A quick question and looking for feedback, positive or negative if Ben Howland would be a good choice to return to Pitt if Dixon would ever leave and did he burn any bridges on the way out. The guy appears to be a really good coach with success at all levels of D1.
Ben Howland Question and Pitt
- Thread starter pghboy
- Start date
Howland is an excellent coach, but the stuff that came out at UCLA involving Reeves Nelson is very disturbing stuff., It sounds like Ben disengaged and totally lost control of that team. So I'd say at this point he's badly damaged goods and has a lot to prove.
A couple points on that idea:
*1) Ben is good friends with Jamie. After the way folks around here are talking about Dixon, Howland would NEVER come here to replace him. Actually, that may have a lot of effect on OTHER coaches too. Like UCLA after firing Howland, Pitt will probably have to overpay to get a known coach. Or take a gamble on a hungry young guy.
*2) One reason Howland reportedly left, besides the whole going home/ dream job thing, was that he never felt success was sustainable here. We may be proving that more every day.
*3) In a poll on a CBS poll, Ben was listed #3 among the top 5 "cheatingest" coaches. While Gallagher and Barnes do want to win, I do not believe they are going to go back to the Wild, Wild West days of Golden Panthers with open checkbooks. That's not a problem in the SEC.
how bout Johnny Majors return?
But man does that script look good ....
I was thinking the same. Our unis in '95 and '96 were SWEET, sadly that coincides with our worst teams dating back to pre Majors 1 days..
So how does Howland haul in recruits at Mississippi St not exactly a high flying basketball program or area and Dixon has trouble getting them to come to Pittsburgh a great city and great program.
Something isn't adding up? Maybe Dixon doesn't hit it off well with people on a first time meet and greet. First impressions go a long way to establishing trust and future interactions.
Just asking!
chicks and guns and fire trucks and hookers and drugs and booze
He's been far more successful than Dixon.
-won a lot at Pitt
-took UCLA to 3 straight final fours.
personalities and all that aside; it's almost apples and oranges when it comes to post-season success.
Pittsburgh has basically no local talent to recruit in basketball... So there's that...add in the fact that slice was the best NY recruiter... Plus it seems like Pitt is a revolving door with assistant coaches in hoops... That all catches up even with Dixon being a great coach
I surely don't think Howland is/would come back here but I sure would like to know where some of what you are stating up above comes from:
1. I don't know what you mean by 'folks around here' but I sure would like to know whom/where all the negative talk is that is so bad that other coaches would never come here. I sure hope you're not referring to talk on this board. There may be a number of reasons by a given coach wouldn't come here but I seriously doubt that 'talk' on this board, in the Pittsburgh media or anywhere remotely around here would have an influence on the decision.
2. Do you have some inside info on your second assertion or is that just conjecture and un-substantiated rumor mill. I don't care who said it, if you don't think the primary reason why he left was the whole going home/dream job thing, you are fooling yourself just to make a point here.
Well Howland isn't sitting on a local recruiting Bonanza in Mississippi either. He'd be happy with running water and electrical service. It looks like he's pulling in recruits so the moto of the story is you have to go find the recruits!
Sure seems like Mississippi St has found a recruiting bonanza somewhere, both in football and basketball. Do you think the Sure Everybody Cheats conference might have anything to do with their rapid resurgence?
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Howland has a 7 man class that includes 6 4-star players.
I'm sure there's some shady stuff going on, but bringing in 7 guys, 6 of whom are highly rated, that's how you rebuild a program.
Our last several classes have consisted of a legit D1 player, maybe two, with a Plan B-C guy or two and a few transfer stiffs to round them out.
That simply isn't going to cut it, not at Pitt or any other P5 program that wants to compete for league titles. Our recruiting, our personnel side is broken. Not sure how to fix it, but it certainly needs fixing. Look at any P5 program that is competitive in its league over the past 3 years, and you won't see but a couple classes similar to any of our last 3, let alone 3 such classes in a row.
Dixon is no dummy, he knows what he has and doesn't have, and what he needs to be in the mix in the ACC. Why can't he fix it?
