I get your point and agree, but I don't think this team is hurting for 3 point shooters and there's not really anyone I would clearly trade for him right now.
Micah Mason
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I get your point and agree, but I don't think this team is hurting for 3 point shooters and there's not really anyone I would clearly trade for him right now.
No doubt. But if you asked any Pitt fan when he came out of high school if they would take him, it would be a unanimous yes. The kid was a great high school player, and he originally enrolled at Duquesne. That is just not good for the Pitt program.
You mean as a 5'9"'sophomore when he committed to Duquesne?
No.
After a growth spurt, I don't think anyone said they didn't want him on the roster.
The debate was how much playing time.
His junior year stats are pretty similar to James Robinson.
He played with a much stronger cast at zona.
In fairness, he committed to Duquesne as a 5'6" sophomore in what was regarded as a favor to his Aunt, Suzie McConnell-Serio, who was coaching the women's team at the time.
He was somewhat similar to Cameron Johnson or Nolan Cressler in that he had a growth spurt really late in his HS career, and by then it was too late to really attract attention. I believe he signed with Duquesne in the early period, so he didn't even have his massive senior season until after he was pretty much locked into Duquesne.
There were debates about him when he transferred to Arizona, but those were moot as he was blocked from transferring to Pitt anyway.
Re: Micah Mason -- I have always thought, and still think, he could be a really good zone buster for Pitt. I don't think he would be able to defend well enough to play consistently, and I'm not sure Pitt would want to need to run designed plays specifically for him just to get him an open look.
I don't think the people who want Mason at Pitt in a role playing capacity are off base, but I don't think the people who downplay how much time on the floor he'd see are wrong, either.
Honestly, on this Pitt team I'd take a guy who shoots 10% less from 3 than Mason does if he gives me contributions outside of his shooting. Slashing, passing, defending, etc.. Pitt has some guys who can score but can't really defend -- adding the extreme version of that doesn't seem ideal. It would feel sort of like the Penguins repeatedly doubling down on having awesome 1st and 2nd lines while ignoring their depth.
I do not believe this is accurate. If Pitt had signed him out of high school, Pitt fans would likely have been very critical that we signed a local kid who wasn't even ranked as a top 200 recruit.
I remember a VERY vocal contingent on here bellyaching about Pitt not showing any interest in him and how Dixon hates a) white players and b) Western Pennsylvania kids.
Obviously those have been disproven, but Mason was really polarizing as a HS prospect. People really wanted him here.
That is true. But any local kid Pitt doesn't land the fans throw a fit. Is it possible Dixon and staff just did a bad job scouting him and didn't realize his potential?
You're likely right. A vocal minority, but definitely vocal. I remember UP#1 and recruitsreadtheseboards really backing him after some of his big HS games, although I believe recruits is from his area or something.
Bad job of scouting on McConnell, or Mason? On McConnell Pitt never really had a chance. He grew a bunch before his senior year, signed in November, and then had a monster senior season. Since he had signed his LOI, he wasn't able to be recruited.
On Mason, I don't think Pitt really missed.
The one guy I really harped on them for missing was Jeter. I liked him quite a bit in HS. Obviously that situation has been somewhat rectified, as he ultimately wound up at Pitt. In all honesty, though, I was hoping he would have been better on defense than he has been. So I probably overrated him in the end.
McConnell. Maybe they just did it as a favor, but I'm guessing Duquesne saw that he could one day become a good ballplayer. I just feel that if Pitt would've immediately stepped in and done the same thing Duquesne did, they could've landed him.
Now when he transferred to Arizona, that's just Pitt not being able to get big time players to come here very often.
Now when he transferred to Arizona, that's just Pitt not being able to get big time players to come here very often.
It was pretty obvious that they liked Jeter. They recruited him pretty hard, but decided to take the commitment from Chris Jones.
He was blocked from transferring to Pitt. All Duquesne and RMU players are. Lamar Patterson even alluded to it in a tweet to McConnell last year.
That could be. Back then I was splitting my time between the scout board and here, and it didn't seem like they prioritized him. But, I wasn't premium here or reading this site super intently like I do now, so I may have missed some of the details.
Lol I totally forgot that tweet was posted everywhere. I don't know how I feel about that rule. Makes a lot of sense, but at the same time it only impacts Pitt negatively. So these kids could just go to PSU or WVU with no problem at all?
I'm not sure about that. None of those players has wound up at any of those schools, so I'm not sure how it works. Only how it works with Pitt. I wouldn't be surprised if any "local" school is blocked so that a precedent isn't set, but I don't know for 100% certainty that WVU and PSU are included in there.
