents grappled with the recession’s economic fallout — are more concerned about financial success and aspire to attend graduate schools to enhance their career pros-pects, the annual American Freshman study found.

The survey suggests that the incom-ing freshmen “were buckling down pri-or to college and taking their academ-ics more seriously,” said Kevin Eagan, interim managing director of UCLA’s Higher Education Research Institute,

which has administered the poll for 49 years.

However, it remains unclear whether these students will prove on average to be a tame group, Eagan said. In fact, he said their relative abstinence during high school may mean they could be more tempted to binge drink and get into other trouble as social newbies away from the constraints of home.

That risk, along with reportedly higher levels of depression and other emotional problems, will challenge colleges to provide enough counseling support and substance abuse educa-tion, he said.

Nearly 11 percent of respondents said they spent six hours or more a week at parties during their senior year of high school, down from 23 percent a decade ago, the survey found. Addition-ally, 61 percent reported that they spent only an hour or less a week at parties, up from 39 percent 10 years ago.

Along the same lines, those who said

they occasionally or frequently drank beer dropped to 33.5 percent, compared with 45.5 percent a decade before and 69 percent in 1984. Just 39 percent of current freshmen said they drank wine or hard liquor in the last year, compared with about 52 percent 10 years ago and 68 percent in 1987, when the poll ad-dressed the issue.

Colleges around the country are struggling to meet higher demands for psychological and crisis counseling, heightened by fears that their campuses could face incidents of violence and suicide.

The survey, which was taken by 153,000 students mainly during last summer’s orientations at 227 four-year colleges, bolstered those concerns. Nearly 12 percent of the freshmen rat-ed their mental health as worse than most others their age; that compared with roughly 7 percent about a decade ago and 3.5 percent in 1985, when the question was first asked. In addition,

9.5 percent said they frequently felt depressed, up from the 6 percent low point recorded in 2009.

“This is signaling that students are bringing with them some emotional struggles, some mental health issues” and those issues could make it harder for students to stay in school and earn a college degree, said Eagan, who is an as-sistant professor of education at UCLA.

Yet whatever problems the freshmen have, a lack of ambition is not one of them. A record 82 percent said that it was very important or essential that they become well-off financially, com-pared with nearly 77 percent in 2008 before the recession hit and almost double what it was 40 years ago dur-ing the countercultural era.

Similarly, the share of students en-tering college with plans to eventually earn a master’s degree increased to about 44 percent, also a record and

Survey fi nds college freshmen party less, worry moreLarry Gordon

Tribune News Service

Party 3

3February 17, 2015 | The Pitt News | www.pittnews.com

E S T A B L I S H E D 1 9 1 0

Editorial PoliciesSingle copies of The Pitt News are free and available at newsstands around

campus. Additional copies can be purchased with permission of the editor in chief for $.50 each.

Opinions expressed herein are not necessarily those of the students, faculty or University administration. Opinions expressed in columns, car-toons and letters are not necessarily those of The Pitt News. Any letter in-tended for publication must be addressed to the editor, be no more than 250 words and include the writer’s name, phone number and University a!liation, if any. Letters may be sent via e-mail to [email protected]. The Pitt News reserves the right to edit any and all letters. In the event of multiple replies to an issue, The Pitt News may print one letter that represents the majority of responses. Unsigned editorials are a majority opinion of the Editorial Board, listed to the left.

The Pitt News is an independent, student-written and student-managed newspaper for the Oakland campus of the University of Pittsburgh. It is pub-lished Monday through Friday during the regular school year and Wednesdays during the summer.

Complaints concerning coverage by The Pitt News, after first being brought to the editors, may be referred to the Community Relations Com-mittee, Pitt News Advisory Board, c/o student media adviser, 435 William Pitt Union, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pa. 15260.

The editor in chief has the final authority on editorial matters and cannot be censored, according to state and federal law. The editor in chief is selected by the Pitt News Advisory Board, which includes University sta", fac-ulty and students, as well as journalism professionals. The business and edito-rial o!ces of The Pitt News are located at 434 William Pitt Union, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pa. 15260.

