Tom Crean would have to have Jesus committed to change his fate
Marlon Barnes Jr Committed
- Thread starter daystar297
- Start date
Yep, I Missed on that. I’ve said it several times now.
I hit on 95 percent unfortunately
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Granted it's unlikely that a team makes it through season without injuries. Even you need to admit the current roster without Burton not being 100% to start the year, Nike and Horton missing time- is a competitive ACC team. Had Champagnie returned, they would have been a tournament team.
There's a lot of bad luck mixed in with fault.
Only because the ACC is absolutely dreadful this year. Miami might be the second best team. Bad luck only affects you if you don’t do a good job.
Nike and Horton are just guys. They don’t move the needle at all. As evidence by the line not moving when Horton was announced out.
The Main problem continues to be no PG.
107, 109, 118, 102 ORTG team
Those are the numbers for the team offensive efficiency rankings for our team the last 4 games, 3 of which came against ACC teams. Our offense is greatly improved from an efficiency standpoint in comparison to earlier this year, and that is with Horton playing 1 game total. I called this over a month ago that our offense would be a lot better even against better competition with more game experience and better chemistry. Exactly what I predicted, happened.
The defense has started to slip the last 4 games, which is the bigger problem and why we only won 2 of those games. Had the defense not fallen apart in the last 6-7 minutes against Louisville and Notre Dame, we would have won both of those games too. I had feared this could happen, but I hope it can get back on track moving forward. It needs to be better if we are going to challenge for 6 or 7 acc wins this year.
They didn’t win either game. I don’t care about their OTRG or DRTG
I don't view Champagnie leaving as bad luck. I think it's always a good thing when a recruit has a break out year and and gets an opportunity to move on. The problem is that Pitt isn't getting much, if any, return in the win column when these recruits have breakout years. Pitt probably should have been a tourney team last year (at least borderline) instead of 6-10 in the ACC.
There are a multitude of teams that lost a player they were probably counting on for this season had they chose to return.
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What have you gotten right besides Jeffess?
Wrong on
Jarrod West
Hugley
Tom Jurich to Miami
Xavier Johnson (averaging 9 PPG)
Sure on a visiting team he may.
Femi not a Pg is the most obvious one lol
XJ having a solid season for a tournament team is wrong?
Yeah jurich got Miller’s by Miami’s GC
How about this one? March Madness? Or is May Madness, which you predicted and wrote approximately 3 million posts on, happening this year?
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All you got right was Femi not a PG and March Madness happening in March?
Sorry to interrupt the back and forth, but maybe there is a reason Capel is not recruiting high school players much this year. I was listening to the pregame show the other night and a comment stuck out to me. He said rosters will change more year to year from now on. I am of the opinion that he will look more to the grad transfers as opposed to high school kids. I don't think he will stop recruiting kids all together, but have more of an emphasis on the grad transfer portal.
I have been a supporter since they hired him, but my opinion has changed with the early season performance and lack of recruits. I want nothing more than Pitt basketball to be relevant again.
I have been a supporter since they hired him, but my opinion has changed with the early season performance and lack of recruits. I want nothing more than Pitt basketball to be relevant again.
He definitely should be all in on transfers. A nice balance of 2 HS 2 transfers is a good place to start and assuming you will have 4 spots every season.
yeah, I suspect their plan right now is to just fill up with grad transfers for the 2022-23 roster and try to make a run with a bunch of older, experienced guys. It’ll be a little bit of an artificial bump, but I think it’s what they’re gonna feel like they need to do to stick around s.
Are we completely out of it with Judah Mintz since he decommited? Just wondering if Capel is still working on him?
Yea, I've been saying this. Everyone transfers now so unless you can get a Top 50 kid who is going to be an impact player from Day 1, its becoming a little silly to put too many resources in recruiting a HS player, where you know there's a 50% chance will transfer. You're basically better off almost recruiting the transfer market exclusively. 2 reasons:
1. Its easier to project them to the ACC after seeing what they do in D1 as opposed to HS ball.
2. The transfer player cannot transfer again without penalty so its pretty likely that player will remain at Pitt for the remainder of his career.
Yes but the issue you’re missing SMF is that the transfers that are difference makers want to win. Or to get paid.
We haven’t shown the ability to do either.
I have no doubts we’ll be able to land some more reserve level players from the portal… but we really need difference makers from the portal and there’s 0 evidence we’ll be able to land them. We didn’t land them when we had momentum as a program. Why would we now?
Just look at Pitt football who landed Kedon Slovis and Mumpfield. Because they have a chance to win. Do you think those guys considered BC or Rutgers? No.
Well, that’s us right now.
Yea, good point but guys like Burton and Gueye are solid ACC starters and aren't "NIL worthy." I think we can get a little better level than Burton/Gueye and not have to fight the SEC paying them. I don't think we're going to get elite transfers. They're going to the blue bloods, SEC, or I can see a place like NC State making good use of this NIL era.
