Can smell the stink clear up in nw pa. Coaching matters.
Pitt vs UNC on Friday
- Thread starter wrestlingfan22
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If one looks at the program with a critical eye, it’s no great mystery why a team that’s located in Western PA can’t field a team that perennially finishes in the Top Ten - and winning the ACC should be a given.
This program has beeen a HUGE letdown this year. Their just isn’t an excuse for why they wrestle so defensively with no offense… I think he’s done a pretty solid job overall with the program but he needs a major flip to change next year: there is no excuse for Pitt to have lose some of the duals that they have this year. None.
Gavin was a questionable hire at the time, and still is. This year is just more of the same. It's so frustrating. Hopefully Victory Heights helps, but coaching will still matter.
It is kind of scary considering that besides maybe Nino I haven’t seen anybody progress throughout the years. maybe it’s time to get rid of some friends from the staff and hire developmental/recruiting coaches or unfortunately if he’s not willing to do so then, maybe if this keeps up that it’s time for a change. Victory Heights might and I stress might help with recruiting but it has nothing to do with development of the wrestlers, so I’m worried just like everyone on this board.
Maybe losing Jordan Leen was a bigger deal than we thought. Not nearly as good on top as we were when he was here.
I think its very fair to put HCKG under the microscope after this season. Considering we have no likely AA placers this year, Gavin will have produced 3 All Americans and 1 national champ in 8 years at Pitt. Thats not very good at all
I think its very fair to put HCKG under the microscope after this season. Considering we have no likely AA placers this year, Gavin will have produced 3 All Americans and 1 national champ in 8 years at Pitt. Thats not very good at all
That’s a good point. As you said, not nearly as good on top and really have been awful on bottom.
We have talent on this team, we have wrestlers with some significant accomplishments but have we maximized their growth and talent? Well that’s questionable. Case in point, in my mind I didn’t see Mickeys talents maximized, did not feel he progressed as a wrestler but actually fell back a bit. We have to have coaches that can maximize the skill set of those they have and actually develop new skills.
It falls under Gavin but as someone said, maybe time to re-evaluate the coaches and get people in there that can sharpen some iron.
I’m starting to think that it’s not just a coincidence that our best assistant coach in years was a non Pitt guy
I’m usually not someone who relishes gathering the torches and pitchforks carriers to a nighttime gathering. But we’ve all seen what can happen - specifically, in Pitt’s women’s volleyball, and the women’s and men’s soccer teams - when Pitt shakes the piggybank and hires established, bonafide winning coaches who are talent-magnets. And while we might not have the money to do this in football or basketball, we‘ve shown that we can do it in the other sports.
Pitt can get much better if they could successfully recruit the PA wrestlers whom the Nits don’t want. Heck, the Nits are so dominant that they’re getting the best talent in the country; but there are a lot of very good wrestlers in PA and other neighboring states whom the Nits don’t need (so they don’t recruit them), but they’re not coming to Pitt.
This, IMHO, is the big recruiting failure. The Nits are gonna win most recruiting battles, but that doesn’t mean that we have to lose the recruiting battles against the other Big Ten schools, or the ACC schools.
Leen isn’t doing anything at Brown this year.. they’ve been shutout on more than 1 occasion this year. Their 133 has regressed from last year 🤷♂️
Gavin had progressed multiple wrestlers. The heller brothers were good but not this good at Hofstra. Cole became an all American (his first recruit). Stout has the makings of a blood round type guy this year and Luca has made a noticeable jump. Camacho has progressed but not sure if he will ever be that guy. Losing recruiting battles at key weights like Poulin who looks like a possible AA at 125 and not having a legitimate backup at heavy I think are very reasonable marks against the program. Team looks different with Pitzer no doubt but every team has injuries. I’d think 57 will be looked at through the portal for an upgrade. I like Marion the FR recruit who should be a heavy but I don’t think it’s unreasonable to have a ranked 215/285 pounder to come in a Hs class
its all about recruiting and in pennsylvanas 2025 Pitt got killed. ITS fair to say Pitts coaching staff can't bring the pa blue-chippers in.
Give Leen a couple years. They are recruiting better since he got there
I'm a real layman here, but I follow wrestling enough (and shoutout to pa-wrestling.com, which is amazing) to know that there is absolutely no way we should be losing the amount of local talent that we do. PSU sure, and yeah, OSU and Iowa as well, but this should be a perennial top 10 program just on the basis of where we're based. And we're so far from that.
Wrestling is not like those other sports because of the post grad career paths for those sports. The best women's volleyball and men's and women's soccer players are leaving school to pursue professional careers while the best wrestlers are generally just moving over to the club to train for domestic and international competition. The PWC does not have close to the resources of the clubs of the schools that you want Pitt to be competing with and there is not a lot the athletic department can do to change that standing.
