Clearly Stallings left the cupboard empty there, right?
Isn’t that the narrative?
Realistic Expectations
- Thread starter CCHS82
- Start date
Isn’t that the narrative?
Well it is for some of you.
Then again, maybe Bryce Drew who many on this board covets, isn't all he is cracked up to be.
They have a great recruiting class coming in. Oh, and they made the NCAA tournament last year. Oops.
With respect to last year, apparently Stallings didn't leave the cupboard bare.
6-12 this year. Since you obviously are a great judge of coaching talent, please help me understand the drop off.
By that standard, Dixon didn't either. There were a bunch of talented seniors last year at Pitt. Attitudes? yes. But, they made the tournament the year before so who knows what happened. However, we do know that we have not seen good results with experienced players (blamed on their attitude by some) and now young players who everyone says have great attitudes. Eventually, we need to stop looking at the previous staff (both positive and negative) and start judging the current staff on their actual results. On the court has been bad and recruiting has not been good. Is there something positive to look for in the next year or 2? That is what Lyke has to decide as she assesses the program.
Stallings took a Team with enough talent to make a tournament last year, and could’t get the job done. Drew did. In regards to recruiting, Drew is running circles around Stallings. Capiche?
Keep sticking to your talking points.
So drew took a tournament caliber team and is 6-12 this year. Again, why the drop off? Using your standards, bad coaching right?
Yeah, that isn't happening, at all.
The issue is talent for the future and effort. Neither seems to be present.
The realistic expectations are about where a coach should be in year 2, 3, 4, etc. and right now it looks like we don't have a chance to compete at any point.
3 of them were Stallings recruits and the open roster spot. He was the coach and he sat on his you know what and didn't do anything different with what was already in front of him. For 2017 and 2018 he has whiffed on almost every recruit until he is scrounging for scraps who have no other decent options.
And "Cam Johnson couldn't handle the pressure of being a leader" is completely idiotic and ridiculous.
And they have a top 5 recruiting class.
So, Drew took over a team that had previously been to the NCAAT. That team lost 6 of their 13 players, including their two best players and highest scorers. They still went to the NCAAT the next year and won exactly as many games.
Stallings took over a team that had previously been to the NCAAT. That team lost 4 of their 13 players, including 2 rotation players, only 1 of whom had a real impact and who combined averaged fewer points than either of the players Vandy lost. They finished below .500, were 4-14 in conference, and lost 5 more games.
BTW, this year Vanderbilt has lost to 7 teams who are or were ranked. Pitt? 3. Maybe the schedule has been a little different? Maybe?
No matter, Vanderbilt has a top 5 recruiting class coming in next year, while we have a borderline top 200 player and a JUCO G, who isn't even the best player on his team. They literally have a class that is 101 spots better than ours. One hundred and one.
And this is all that really matters. A decent looking big man that will most likely need some time to develop and a back up PG. I really did expect more by this point in his recruiting.
Year 2 for Bryce drew is too soon to judge with the total lack of talent on the roster, right?
Year 2 includes who Drew signed for next year. Our coach does not have what he needs or anywhere close to what Drew has coming in for next year. At least Drew can point to some success as in recruiting . Stallings has zero, nothing, to point too as success in his tenure at Pitt unless you want to say Carr and Stewart may be ACC level players.
Let's see what Drew and Stallings win totals are in their years 3 and years 4. Drew is building something with incoming talent.
I’m not arguing with you-
I’m pointing out the hypocrisy of the Stallings apologists
Can someone not like Stallings and also think Dixon was a piker the last 5 years and root against him now? Because when you come up with that category/label, can you put me in that group? Thanks.
The recruiting by Pitt and Stallings to this point is abysmal. Next year's class is awful and there are no top prospects seriously considering Pitt. Sure, Stallings is recruiting some, but does anyone think he's going to get them to Pitt? He has done squat so far. I doubt that will change much.
If Pitt had commitments from 1 top 100 player and was on the radar for a couple of 4* guys right now who were top 100 guys or better, which is the expectation for a program like Pitt, I might be more optimistic. But that isn't happening. And even if we did get those top recruits, who's to say Stallings even knows how to coach them. His record says he's not a good coach and does less with more than any coach in the country. What top player would want to play for that?