I'd take Howland back in a heartbeat. The above cited alleged improprieties under his watch are exaggerated. As JD's friend, while he might be reluctant to return to Pitt if Dixon were fired, I see no reason that their past relationship would be an impediment to his taking the Pitt job if Dixon left for another position. And as far as why he would be interested in the Pitt job, Starkeville is a backwater $hithole and sec BB after Kentucky can't compare to the ACC and the pub he'd get if he made Pitt a top dog in the ACC.
So how the heck is Penn State beating us in recruiting now? They are top 20 roughly and we are 74??? Um huh???
Arguably, he got in this mess trykng to recruit the kind of guys he thought he needed to be in the mix in the ACC.
I actually predicted this issue years ago. We had been winning with effort-based over-achieving players and he started to transition to talent- based athletic players.
A lot of talented guys never learn to put forth the full effort to reach their potential, let alone over-achieve. The ones who do are stars and they're in demand. Even our best recruiting didn't quite equal the talent the better teams had. That was unfortunately predictable.
If your talent isn't as good as the opposition, you either have to beat them with a better scheme or better effort. The free movement interpretation took away the scheme. The kids we have rarely will put forth the effort.
I'd lean towards returning to recruiting effort. In the ACC, I'm not sure there is any other option for Jamie.
Neither do a lot of teams that are doing well. Exhibit A - WV
Some of you on this board take recruiting rankings as gospel just because a class is rated high doesn't mean squat if you can't coach. All you have to do is look at Bruce Pearl he can recruit but he's a below average coach. Bo Ryan takes a bunch of under recruited players and takes them to the final four. Yes the program needs to reexamined but some of you who are that anxious to show Jamie the door forget the days when Pitt basketball sucked right up with PSU.
Here's the problem I have with that "talent- based athletic players" theory Harve--where's the talent and athleticism? Outside of Mike Young, maybe Artis who was a borderline P5 guy or Jeter who was a transfer from a low P5--where are those talented offensive guys? Looking at those classes, we simply didn't have enough guys who can play at the P5 level, let alone thrive at it.
I mean, look at those last 3 recruiting classes. Not a lot of meat on those bones. Young, Newkirk, Wilson, maybe Artis -there are your consensus Power 5 level recruits out of 3 classes---and a bunch of recruiting afterthoughts, transfers, and mid-major offer sheets. If you're going to recruit scorers and athletes, recruit scorers and athletes. This team has very few of either.
Well, arguably from Dante and Talib thru JJ Moore, Wright, Trey Zeigler, etc thru Birch and the two Johnson's were mostlty athletic, talented guys that didn't work out. Lamar wasn't athletic, but he was ranked #15 nationally when he committed here, before getting injured and dropping to a 3-star. The theoretically best class when it really fell apart was the Adams class. We signed a 5*, a 4* and just missed on 4* Omar Calhoun. After Adams left, and about half the previous couple classes quit too, we have been in scramble mode ever since. Trying to play catch-up.
Arguably, had we kept Jaylen Bond instead of Birch and signed Sterling Gibbs jnstead of John Johnson, we'd have been much better off.
Since then Steve Pederson forced Slice on Jamie and we wasted time and effort on 5-stars who wouldn't sign here anyway. Heron, Diallo, Swanigan, Rowan were just as unlikely as Winston. Trevor Lacey wasn't coming here. We're LUCKY Moestella didn't. Slice managed to sign Houghton though. Something to remember about AD's picking assistsnt coaches, huh? .
MAYBE we got lucky with the local kids. Luther looks like he's serviceable. Slim may be a poor man's Rowan or only a designated bomber like Durand. Nix will give fouls and take up space, if he can stay on the court.
Manigault and Kithcart look like they can play at the ACC level. But, there's a long way to go. Clark was a gamble before the ACL.
The near future of the program is probably the '17 guys who will commit this Summer and sign in November. If that group looks like a bust, then probably Barnes should start tryng to negotiate a reduced buyout with Jsmie.
No, but in the $EC, the answer is generally YE$.
I didn't vote Howlsnd #3 worst cheater. That was his fellow coaches, mainly from his connections with a notorious Atlanta AAU program.