Can and should Pitt be recruiting better? Yes, but you have to remember most of the schools Pitt is competing with to recruit Pennsylvania have more history, more tradition, and more money for NIL and post grad. Pitt also has little juice on the recruiting trail wants you get out of western PA which I am not sure how to fix.
It aint about history and tradition, thats for sure. Its about the coach and the resources. Thats it.
I agree. Id say we are around par on where Stottlemeyer had the program. Stottlemeyer I think had a higher AA/yr rate than Gavin but similarly ranked wrestlers. Gavin just can't get guys on the podium with any consistency.
I looked this up and Gavin has had 5 ncaa tournaments so far. This year will be 6. So far he has had 4 ncaa semifinalist, 3 finalist, and one champ. The year he had two ncaa finalist Pitt finished higher as a team than they did in over 50 years. That year Pitt was 11th. Last time Pitt was Top ten was the 60’s. Stottlemeyer coached Pitt for 35 years and coached 2 champs ever and had long droughts of no AA’s. Nino was first ncaa champ for Pitt in 15 years.
Losing a dual to UNC is disappointing but to say the AA/yr rate is worse is not correct. Pitt wasn’t exactly cranking out AA’s or national champs before Gavin.
You guys both are right on certain points. The biggest key in my opinion is is that none of those all Americans besides Cole Matthews has been a Gavin recruit. And not talking about history it’s just we don’t recruit good enough and we’re not developing enough and I’m not putting it all on Gavin. I’m just saying that maybe we need to change up some of the staff for the betterment of the program. to be honest not one team in the ACC had history let’s be real and they’re all passing us except for UNC but don’t hold your breath on that for too much longer if Koll stays.
This is.a good summary and I think what a lot of us were trying to convey. No doubt we need to improve talent, but we definitely have some. Developing it is questionable. We should not be losing kids to VT, UNC and NC State, those hits are tough to take. While someone said, we will not be PSU, there is no reason why we should not look like the Iowa - Iowa State comparison. I am optimistic on Gavin and the program, we will be fine. Lets retain our backyard talent and maximize what we have. H2P
I believe the year that Pitt had 2 finalists was the covid year, and a number of programs didn't wrestle that season. That's also why Pitt finished 11th.
I guess my point was that I dont think it’s development that’s an issue to getting to where we want to be. Matthews was a #79 on the big board coming out of high school per the recent intermat article, and he is all American. Reece Heller was unheard of before Pitt, wrestled 149 at Hofstra his first season per wrestlestat, and is not ranked #9 at 184. Nino was never a state champ and was a national champ. Wentzel didn’t qualify for ncaa tournament his first year and then made the finals a few years later. Just a few examples of development. So I think it is recruiting where things need to pick up for this program. And not just western pa recruiting but nationally.
Cornell was the only good team that didn’t participate that year. The Ivy League didn’t participate in athletics the covid year and there are only 6 Ivy League schools with wrestling. Most of them are bad.
Doc respect yours and other opinions on this board as I follow wrestling from a little further away. My question is what is your reason for the optimism? We have 3 WPIAL wrestlers on the staff but yet we are not in the conversation when they are choosing a school? Thanks Doc!
And if I’m correct, I remember somebody stating a while back that the 2025 PA class is really loaded with top end talent and Pitt got none of them. so I believe we are all on the right track regarding recruiting is not even close to good enough. And I think it works hand-in-hand, considering if you want to name every one of the all Americans Pitt has had in the last 6-8 years, every one of them was in the top 100 ranked recruits coming out of high school.
Good and fair question. I think we all hope Victory Heights helps with some of this. I'm sure Gavin and his staff emphasize recruiting our backyard, we have lost some good wrestlers but at the same time I think we have picked up some good ones too.
I guess I'm bullish on this because while I realize we won't be PSU, I don't see any reason why we could not and should not be in a secondary position. Someone had mentioned maybe we just don't have the right assistants in place to get these guys committed to Pitt. I welcome other thoughts, this is good conversation.
2025 class is not over yet, but Pitt is yet to secure any big PA names. However all but one of the top 100 recruits from PA are from central-east PA. Maddox Shaw is the only top 100 recruit from WPIAL, he is currently uncommitted and someone we are in on. Also his teammate Bode Marlow has already committed to Pitt which could help. The other big uncommitted names from PA are Vince Bouzakis (who visited here and has been involved with our coaches before), Austin Johnson who is an upperweight that may choose football instead, and Anthony Mutarelli who is east PA with connections to other schools but someone we should be after very hard IMO.
Maddox or Bouzakis would save the class. I don’t know the answer but recruiting is harder than ever when a certain few teams can offer outside resources to essentially increase scholarship limit but beyond that Pitt needs to be bringing in more blue chippers quite frankly. Nc state and va tech usually out recruits us and now NC is cleaning shop which is concerning
IMO I think Gavin was a safe hire. I think he will keep a competitive team, but he’s not really a big enough national presence to get us past the likes of NC State or VA Tech. I think he’s done a great job cleaning up the culture of the program and each of the kids on the team seem like good kids. I don’t see another midlands incident happening. I thought before the UNC match that they separated themselves from Virginia and UNC and are now solidly the 3rd team on the ACC. Prior to Gavin I felt like they were in the UNC/Virginia level.