It wasn't Dixon's last 5 years. Possibly his last 2 or 3. And even at that, Dixon was better in his last 3 years at Pitt than Stallings has ever been or will be.
But why even talk about Dixon now or root for or against him? Did he take the banana out of your lunch or something? Who cares? We have a program now led by a coach who is tearing it down more and more every day he is here. That's my concern. Dixon isn't relevant to that concern because he's not the coach.
3 dances in 5 years looks like our current high water mark.
I’ll categorize that group “short sighted malcontents “
You’re a founding member.
Or call me someone who mathematically read the trends......and Jamie left on his own, what did you want Pitt to do, up his salary more to beg him to stay? Just because the poor decisions made after does not justify paying Jamie at all costs to stay here if he wanted to run away from the mess he created. And that is exactly what he did. Let someone else deal with the debts left behind.
Your statement of rooting against him at his new school tosses you into the malcontent group.
If you are unhappy with a successful coach, and unhappy with his replacement...
The common thread is your unhappiness.
And the bitterness towards Dixon is al the evidence needed
He’s gone and no longer relevant to Pitt.
I was okay with having some new life , but feared the odds were we’d be much worse as a result
Hiring the mediocre at best Stallings ensured losing .
Dixon has nothing to do with my opinions on stallings. Much like Fleury has nothing to do with my concerns about Murray this year
I get it, The yinzer is strong in you, so rational thoughts about the future aren’t possible .
As it’s always about being bitter about the past, instead
Nah, not at all. I could care less honestly what he does. I just love seeing some of the people fawning and posting after every TCU win now having to shut up a bit. If it makes them miserable, it makes me happy. It makes you miserable, it makes me really happy.
I am actually bitter at Jamie! Not that he left, but like Paterno, didn't have to face the music by sticking around and going down with the ship. Too many of the JIG'ers pine for him, and write about his success at TCU, until of course, he plays some good teams. The fact is Dixon's recruiting flat out sucked the last 3-4 years. He had a roster so incomplete that noone could win with it. He had one inside player in Mike Young and then a bunch of interchangeable 6' 5" players. His inept recruiting put this program in a position to fail regardless of who took over as head man. How do you explain a coach who was so successful fanning on every Plan A and Plan B recruit he tried to land? Its shocking we had to settle for guys like Haughton and Nix and Milligan and Clark. To defend Jamie on these guys is indefensible!
Those who are honest, know this and it is why he is gone. The administration had enough of him, and he being a smart man jumped off the sinking ship, making the departure mutual. Again, for anyone who is honest, it is clear that Marcus Carr and Parker Stewart are major improvements over any of the guards that Jamie brought here in his last so many years. I can't help but think back to names like Isaiah Epps and John Johnson. That said, the roster is to young and far from ready to compete in this conference.
The problem we face is that even if we do get talent here, KS is not even half the coach that JD was. Knowing this, I think the administration would like to see KS bring in some more talent and try to build the team back to respectability before they move on to a coach who can get things moving in the direction all us fans would like. I am not sure what KS will bring in in the future, but I don't think the players will be worse than what Dixon was bringing in.
We are in the midst of a major rebuild. I am not sure that KS has the mindset to work with these young kids and develop them. He just hasn't shown much patience in any area at all. I think Stallings will get another year and if he can upgrade recruiting for 2019, I would consider letting him finish his contract. If he can't get some top one hundred guy(s) and we don't see our young guys getting better he has to go.
Those who are honest, know this and it is why he is gone. The administration had enough of him, and he being a smart man jumped off the sinking ship, making the departure mutual. Again, for anyone who is honest, it is clear that Marcus Carr and Parker Stewart are major improvements over any of the guards that Jamie brought here in his last so many years. I can't help but think back to names like Isaiah Epps and John Johnson. That said, the roster is to young and far from ready to compete in this conference.
The problem we face is that even if we do get talent here, KS is not even half the coach that JD was. Knowing this, I think the administration would like to see KS bring in some more talent and try to build the team back to respectability before they move on to a coach who can get things moving in the direction all us fans would like. I am not sure what KS will bring in in the future, but I don't think the players will be worse than what Dixon was bringing in.