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Matt Reilly

up from 28 percent four decades ago. Freshmen who indicated they wanted to earn a doctorate or professional degree also was at a new peak: nearly a third, compared with 21 percent four decades ago. Interest in medical school has in-creased in the last decade while the popularity of law school has dropped

a bit.Freshmen saw the economy crash

in 2009 and many knew of college-ed-ucated people who lost jobs. As a re-sult, they are entering early adulthood believing “they need more money to be comfortable and seeing that a bach-elor’s degree may not be the end of their educational journey,” Eagan said. Plus, worries about college costs and student debt heighten desires for a good salary after graduation, he said.

PARTYFROM PAGE 2

received five stars for selectivity, ad-vancement and prestige, four stars for diversity, three stars for community and two stars for cost. The University is the most expensive public school in the country, according to a report from the U.S. Department of Education. However, Kiplinger’s Personal Finance

also ranked Pitt the best value in Penn-sylvania for the 10th time in a row in December.

P itt was the second-highest-rated school in Pennsylvania. To compare, Penn State ranked above Pitt at 26th, and Temple University ranked well be-low Pitt at 111th.

University spokeswoman Cara Mas-set said Pitt is “pleased to be recognized again as a top public university in the United States.”

RANKINGSFROM PAGE 1


OPINIONSOakland Zoo shows some class for late

Dean Smith

EDITORIALEDITORIAL

Last Saturday, Pitt’s Oakland Zoo proved to possess just as much class as it does sting.

Students don’t always realize that their actions brand their school. The Zoo is known to resort to “cheat sheets” about players on ri-val teams to distract players and get in their heads. The associated notoriety, then, is sometimes the first thing outsiders learn about Pitt. However, last Saturday, the Zoo put a positive spin on not only Pitt athletics but the Uni-versity as a whole.

When the Panthers’ PA an-nouncer called for a moment of silence to honor University of North Carolina’s legend-ary, late coach, Dean Smith, students in the front row of the Zoo unfurled a banner that read, “You should never be proud of doing what’s right. You should just do what’s right.”

The Zoo’s members gave the banner and a poster-sized sympathy card expressing their condolences to current UNC coach Roy Williams. Wil-liams was appreciative of the gesture. He told The News & Observer that “college ath-letics are not all bad. There’s some darn good things that go on ... I told those kids that I would keep those. They will never be tossed.”

The message is a powerful

quote from Smith. The quote, which he said last year to John Feinstein of the Washington Post, was Smith’s response about his contributions to civ-il rights — one of his greatest legacies on and off the court.

Using his power as coach, Smith recruited Charles Scott, the ACC’s first notable black basketball player, to North Carolina in 1966. Off the court, he invited a black the-ology student to join him for a meal at a local Chapel Hill restaurant in 1964 — right af-ter the Civil Rights Act passed the Congress. He fully recog-nized that the establishment wouldn’t dare boot the black student in Smith’s presence, because doing so would risk a loss of business.

The banner epitomized Smith’s legacy well and also reflected a value that college sports should all hold in es-teem — respect. The hooting and hollering, name-calling and browbeating are all parts of the game, but so is the mutual understanding that when a member of the college sports community is lost, it is time to put the games aside and be serious.

As the faces of Pitt, stu-dents should recognize the media approval of this dis-play of respect and continue to show strides in efforts to create positive press.

COLUMNCOLUMN

The popular crime podcast “Se-rial” is in the news once again — the Maryland Court of Special Appeals agreed to revisit Adnan Syed’s homicide case in June. This individual victory for due process is not rave-worthy, though.

Syed was sentenced to life in prison 15 years ago for allegedly killing his ex-girlfriend Hae Min Lee. Syed is receiving an appeal immediately after “Serial”’s spurt of popularity prompted questions on the power of podcasting. The appeal also demands that we con-sider the millions of people who are in Syed’s position, but do not have this sort of coverage. These typical, average people simply cannot a! ord competent legal counsel, much like Syed. This

leads to a corrupt judicial system that is more likely to convict the poor.

The appeal is not just about correcting a single injustice. It gives light to a deeper issue re-garding the role money plays in the justice system that cannot be fi xed with media attention, but, instead, should be mended by in-stitutions that provide further in-vestigation into other unfair trials across the country. Due process should not only be given to those who can a! ord it or those who are visible — it is a right for all.