PSU could use the help, though. That's for sure.
Oh but they keep getting all these big recruits. And Duquesne still murdered them lolPSU could use the help, though. That's for sure.
Right or wrong It's pretty common for teams to block a kid from transferring to a team they will play in the future.
Oh my god if we could've got Lance Jeter! I vividly remember watching him hit that half court buzzer beater in the high school championship game.
Very true. But they also regularly play PSU and WVU which is what made me wonder that.
Yeah, I don't know how committed he was to football out of HS, but he'd have been nice to get for the basketball team for sure.
You would imagine that Pitt basketball vs Cincy football would be a no-brainer, but then again that one kid signed with Miami (Oh.) basketball over Pitt football.
Re: Jeter, at the time, Pitt was looking for a 2G after the NYC kid somewhat surprisingly signed with UConn. Jeter thought he was a 2G. Pitt thought he was a 4. We followed him but ultimately took the commitment from Chris Jones instead.
We ended up with both of them and clearly Jeter wasn't a 2G. While Jeter is the better athlete, there's not a whole lot to separate him and Jones in overall impact. Both are streaky shooters who are mainly role players. Jeter can get some tough rebounds but can also end up in a different zipcode from his man defensively.
Absolutely it's possible. While you'll never get some Pitt fans on here to admit it, Dixon & his staff are probably biased against any WPIAL (or PIAA for that matter) kids who are (a) not at least 6'7 or (b) not rated highly by the scouting services. Any WPIAL kids who don't fit the Herb Pope, Maverick Rowan, Curtis Aiken Jr. mold are getting either largely or totally ignored. Some of that might be justified.
As you can see in this thread, when there's a debatable 'miss' among local prospects, Dixon supporters will give you the litany of ready-made excuses: "he was a late bloomer", "he was already committed", "he was blocked/ineligible", "he played football." To be sure, these explanations are true, but they are also overplayed and exaggerated.
Dixon supporters who might be on the defensive regarding the recruitment of TJM have his sophomore HS year height & weight down to the quarter-inch & ounce. But this is a red herring really. Even if TJ had been 6'1 as a HS soph, Dixon & his staff still wouldn't have shown much interest, because they don't think the WPIAL is a good enough breeding ground, particularly for their guards. His only hope of getting Pitt's attention would have been to transfer to South Kent or perhaps play New Jersey AAU. I mean, the next WPIAL game Brandin Knight attends will probably be the first.
Certainly the case can be made that a strategy of ignoring the under 6'7 or non-elite local prospect is a sound one. Pitt may indeed have better recruiting waters to chart. But you can't then chalk Lance Jeter up to football as if Pitt basketball made this big push but just missed out. That strikes me as having your cake and eating it too. The probable reality is there was no push.
The perception that Mason is simply a spot-up shooter is false. He is surprisingly quick and moves well without the ball. He has very good vision & made some excellent passes in the Pitt game. He can also get his own shot, maybe not always but did so several times in the 2nd half. It's also true he struggled against Pitt's D. You have to think some of that is due to the familiarity and a certain spike in competitiveness.
I'm also not sure Coulter, while talented, is the best backcourt mate for Mason. I think Mason might be better paired with someone who's less of a 1 on 1 type.
I'm also not sure Coulter, while talented, is the best backcourt mate for Mason. I think Mason might be better paired with someone who's less of a 1 on 1 type.
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Just exactly what mold is it that Pope, Rowan and Aiken Jr fit that doesn't apply to anyone else? Those are three completely different kinds of players.
Unless by "mold" you mean that they are good players. Then yeah, I would agree that Pitt tends to ignore WPIAL kids who don't fit the mold of being good players.
I know this is really hard for some people to believe, but sometimes reasons really are just reasons and not excuses. There doesn't always have to be some nefarious plot behind everything that happens and every kid that we recruit or don't recruit or get or don't get. Lance Jeter really did want to play football in college. Terrell Prior did too. Herb Pope really did need to get away from this area. TJ McConnell really did commit to Duquesne when he was a sophomore. Micah Mason wasn't even well thought enough of in high school to get a Duquesne offer let alone a Pitt offer. And so on.
Highly-rated and/or taller than 6'7. What Aiken lacks in size he makes up for in pedigree. In short, these are the obvious recruits. Pitt seems to rely on other people to tell them what local players they should recruit, when Pitt should not need anyone else to tell them that.