BTW , regarding Bryce Drew and Valpo cheating,, sorry, WRONG Drew. I was thinking of Scott.
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See Jaylen Bond. We pushed him out AFTER he had committed here in favor of Khem Birch when Birch reclassified. That burnt bridges in Philly that have not been rebuilt.
PSU's Chambers has very good Philly AAU connections. Although about half of his Philly signings are non-qualified and may never get to State College.,
I didn't know we were going back as far as Taylor, Moore, Birch etc.--because back then we were still a BE team and very much relied on our toughness and physicality to win when we brought those "more athletic/offensive" guys in. It's the guys since the JROB/Adams/Jones class. Adams was a great get--but he left after a season. JROB for his deficiencies was/is a real P5 player. Jones was a throw in when Birch's ship opened up, he had a mid-major offer sheet. The classes since then have really been weak by any measure. The 14 and 15 classes were, well, pathetic. The 13 class looked promising but only Young and Artis emerged. Many of these guys aren't recruiting misses as much as they just never were valid P5 recruits. We are reaching and grabbing all over the place, we are not bringing in the numbers nor the types of players it takes to be a factor in our league, or any P5 league. I just don;t understand why we can;t match or exceed the Minnesotas, Miamis, Iowas or St. Johns of the world when it comes to recruiting. There really is no excuse for it.
Eff that. Seriously, if you are going there then let's go full on. Might as well make a play for Calipari.
Well, as I posted last Spring when everybody else was recruiting kids for 2016 and we were still chasing Diallo, the grad transfers and three or 4 remaining uncommitted 2015 guys to fill out the roster, we have been behind the 8-ball since Adams, Gilbert, Zeigler, John Johnson and JJ Moore left in mass. We had only 6 scholarship players coming back, counting Chris Jones who had redshirted. Cam Wrght almost left, which would have given us barely a starting team. The program almost fell apart. We've never got our mojo back.
We tried to fill in with transfers like Uchebo, Randall, Trevor Lacey who signed with NC St, guys who had been released from LOI's like Mostella, foreign bigs like Doorson, Juco's like Houghton. We were scrambling for any live body we could find. Most of this was in the Spring after almost every usual recruit was signed already.
For the next class, we were setting our sights on guys we weren't going to get and ignoring guys who might have helped us. Arguably, getting early commitments from Rowan and Heron actually REALLY hurt us because we didn't recruit other guys at those positions and they decommitted anyway. I think hiring Slice and going after 5-stars was a serious mistake. Slice had never landed the caliber of guys he was trying for when we were a Top 20 team. And he left anyway for Kentucky cutting off any chance we would land those guys. We've been running so hard we haven't caught up to where we should be. Honestly, we might never catch up. When momentum is lost, recovering it is difficult.
Recruiting has a cycle. Mostly, it works by building relationships. There is a typical timing , due to the basketball seasons and NCAA regulations on when offers, contact, etc are allowed
Yeah, sometimes a new coach comes in and the cycle is broken and the excitement behind anew coach stimulates fast changes, but mostly, it takes a year or two for the cycle to happen. Williamson has been here 3 months less than 2 years. The '16 group, with Kithcart, Manigault snd Clark, with one more to come in the Spring is maybe better than any since Adams/Robinson, or at least as good. I honestly don't know if Dixon changed his philosophy or just signed guy he could get. The upcoming '17 group needs to be where we catch up. If it isn't we're maybe done in this iteration.
I don't think Smoke would have been my choice but he is the guy we hired. Now he delivers or not.
Yea relationships are important in recruiting except in the case of Pitt commitments who decommit and join a team whose coach they barely know. Something wrong with this picture
OK. Fair enough about Smoke. But really, and yes folks I am going there, what the hell is Barton bringing? I can trace the mediocrity we are wallowing in to his hiring. Not saying he is the sole or main reason, just he is obviously not part of the solution. He has been here for 5 years. So.....I think we have seen enough "cyclic" activity concerning Barton.
And for those of you who will counter with "well what about Brandin?" Yeah. Him too. I know, he got Kithcart, let's give him a 10 year extension also.
We always, and I mean always can come up with every excuse as to why we can't. Amazing how most of these don't apply to other schools.