There is a shortage of organi-zations that aid those who are in Syed’s pre-podcast position and who cannot a! ord to buy their own freedom, but these are the institutions that ultimately fi x the larger-scale issue of injustice. Instead of championing a single

podcast for correcting a single case, it is essential to recognize and promote groups, like the North Carolina Innocence In-quiry Commission (NCIIC), that work solely to uncover the truth in post-convinction declarations of innocence.

One of the integral parts of host Sarah Koenig’s investigation was revealing that Syed’s lawyer, Christina Gutierrez, hastily pre-pared his case. Gutierrez ne-glected to contact Asia McClain, a potential key witness for Syed. McClain’s testimony could have been crucial in Syed’s case because she had previously seen Syed at the local library during the time frame in which Lee was killed.

Twenty people lodged claims against Gutierrez with the Clients’

‘Serial’ appeal illuminates need for post-conviction due process

Adrianne Glenn Columnist

Glenn 5

TNS


Security Trust Fund, proving that Syed was not the only low-income client she cheated. Accordingly, she was disbarred in 2001.

In response to Gutierrez’s loss of li-cense, Syed had tried to put together a case for a potential appeal. He pointed out that Gutierrez did not even try to make a plea deal and that she failed to contact a potential alibi.

Underlying fi nancial issues led Syed to use such an unreliable lawyer. After fi ling the o! cial appeal post-podcast, the Mary-land Court of Special Appeals agreed to hear Syed’s 15-year-old case. The podcast and the funds associated with it played a part in Syed’s chance at a fair trial, which refl ects the shortcomings of the justice system.

This means that there will be a session in June that consists of oral arguments from the state and from Syed’s side. Depending on how the session goes, there could be a chance to have McClain testify. This creates potential for additional evidence to surface

or, if the court agrees that there is more to this case than previously discussed, there is the potential of a completely new trial.

While it is undoubtedly promising that Syed is a step closer to a fair trial in which he would only be incarcerated if he was found guilty beyond all reasonable doubt, it is disheartening to consider how he earned it.

After the podcast gained popular-ity, campaigns were set up to crowdfund for Syed and #FreeAdnan has become a hashtag on various social media platforms. A tweet from @CurtisBrownJr reveals the audience’s excitement to see Syed get jus-tice. “Just listened to the entire #serialpod-cast on a road trip-crazy case & too many holes for a life sentence #FreeAdnan,” Brown, Jr. said. Listeners everywhere are eager to support Syed and take his side.

This appeal shows the importance of having money when you’re up against our justice system. Trials are about who can argue better, or, rather, who has the most money to pay a lawyer. Those who are un-able to pay for higher-quality attorneys are more likely to be wrongfully convicted.

While poor defendants may use a pub-

lic defender through their constitutional rights, there are not enough of them for the number of convicted criminals in the country, according to a 2013 study by Mother Jones politics. On average, a public defender would need about 3,035 work hours — a year and a half— to do a year’s worth of work, considering the caseload they’d have to take on to relieve public need.

It seems entirely possible that Syed would have stood a chance in court if Guti-errez would have garnered a better defense. It is worth noting that when Koenig used NPR’s resources and funding to support this investigation, she gained Syed thou-sands of dollars of support from all over the world.

People are wrongfully convicted every day and will die in prison because no one is doing a podcast about them. To celebrate Syed’s appeal is to congratulate a system in which people who earn less money face far more inequality and injustice than those with the privilege of earning higher wages.

Instead of praising the podcast for fi x-ing this issue as if this is an isolated inci-dent, organizations like the NCIIC should

be celebrated for working full time to get to the bottom of post-conviction declara-tions of innocence.

The NCIIC is an organization that further investigates cases like Syed’s and tries to bring justice to ambiguous cases. The NCIIC has received more than 1,642 submissions since they opened in 2006 and have located evidence that was not previously identifi ed in more than 18 dif-ferent cases.

Similarly, the Pennsylvania Innocence Project is a nonprofi t corporation housed by Temple University Beasley School of Law that reviews trials, consults with experts and uncovers lost or overlooked documents.

These organizations seek to cater to unheard voices in an e" ort to remedy the corrupt justice system.

Instead of acting as if this podcast fi xed anything more than Syed’s case alone, it is important to support and promote the implementation of state-run organizations that promote due process.

Adrianne Glenn primarily writes about social and cultural issues for The Pitt News.

Write to Adrianne at [email protected].