Dixon supporters like to point to Luther as evidence that he doesn't ignore the lower-profile WPIAL prospects. Maybe they're correct. But Luther is 6'8 (and also has family ties to Pitt). The lower-profile WPIAL recruits most often discussed in the last few years on here as 'misses' (McConnell, Mason, Kane, L. Jeter) have all been significantly smaller than 6'8. I don't think that is a coincidence. Perhaps you do. Strip away the explanations, valid as they are, and I still doubt Dixon & his staff makes the requisite push for those guys. Due in part to an underlying bias.
So that's the mold: if you're a local prospect & Pitt is recruiting you, you're either a can't miss guy or you're 6'7 or bigger. Put another way, I think Dixon and his staff might be too passive in their evaluation of some local prospects, and Dixon supporters might be too quick to turn to football or growth spurts or grades to explain it away.
Kane was a partial qualifier & Pitt couldn't accept him. If he would have taken care of business in high school, Pitt would have taken him. Pitt made a living on these kids in the late 90's & early 00's (Brown, Troutman & Krauser) & would have taken Kane if allowed.
Mason went to Drake. If Pitt missed out on him out of high school, so did every other Pittsburgh school.
Jeter was a miss.
McConnell don't know if he was willing to listen to other offers after he committed, but he signed early & didn't have an offer from Xavier out of high school, so Miller also overlooked him as well.
Jim Calhoun was blasted for not recruiting Ryan Gomes...it happens everywhere when a local talent goes elsewhere.
He is exactly what someone posted, a role player that we would have to use strategically, which we almost never do anyway. Our defense already sucks. Making it worse doesn't help. And the fact you point out he struggled against our defense, which sucks, and which other guards routinely exploit, doesn't help your case at all.
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If something is true, how is it an excuse? I don't get this whole paragraph....The fact is, if a kid is "debatable" at the time of his recruitment, it isn't a miss, by definition. Goofiness.
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Agreed. He developed quite nicely. We had Gibbs & Wanamaker thru 2011, Woodall, too. I can't recall anyone other than UP#1 who kept baning the drum for both of those guys. Don't forget that Micah had health issues, falling a bit as a senior recruit. Drake isn't a bigtime program. If he were from Altoona, no one would know his name. Glad he's had a nice career.
You're pushing a point here that Dixon ignores local recruits.
We have another critical poster who consistently pushes the EXACT opposite point, that Dixon ONLY recruits in Western Pa.
I think both of you are all wet.
Pitt recruits guys who the staff evaluates can help us. Our mission is to win basketball games, not provide a showcase for WPIAL kids.
We certainly offered locals like DJ Kennedy, Kane, Lance Jeter and even Drew Shifino. For various reasons they didn't come here. Did we push them as much as Fella oe Rowan? No, no coach would put the effort into an averae kid that tey woukd into a potential star. McConnell and Mason are guys who had we offered, more of the board would have been outraged than happy at that time. They were marginal at best as high school prospects. Certainly, there were plenty of folks not in favor of signing Luther and Cam Johnson.
Hindsight is 20/20. (Unless we're Wlat, then it's 50/50☺). You really can't frame a valid argument by waiting until after a recruit's college career is finished and saying, "See, that's who we SHOULD have signed."
WHy mock me he could play for Pitt and should be plaaying for Pitt period. You ca't admit Jamie screwed up not recruting him. He scores all the time again teams better than Pitt
Even if he "could be" playing for Pitt, I don't get the "should be" portion. It's not like this guy is some super NCCA player that it is unfathomable that a coach would not target him. He is a niche player who does what he does well. For UP#1 it comes down to two things and two things only. He's local, and he's white. That's the list. Oh, and maybe he shoots FTs well. Maybe three things.
Why do we keep discussing him and TJM ad nauseum on here? It's like a mental illness or something.
Please name the teams "better than Pitt"?? He didn't do jack against us until mop-up time....and we're supposedly not a good perimeter defense team. It's not like quality teams wanted him. Don't be a homer.
People live vicariously through these kids. These middle-class white kids don't get the attention that more talented players do who matriculate through the basketball factory schools on the east coast. It is the same reason every Pittsburgh coach has to be a "Pittsburgh guy" like Wannstedt.
That being said, everyone loved the tenure of Yuri Demetris, right?
Good thing Mason wasn't that involved in this game. Down 35 -23, you have to be hoping this kid doesn't get hot or it could have gotten a little scary. It's easy to downplay someone on an off night, but I'm guessing people were relieved he didn't play better.
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