We are in the midst of a major rebuild. I am not sure that KS has the mindset to work with these young kids and develop them. He just hasn't shown much patience in any area at all. I think Stallings will get another year and if he can upgrade recruiting for 2019, I would consider letting him finish his contract. If he can't get some top one hundred guy(s) and we don't see our young guys getting better he has to go.
Stallings has brought in 11 recruits and not one of them is Top 100. Cut the chord. There is no light at the end of the tunnel with Stallings.
You can keep pushing that fake news but its a wrong. Dixon was forced out. Pitt paid off his buyout. I know people don't want to think their alma mater made a huge mistake that is still laughed at by the national media, but that's what happened.
A little late replying to this, but I happen to believe coaching matters. Not sure if those players on the roster last year if they had stayed would have progressed. It's a conundrum for sure.
I think you're tight on the importance of coaching and it's role in player development. While this is all speculative, based on what I saw of the players who left and in particular Kithcart, Wilson and Nix, I'm just inclined to believe they were players with very low ceilings and therefore their staying wouldn't have changed our current predicament. Now you might respond that the players Stallings recruited aren't any better (and in the case of some of these freshman I would agree with that assessment). However it's probably true that when he decided to rebuild the roster Stallings was hopeful he'd bring in a cadre of players much better than those purged but it didn't turn out that way....unfortunately. Man, no Pitt hoops leaves a huge void in the winter and I don't know about you but when Pitt's having a bad FB or BB season, it dampens my enthusiasm for that sport in that season generally and I just about tune out of what's going on in he NCAA. Been a tough year across the board for us Pitt fans.
Oh - for sure - my general interest in college hoops has plummeted. I basically always kept track of who was playing who all week long in the important conferences. Good times.
I didn't. But if TCU came with that offer, how was Pitt expected to keep him or make a better offer to keep him?
If they really wanted him to stay couldn't they have just enforced his buyout? No raise necessary in that scenario, right?
The very logical response to that is it is unwise to force a HC to remain when they want to be elsewhere. And that applies here too. (Although I think Barnes was dumb not negotiating for at least some of the buyout.)
I often wonder if we'll ever find out what happened in that 24 hour period right after the Wisky game that changed Dixon's mind about staying. Either way, it was his choice to leave. My guess is a perfect storm of many events that had started months previously. Didn't help we had an AD who thought he was the smartest guy in the room either.
I agree for the most part but that's what those contract buy out clauses are for. You want our guy then you need to pay up for him. Unless of course you want your guy gone.
Either way at this point it's all irrelevant. We either start recruiting much better or we get another coach. For me that seems to be the only two choices.
Agree, it is all about the talent now. I can live with a coach who is not great if said coach can meaningfully upgrade the talent level. Early returns are not good on KS. However, as I have said before, Carr and Stewart have intrigued me enough that I am curious what he can do if given a little time. I know they are not top 100, but, that is not always the best indicator of what a guy can do at the next level. I also like Golden for next year, even tho I don't know if he will be ready to step in and be effective in the ACC.
To me, Stallings needs to strike gold in 2019. The only thing that will keep him here is a talent upgrade. He has shown to be mediocre throughout his coaching career, and there is little reason to think that might change here.
All I know is this, if and when Pitt offs KS, I truly hope they have done their due diligence this time. Hopefully, they find someone who can recruit and coach, as if that combination is impossible to find. We had one of the very best coaches in the land, and at the end he could not recruit a starving man to a steak dinner. Now we have a very mediocre coach, and the jury is still out on his ability to recruit.
Of course, I think many have thrown in the towel on KS, because he has come off as not a very likeable person, which I agree with. That noted, I still think there is a chance that he brings this program some better players down the road. I just don't know how far the administration will let him get down the proverbial road.
JD is/was a good guy and a good coach, and I didn't want him to go anywhere, but if you can't acknowledge that he jumped the shark at Pitt, you're just not capable of any honest perspective. Things were not good and there were no signs that they were getting better. Recruiting was piss poor and JD showed no sense of urgency to try to improve that.
Before you respond, this is in no way an endorsement of Stallings or his hiring. He was a terrible hire from Day 1 and that hiring blunder basically destroyed the Pitt basketball program. We are now a ground up rebuild job with a coach who is ill-suited for accomplishing that. There were a few directions the brain trust could have taken with JD's replacement and they chose one that nobody saw coming.
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