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GLENNFROM PAGE 4


Very little about “Kingsman: The Secret Service” sounds fun — based on its title, you might think it’s a sword and chainmail epic set in the same period as “Seventh Son.” But, instead, “Kingsman” fi nds di-rector Matthew Vaughn giving James Bond the “Kick-Ass” treatment .

“Kingsman” is a conglomeration of Vaughn’s last two movies. Much like his 2008 superhero comedy “Kick-Ass,” Vaughn adapts another comic book (2012’s “The Secret Service,” by Mark Millar and Dave Gibbons ) into an extremely bloody, madcap screen product, while also hon-oring the “back to school” feel of 2011’s “X-Men: First Class.”

This mashup is wildly fun, even if it falls

into some of the same traps as movies that it’s cheekily imitating.

Colin Firth plays Harry Hart, a secret agent who’s more Q than James Bond — if Q could clear a whole room of 100 bad guys by himself. Soon after the fi lm opens, one of Harry’s fellow agents is brutally slain. To honor his legacy, he gives the agent’s son a dis-tinguished medal — which ends up becoming a literal Get Out of Jail Free card when the boy later gets into some more grown-up trouble with the law.

Once out of jail, the son (Taron Egerton), branded with the unfortunate nickname of “Eggsy,” receives an invita-

tion to the Kings-man training pro-gram from Harry.

Kingsman works under the guise of a London tailor shop (as if MI6 was operating out of a Brooks Brothers store), and, after touring the shop, Harry takes Eggsy to a rural training academy for pro-

spective Kingsman agents. It looks a lot like Professor X’s academy from the “X-Men” series, but, instead of fi ghting super-

human mutants, they’re preparing to take on diabolical humans, such as Raymond Valentine (Samuel L. Jackson, in his 110th screen role). Valentine’s an evil-Steve-Jobs-type — a tech tycoon hell-bent on giving everyone a SIM card that provides “free phone calls and free Internet ... for-ever!” The SIM cards also turn its users into bloodthirsty savages on Valentine’s command, so the Kingsmen have their work cut out for them.

“Kingsman” works best as a slick, stylish action farce. Much like he proved in “Kick-Ass,” Vaughn is a master of the claustrophobic and hyperactive fight scene. He elegantly fi lms Firth — a sur-prisingly competent action star — clean-ing out entire rooms of enemies. Vaughn

Shawn Cooke A&E Editor

ARTS ARTS and and ENTERTAINMENTENTERTAINMENT!Kingsman" !Kingsman" a bloody a bloody fun spy fun spy send-up send-up

CINEMACINEMA

“Kingsman: The Secret Service”Grade: B

TNS

Kingsman 8


City Council in 1977 as part of a nation-wide trend in public art policy. The law was meant to create a formal procedure for integrating public artworks into Pittsburgh projects.

The law states that any public con-struction or renovation projects financed by the city at a budget of $50,000 or more must consider including an art-work or artistic input. It then stipulates that the department division in charge must consider if the art is “desirable and in the public interest.”

If it’s a go, the Art Commission de-vises an art plan and sends it back to the constructing departmen t, which then decides if it wants to implement it. If it decides to implement the art plan, 1 per-cent of the project cost will go towards the integration of an art piece. If the department says no, it sends the rejec-tion explanation to the mayor, who can then veto the Art Commission’s proposal.

This is a quick recap of a long-wind-

ed and extremely contingent piece of legislation. The catch is not just in its complicated procedures, but also in the fact that, in recent years, it has not been implemented.

Some of the foremost voices of Public Art in Pittsburgh were gathered round the Council Chamber table. There was Carolyn Speranza, a fierce figure with a commanding presence who be-gan the PGH4ART movement, as well as the tall, gangly and whimsical Di-ane Samuels, art-ist and co-founder of City of Asylum. Local artist James Simon and the ef-fervescent Renee Piechocki of the Office of Public Art also came out to talk.

Morton Brown, the city’s public art manager, wants to revamp the Percent for Art law, seeing its convoluted process

as containing more deadweight clauses than active verbs.

“It is not up to national standards. It presupposes that the division in charge knows that the ordinance exists. And it doesn’t give the art commission any final say,” Brown said.

Brown has been working on an art plan for the past two years to bol-ster Pittsburgh’s public art pro-gram, only slow-ing down due to the mayoral elec-tion and transi-tion. Now that the new mayor is comfortably in of-fice and support-ive of public art, Brown can pick up where he left off.

