A) Nothing is final until it's final in the world of coach selections, so he may not be our next coach.
B) Of course I don't want Stallings to be our coach, but if he is, I--as a Pitt fan--have to look at any positives I can before anything is proven on the court.
C) Add what you can, but please don't add snarky crap. I'm trying to wear some blue-and-yellow glasses here for a minute.
Positives I can find:
1) At Vanderbilt, his teams have been ranked in the pre-season 2x, during the season 8x (meaning in 8 separate seasons), and in the final rankings 4x. His teams have over-performed pre-season expectations.
2) His offenses are without question higher scoring and more exciting than Pitt's. I wouldn't call them high scoring and exciting, but unquestionably more so than Pitt's. They averaged 75-80 ppg in 5 of their past 11 seasons (top-50 nationally in 4 of those).
3) Regarding recruiting, he's signed 12 4* recruits in the last 10 years (2006, 2007, 2008 x4, 2010, 2011 x2, 2013, 2014 x2) and 1 5* (2009), plus 3* Festus Ezeli (current GS Warrior). His recruits come from all over the eastern half of the country (a lot from Texas) and plenty of international.
4) For as so-so as Vandy has been in the top-heavy SEC (although only 2 sub-.500 seasons in the SEC in the last 10), they are the only school that even pretends to put athletics in the backseat to academics, He may have his hands tied in a lot of respects far more than we know (ex: $ for assistants, $ for recruiting budgets/paying recruits, who they can sign based on academic reasons ... all speculation I might add, but they are very different than all of their SEC counterparts in this regard).
5) Illinois State greatly improved under Stallings in the mid-90's. They ended up having 4 consecutive 20-win seasons, which they hadn't done since the 70's or since.
6) Vanderbilt team stats that usually trend very good: FG%, 3FG%, defensive rebounding, blocks, opposing FG%, opposing 3FG%, very low opposing assists. Almost all of these stats have been consistently good at Vandy.
B) Of course I don't want Stallings to be our coach, but if he is, I--as a Pitt fan--have to look at any positives I can before anything is proven on the court.
C) Add what you can, but please don't add snarky crap. I'm trying to wear some blue-and-yellow glasses here for a minute.
Positives I can find:
1) At Vanderbilt, his teams have been ranked in the pre-season 2x, during the season 8x (meaning in 8 separate seasons), and in the final rankings 4x. His teams have over-performed pre-season expectations.
2) His offenses are without question higher scoring and more exciting than Pitt's. I wouldn't call them high scoring and exciting, but unquestionably more so than Pitt's. They averaged 75-80 ppg in 5 of their past 11 seasons (top-50 nationally in 4 of those).
3) Regarding recruiting, he's signed 12 4* recruits in the last 10 years (2006, 2007, 2008 x4, 2010, 2011 x2, 2013, 2014 x2) and 1 5* (2009), plus 3* Festus Ezeli (current GS Warrior). His recruits come from all over the eastern half of the country (a lot from Texas) and plenty of international.
4) For as so-so as Vandy has been in the top-heavy SEC (although only 2 sub-.500 seasons in the SEC in the last 10), they are the only school that even pretends to put athletics in the backseat to academics, He may have his hands tied in a lot of respects far more than we know (ex: $ for assistants, $ for recruiting budgets/paying recruits, who they can sign based on academic reasons ... all speculation I might add, but they are very different than all of their SEC counterparts in this regard).
5) Illinois State greatly improved under Stallings in the mid-90's. They ended up having 4 consecutive 20-win seasons, which they hadn't done since the 70's or since.
6) Vanderbilt team stats that usually trend very good: FG%, 3FG%, defensive rebounding, blocks, opposing FG%, opposing 3FG%, very low opposing assists. Almost all of these stats have been consistently good at Vandy.