Yes but we need more than a Burton/Gueye level player. I have no doubt we can land them… but those are the players you land to an already good team just missing a reserve center or a back up point guard.
We have 1 above average ACC player. Hugley. We need more than that if we’re going to actually make the NCAAT next year.
And where is that going to come from? We haven’t landed one from the portal yet. Our true impact players have all come from the HS ranks. Which is why a class of Santos + nobody is terrifying.
I know people are killing me for being negative but when you actually get down to the nitty gritty… thinking this is all going to work out here for Capel largely revolves around nothing but hope…. Hoping that everything that happens moving forward is the complete opposite of what’s happened so far. As a math guy, that’s not something I like to count on.
You need 3 plus-level players, basically.
To make the NCAAT, we need:
1. Hugley to be 1st Team All-ACC level. This is possible/probable.
2. Another player to be 14-15 3rd Team ACC type (Burton, Sibande, Femi, or Horton). This is possible. Guys improve.
3. 1 more plus-level player. This could be one of those guards if they improve or maybe Capel hits it big on a transfer like the ones Wake got (who werent high level transfers).
We really aren't terribly far away. Hugley will be a star. We need 2 more
1 is true.
2 and 3 require leaps of faith. Again, it is possible. But if you use logic and the data points we have, they aren’t likely.
You know that. But for some reason you’ve taken this total 180 in the last 2 weeks and are trying to convince yourself Capel will win here next year.
Which is totally possible… but not very likely.
Yes, 2 and 3 require leaps of faith but not great leaps. Guys make big improvements all the time. It will be Year 5 for Burton and Horton. Year 6 for Sibande. Year 3 for Femi but he's 30 years old (though seems like a transfer candidate). It wouldn't be all that unlikely for one of the guards to make a big improvement.
Landing an impact transfer may be tougher but Capel has more to sell than he did when he got Burton and Gueye. He can sell "we have an All-America at Center and you're the piece we need to make the NCAAT." You often see transfers making really random decisions anyway.
I'm no longer a Capel fan but as a Pitt fan, I simply cannot do a 4th rebuild in 6 years. If he returns Hugley, the guards, plus a transfer, I honestly go into next season thinking the NCAAT is a realistic possibility. Not that I'd predict we would make it. I would bet against that but I would think its possible and go into every game with the mindset of how important that game is for our NCAA chances. As a fan, that is huge for me. Too many of these last 5 seasons, I have been watching Pitt just to watch without any type of "fan game pressure" because I know they have no shot at the NCAAT. I want to go into next season watching games with "fan game pressure."
Your last paragraph says it all to me. You are desperate for meaningful basketball so you’re just talking yourself into a bunch of unlikely things happening.
That’s fine and understandable as a fan.
Hopefully HL is smarter than that though.
The key word is desperate, and I believe they both will be desperate for the same thing and because of that being smart will have no bearing on Capel's return in 2023
I don't disagree except I honestly feel the NCAAT is possible and not just because I want to. I would probably predict like 9-11 or 10-10 in the ACC and NIT but a few more wins here and there and its a tournament team I think. I am very very high on Hugley.
I didn't even read your post but kudos on using pontificate in a sentence. One of my favorite words when I want to speak over someone's head 🗣️
Jeffress book closed? Kid isn’t 19. Expectations were high and playing time too high I suppose. He’ll contribute in the future but maybe not what we all expected coming out of HS.
You saw a glimpse of his potential hitting those mid range jumpers against BC . Is he going to be a guy who leads the conference in scoring , no , but as his offense and strength improves he’s going to be a quality player who plays excellent D , shares the ball , sets screens , gets his share of rebounds and scores 8-10 pts . I know no one needs a guy like that on a team !
The book is closed on him being what you would have hoped for out of a Top 75 kid. 1st/2nd Team All-ACC late in his career or at minimum a plus-level starter.
He has no skills besides hustling and is as bad of an offensive player at Pitt as I've ever seen. His ceiling is 7th/8th man on a good team but he has a long way to go before achieving that. I think he probably transfers down.
Following up on this thread.
1) Darren Buchanan is still interested in Pitt. He was also offered by Virginia Tech, today,
2) While more difficult, Pitt just beat Louisville without Horton. And Pitt will beat more teams without him.
1) Darren Buchanan is still interested in Pitt. He was also offered by Virginia Tech, today,
2) While more difficult, Pitt just beat Louisville without Horton. And Pitt will beat more teams without him.
1) Louisville sucks and I predicted us to win today as such
2) *whispers* because Horton isn’t very good or valuable
We need some class balance. Bringing in only 1 freshman last season (Santos) and nobody so far this year is a recipe for failure.
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