“The art plan is part of a comprehensive plan for the city and the Percent for Art is one of the major tenets of this plan” he said.

With activists and artists calling for

drastic changes to the city’s art-making policy and politics’ intertwinement with art, Brown hopes that there will be no controversy when his plan for the per-cent of art law is unveiled.

“I hope no one finds it too much like insider baseball,” he said.

The meeting itself was not meant to resolve issues, but rather to bring them to light in a public setting. Amidst the art-loving citizens who came to watch were students from Pittsburgh Creative and Performing Arts School , which was, if anything, a statement to the City Coun-cil.

But the post-agenda was just the boil-ing point of around two years of perco-lation amidst the public art sphere in Pittsburgh. It all began much earlier in the Pittsburgh of the 1970s.

Pittsburgh was on the cusp of the Steel Mill degeneration, but the art scene was still robust and healthy. City Council in-tegrated public art in its most traditional form, as abstract minimalist sculptures, into construction plans and found pres-

ARTFROM PAGE 1

Art 8

“Since we use public money,

we need to make public

art in public space with

community input, and give all

the neighborhoods a chance.

Carolyn Speranza


makes sure that the camera pulses after every last blow and whips around the room to draw a schematic of the battleground. It’s a far bloodier battleground than most action fl icks, with foes fi elding explosive stab and gunshot wounds all over their bodies — including a startling cleave-in-

half within the fi lm’s early minutes.The extreme violence might feel gro-

tesque if “Kingsman” didn’t consistently bring the laughs, but it’s a weightless, snappy action-comedy. There’s a humor-ous urgency to the Kingsmen’s training process, which includes the team nearly drowning in their bedroom, skydiving under the belief that one prospective agent doesn’t have a parachute and Harry’s ab-surd explanation of the agency’s gadgets

(smart phones are just smart phones — the technology’s caught up to spy stan-dards). But some lines between farce and straightforward action turn into a sloppy blur.

Jackson gives one of his career-worst performances as Valentine, who amounts to a way over-the-top Bond villain carica-ture. It’s as one-dimensional and ridicu-lous as most of his recent work, but, this time, Jackson tries on a horribly exagger-

ated lisp that grows old after his second sentence.

During the fi nal third of “Kingsman,” multiple characters make self-aware ref-erences that they’re “not in that kind of action movie.” But its big fi nale becomes so muddled and ridiculous — while honoring an action fan’s sense of satisfying closure — that it does become “that kind of action movie.” Hopefully Vaughn won’t make any promises he can’t keep in “Kingsman 2.”

KINGSMANFROM PAGE 6

ence all over the city . Examples of the “golden age” of Pittsburgh public art include “Light Up!” which used to be in Gateway Center and the Allegheny Landing Sculpture Garden. NPO’s crop of strong municipal infrastructure devel-opment and art incentives contributed to the boom.

While some public art was created because of the percent for art law, af-ter the decline of the steel industry and development there was less being built

and, therefore, less art to make. While Pittsburgh has enjoyed a bit of a renais-sance as of late, the law has been collect-ing dust and virtually disappeared off the radar. In recent years, city government has not implemented the law.

It was just the beginning of a long-winded and extremely contingent piece of legislation.

Speranza, an artist and art activist who began the PGH4ART coalition in 2013, wants to raise awareness of not only the percent for art law, but also how public art can impact a community.

“Since we use public money, we need to make public art in public space with

community input, and give all the neigh-borhoods a chance. Artists live here and work here, and public art is an expres-sion of the community we live in,” she said.

Speranza wants to ensure that the Percent for Art law is consistently ex-ercised, and that when public money is used for infrastructure on city property and an artist is commissioned, they are secure in their commission.

Local artists, like James Simon, were also present at the post-agenda, telling both the successes and struggles he has gone through as an artist both in and out-side of Pittsburgh. He talked of multiple

jobs in other cities that fell through from lack of incentive or even noisy neighbors complaining.

Simon argues that art is vital for a city, and that art can bring Pittsburgh into the spotlight, not just regionally, but even nationally and internationally.

“As the city begins to do more proj-ects, it is not just supporting artists but is also supporting trade,” Simon said.

