Man are you stretching. If you can’t admit that Jamie’s recruiting deteriorated significantly to the point he was having a hard time signing anyone, you’re blinded by your love affair with him.
You only get a feather in your recruiting cap by properly evaluating and signing talent. You don’t get a feather for pursuing an improperly rated recruit - see Wilson.
Likewise you get feathers taken out of your recruiting cap for mis-evaluating talent and not pursuing recruits you should have that wanted to come here.
You don’t get a feather in your recruiting cap for taking flyers on recruits with questionable health because you struck out on all viable candidates and subsequently have no other options - see Clark and big Joe.
And you don’t get a feather in your recruiting cap for all the questionable and average grad transfers you had to sign to fill out a roster because you couldn’t attract anyone else.
Get real. And you castoff about 5 current freshman as nobodies when they all show much more promise than the majority of what Jamie was able to bring in his last 3-4 years.
Again, seriously get real.
There's no question Dixon's recruiting fell off. It WASN'T good enough to get us in the top half of the ACC unless it improved. But it's not like HIS teams went 0-19. You gotta separate the recruiting from the coaching. He's probably in the NCAAT last season and certainly in the NIT. Even this year, he probably wins a handful of ACC games.
Stallings put his recruits in impossible situations. Dixon ran a style where his recruits could win, even with less talent.
As Big Zeke posted a few weeks back, Dixon made a HUGE mistake when he quit signing tough guys and started "hunting elephants". With the staff we have and the refusal to play the handler game$, Pitt was NOT going to land many elephants.
I'd like to think his last class was him recognizing that and starting to correct it. I think Manigault, Clark and Kithcart had as much potential as juniors as Stalling's best frosh and MORE than guys like George, Kene and Peace.
I think Carr, Brown and Stewart can be ACC players in a couple years, with decent coaching. I think they were horrible this year, going 0-19 on merit. Stevenson and Davis might become useful role players. I mean Dixon helped Nasir be a starting PF with less physical skills than Shamiel.
Dixon's recruiting dropped off, but not off the charts. The narrative here was flawed. Milligan, one of Dixon's worst ever recruits, was our 2nd best ball handler this season. Some games, maybe our BEST.