What worries me somewhat is we have done a good job recruiting the WPIAL in the last few cycles, but the WPIAL seems to be down compared to recent years. This is still a very young team with 5 freshman in the lineup. There are no glaring holes on the team, though there are no sure AAs this year either
What worries me somewhat is we have done a good job recruiting the WPIAL in the last few cycles, but the WPIAL seems to be down compared to recent years. This is still a very young team with 5 freshman in the lineup. There are no glaring holes on the team, though there are no sure AAs this year either
So how did both Pat Popolizio and Tony Robie get to be a bigger national presence than Gavin? Unlike Gavin, I don't either of them ever won a national championship as a competitor.
Pat P gained a ton of notoriety for turning the Binghamton program around like he did. Robie was put in a good spot taking over an already established VA Tech team but was also part of the journey on Dressers staff for a number of years. He’s done a great job continuing to move the program upwards.
Not to say Gavin can’t/won’t get there. He’s still fairly young, so there’s still time. There has obviously been a move in the right direction, the team was 4-11 his first year, and they beat a top 5 team in Ohio State this year. I think many people have higher expectations though based on where the school is located, right in the middle of a recruiting landmine.
Im not saying Stottlemeyer was anything special. Ive been highly critical of him and his tenure in the past. Being on par with him isnt a feather in HCKGs cap either. Im just using it as the most recent example of reasonable success of the wrestling program.
This program should be a consistent top 10 performer. Its not by far. I think Victory Heights will help. It better help, because if it doesnt, we will probably need to go in another direction at head coach
Outside of location Pitt right now should not be a top 10 team, they can get there but they are not there right now. It is going to take more than Victory Heights to be a consistent top 10 team.
Very little aggression. This takedown problem is ridiculous.
Coaching is not just about who was the better competitor as a wrestler (or any other sport) it is about charisma in being able to recruit and motivate kids. Attention to detail, work habits, and consistency are also critical. At a lower level I had the privilege of having three coaches who are in the HS Coaches Hall of Fame. Football had Art Walker, wrestling was George Lamprinakos, and track was Don Molenaur. Three different personalities and one of them I didn't like, but they could definitely coach.
Recruiting has been the biggest issue for why Pitt has not been at the level we would want it:
Recent Big Board Rankings of our Recruits
2025*: #94 Carson Walsh, Rest Unranked
2024*: #66 Kade Brown, #126 Jackson Young, Rest Unranked
2023: #18 Ant, #105 Grant, #140 Dylan, #183 Tyler, Rest Unranked
2022: #34 Mac, #41 Pitzer, #94 Keslar, #111 Finn Solomon (Transfer) #137 Cuerbo, #150 Priest, #231 Laffey, Rest Unranked
2021: #35 Luca, #75 Brock, #121 Vinny (Transer), #130 Finch, #244 Hivnor, Rest Unranked
2020: #194 Petrucelli, Rest Unranked
2019: #99 Mancini (Transfer), Rest Unranked
2018: #78 Cole, Rest Unranked
I may have missed some but in the last 6 recruting classes we have had 2 absolute duds, which is why our current team is so young. The last 3 classes have been very good and so far under Gavin it looks like they have hit somewhat on all of the top 50 recruits and developed Cole very well from where he was ranked. Need to get a top 50 guy in practically every class and start consistently getting top 30 guys to compete long-term.
* Still in HS
Recent Big Board Rankings of our Recruits
2025*: #94 Carson Walsh, Rest Unranked
2024*: #66 Kade Brown, #126 Jackson Young, Rest Unranked
2023: #18 Ant, #105 Grant, #140 Dylan, #183 Tyler, Rest Unranked
2022: #34 Mac, #41 Pitzer, #94 Keslar, #111 Finn Solomon (Transfer) #137 Cuerbo, #150 Priest, #231 Laffey, Rest Unranked
2021: #35 Luca, #75 Brock, #121 Vinny (Transer), #130 Finch, #244 Hivnor, Rest Unranked
2020: #194 Petrucelli, Rest Unranked
2019: #99 Mancini (Transfer), Rest Unranked
2018: #78 Cole, Rest Unranked
I may have missed some but in the last 6 recruting classes we have had 2 absolute duds, which is why our current team is so young. The last 3 classes have been very good and so far under Gavin it looks like they have hit somewhat on all of the top 50 recruits and developed Cole very well from where he was ranked. Need to get a top 50 guy in practically every class and start consistently getting top 30 guys to compete long-term.
* Still in HS
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