Public art is complicated, but the sup-porters of public art, including Brown, are determined.

“If I do nothing else while here, I hope to get the Percent for Art program up and running in a robust fashion,” Brown said.

ARTFROM PAGE 7


SPORTSMEN’S BASKETBALLMEN’S BASKETBALL

For the second straight week, the Pitt men’s basketball team found itself fac-ing an elite opponent on the road. And, much like last Wednesday against No. 10 Louisville, Pitt couldn’t play the role of spoiler in Charlottesville.

On the road Monday night against the No. 2 team in the nation, the Panthers struggled to overcome a ferocious Vir-ginia defense as well as some self-infl icted wounds at the free throw line in their 61-49 loss to the Cavaliers.

Pitt opened the game strong against the top-scoring defense in the country, grabbing a 4-0 lead in the fi rst two min-utes following a jumper by sophomore forward Jamel Artis and a driving layup by senior guard Cameron Wright.

It was after these baskets that the re-lentless defense of the Cavaliers arrived on the scene. Virginia would erase the only defi cit it faced all evening, going on an 18-4 run that included a six-minute scoreless stretch for the visiting Panthers.

A 3-point make by Virginia junior guard Malcolm Brogdon with 1:45 left in the fi rst half could have been a back-breaker for Pitt, putting Virginia up by 13 late in the period.

But Artis was able to answer from be-yond the arc for the Panthers with 1:15 remaining, limiting the Cavalier lead to 10 heading into intermission.

One game after hitting six 3-pointers and shooting 61.3 percent from the fi eld

Pitt falls victim to intense Virginia defense

Dan SostekAssistant Sports Editor

MEN’S BASKETBALLMEN’S BASKETBALL

Cheaters sometimes win:Cheaters sometimes win:Oakland Zoo amps up distraction tacticsOakland Zoo amps up distraction tactics

“Joel! Joel! Joel! Joel, how’s Shannon? Joel!”“Hey, Marcus! Retweet me after the game! OK? Marcus!”“Meeks, you suck! You look like the Pillsbury Doughboy!”Anyone who has ever been in the Oakland Zoo during a

pregame warm up knows that strangely personal shouts to opposing players, like these exclamations heard at Saturday’s matchup against North Carolina, are in unfailingly strong supply.

The Zoo has always had the propensity to get under the skin of players from Boston College to Florida State, yet, this season, one-page “cheat sheets” compiled by Oakland Zoo leaders have strengthened the Zoo’s verbal attacks. These heavily researched lists contain personal information — fears, embarrassing stories or names of ex-romantic partners and family members — about the opposing team’s players. The idea is that shouting and exploiting private information will distract other players and a! ect their performance.

The Zoo has been lauded by mainstream media outlets for the past decade as one of the most intimidating student sec-tions in college basketball.

“The Zoo is always a big factor whether we win or lose,” said sophomore forward Sheldon Jeter following Pitt’s 89-76 victory over the Tar Heels. “They always give us some type of edge. North Carolina missed nine free throws today. I give most of that to the Zoo.”

While the players notice the impact of the student section, the zoo members have noted the improvement the enhanced cheat sheets have made. One Zoo member, senior marketing major Mitchell Martin , lauded the cheat sheets ’ e! ects on the game.

“People get behind [the sheets] and get in the players’ heads — it’s a collective CIA e! ort,” Martin said.

Digging for material on rival teams’s rosters takes hours of research — mostly by Zoo leaders– juniors Ryan Foley, a health information management major, and Nicoletta LePore, an accounting major — starting a week before game day. They later meet up to fi nalize the sheet, as they did last Thursday at 7 p.m. in David Lawrence Hall.

Zoo Vice Presidents Eric Floyd, a junior economics major, and Daniel Kulikowski, a senior bioengineering student, as well as Foley and LePore, huddled around Foley’s laptop deciding

what should make the cut for UNC’s cheat sheet .Some information eventually is deemed too invasive. For example, Foley discovered North Carolina star guard

Marcus Paige’s home address, but he decided the Zoo wouldn’t cross that boundary.

When it comes to the research itself, Foley explained that social media is the key to fi nding the best information. The hunt goes down on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat, Vine or Ask.fm, according to Foley.

“We basically just look them up on Twitter and start looking through pictures, because they’ll usually post about a girlfriend. I fi nd their Twitters through directors of basketball operations, because the only people they tend to follow are players.”

LePore handles the Snapchat research.

Jessica BoddyFor the Pitt News

M Hoops 10 Meghan Sunner | Staff Photographer

Zoo 10


“I started adding UNC players on Snap-chat in October, because it takes time for them to add you back, and you want to make sure it’s them,” she said. “You start with Twit-ter and search their Snapchat name based on their handle, and then move to Instagram.”

Although there have been some smaller, less-researched cheat sheets in past seasons, Foley and LePore said they plan to make the sheets for every game this season because of the sheets’ popularity and e! ectiveness — not only with Pitt students, but also with the media.

“ [ESPN reporter] Jeannine Edwards pulled a sheet o! of a chair and underlined a few things. [ESPN] did a segment and com-pared the Zoo to the CIA,” Floyd said.

Some media outlets have gone as far as calling the Zoo’s sheets cold, brutal and ruth-less — but the Zoo leaders agreed that any press is good press.

“I think it’s easy to look at it for the fi rst time and say it’s kind of harsh,” LePore said, “but there’s a lot of fi ltering that goes into it.”

“The only one that bothered me was the one that said we were trying to imitate Duke,” Foley said.

Duke is the only other school known to have a cheat sheet, but Foley was quick to dismiss its notoriety.

“Duke’s is very limited — Coach K. ac-tually yelled at them because he thought it wasn’t nice to put their moms on there. So now they just do very friendly things — it’s not as researched,” he said. “The only person they really go hard on research for is [North Carolina coach] Roy Williams ... because they hate him.”

It’s clear that Internet and social media allow prime heckling opportunities for Pitt’s student section. Matt Cohen, who founded the Oakland Zoo in 2001, expressed his jeal-ousy for the sheets, and he said the only jab he was able to take as a student was to prank call challenging players.

“That was something I dreamed to be able to do,” Cohen said about the cheat sheets. “I was [at Pitt] before Twitter and Facebook. Now they have so much informa-tion at their fi ngertips — they know every-thing, they know all about their personal lives. It’s fantastic. I love it.”

ZOOFROM PAGE 9

in the fi rst half, Pitt sputtered o! ensively in the fi rst half in Charlottesville, convert-ing just one of fi ve long-distance shots and posting an abysmal 35.3 percent fi eld goal percentage in the fi rst period.

Thanks to an early boost by sophomore forward Sheldon Jeter, the Pitt o! ense kicked into a higher gear in the second half.

Jeter scored the fi rst seven points of the period for the Panthers, trimming Virginia’s lead to just fi ve with 16:33 remaining in the contest.

But the Panthers squandered key oppor-tunities at the charity stripe to cut further into the Cavaliers’ advantage.

Artis, senior forward Derrick Randall and sophomore guard Josh Newkirk missed the Panthers’ fi rst fi ve free throw attempts of the half.

Despite the missed free throws, Pitt managed to remain toe to toe with the highly ranked Cavs, cutting Virginia’s lead to just three points following Wright con-verting one of two free throws with 7:54 remaining.

That would be the closest the Panthers

would get to evening up the score, though, as Brogdon was able to create some sepa-ration for UVA, scoring eight of his team’s fi nal 15 points, including a posterizing dunk over Jeter with 2:59 remaining to extend the Cavaliers’ lead to double digits.

Artis led all scorers with 20 points on 6-11 shooting, tacking on eight rebounds as well. Jeter was the only other Pitt player in double fi gures, tallying 10 points to go along with six boards.

One game after totalling a season-high 30 assists , the Panthers struggled with ball movement, dishing out a miniscule 11 as-sists while turning the ball over 12 times.

While Virginia’s assist total was identical to Pitt’s on Monday night , they were able to play with stronger ball security, only turning the ball over seven times.

Brogdon led the Cavaliers with 18 points while securing four rebounds and notching two steals and two assists.

The Panthers will fi nish up their two-game road stand this weekend, as they travel north to face the Syracuse Orange at the Carrier Dome on Saturday. Pitt was victorious in their previous meeting this season, winning by a score of 83-77 at the Petersen Events Center.

Tip-o! is scheduled for noon.

M HOOPSFROM PAGE 9

Jamel Artis tallied a game-high 20 points in the loss. Nate Smith | Staff Photographer

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