Pretty fair points throughout.
Rossi: Pitt's still missing It under Dixon
By Rob Rossi
Friday, March 18, 2016, 10:42 p.m.Updated 2 hours ago
ST. LOUIS — It's still it with Pitt basketball.
The problem.
The story.
The reason things go so maddeningly bad when the calendar turns to March.
And if you're sick of seeing losses like the one Friday night, tired of watching the Panthers turn leads into lament, well, tough luck.
The coach is coming back.
Jamie Dixon, a winner in all the college basketball months except the one that really matters, a coach who keeps getting done in because he can't find that one recruit who can make that one big bucket, is safe.
“Absolutely,” athletic director Scott Barnes said. “Not even a question.”
He said that after Pitt turned a 12-point, first-half lead into a four-point defeat, 47-43, to Wisconsin in the first round of the NCAA Tournament.
Think about that for just one minute. (But don't waste even one more second, unless you're itching for a migraine.)
This was a game in which neither team could crack 50 points, and the losing team was once up by a dozen.
And on its last legitimate possession, which came with about 10 seconds remaining and a chance to win, the best that losing team could do was its senior guard running into its junior forward.
James Robinson said he “didn't mean to” collide in the paint with Michael Young.
Nobody thought he did.
Without question, nobody was less deserving of such a devastating ending to his collegiate career. To find an athlete better liked than Robinson is on campus probably would be impossible. By all accounts, he's been a wonderful ambassador for Pitt.
So, too, has Dixon.
So significant a figure is Dixon that the man in charge of Pitt's money program, football coach Pat Narduzzi, flew to St. Louis to show support for the Big Coach On Campus.
Had Dixon's Panthers held on against Wisconsin, Narduzzi planned again to hop a charter plane to this Gateway to the West for what would have been Pitt's next game on Sunday.
But, come on, was there ever a chance of Narduzzi needing to take that trip?
Pitt has lost five of eight tourney games in six years.
And with this loss, Pitt is 1-6 against higher-seeded teams under Dixon.
If I were Barnes, I'd care an awful lot about that statistic, a lot more even than four losses to lower-seeded opponents by Dixon's squads.
Also, I'd be slightly concerned that the men's basketball program I've inherited has yet to produce a signature superstar in what has been the golden era.
Who's Pitt's Dwyane Wade?
Who's Pitt's Carmelo Anthony?
Heck, over the last decade-plus at Pitt, who's been Charles Smith? Or Sean Miller?
I'm trying to picture Miller running into Smith like Robinson did Young on Friday. I can't.
And, sorry, it's way past due that Dixon find a Miller or a Smith or a Jerome Lane. You know, a Panther who could “send it in” like Lane did.
Sure, those Panthers of the late 1980s never won squat in the NCAA Tournament, which proves just how hard it is to win in this crapshoot.
Still, it's folly to believe Pitt is going to win — in the ACC, in the NCAA Tournament, against better teams on a consistent basis — if it doesn't develop an offensive identity.
How is Pitt going to do that without a player whose offense is part of his identity?
Barnes needs to ask Dixon how Pitt is going to get that player? The lack of an It guy has been and continues to the basketball problem at Pitt.
At some point, the problem has to be that Dixon isn't capable of fixing it.
Rob Rossi is a Tribune-Review staff writer. Reach him at rrossi@tribweb.com or via Twitter @RobRossi_Trib.
Rossi: Pitt's still missing It under Dixon
By Rob Rossi
Friday, March 18, 2016, 10:42 p.m.Updated 2 hours ago
ST. LOUIS — It's still it with Pitt basketball.
The problem.
The story.
The reason things go so maddeningly bad when the calendar turns to March.
And if you're sick of seeing losses like the one Friday night, tired of watching the Panthers turn leads into lament, well, tough luck.
The coach is coming back.
Jamie Dixon, a winner in all the college basketball months except the one that really matters, a coach who keeps getting done in because he can't find that one recruit who can make that one big bucket, is safe.
“Absolutely,” athletic director Scott Barnes said. “Not even a question.”
He said that after Pitt turned a 12-point, first-half lead into a four-point defeat, 47-43, to Wisconsin in the first round of the NCAA Tournament.
Think about that for just one minute. (But don't waste even one more second, unless you're itching for a migraine.)
This was a game in which neither team could crack 50 points, and the losing team was once up by a dozen.
And on its last legitimate possession, which came with about 10 seconds remaining and a chance to win, the best that losing team could do was its senior guard running into its junior forward.
James Robinson said he “didn't mean to” collide in the paint with Michael Young.
Nobody thought he did.
Without question, nobody was less deserving of such a devastating ending to his collegiate career. To find an athlete better liked than Robinson is on campus probably would be impossible. By all accounts, he's been a wonderful ambassador for Pitt.
So, too, has Dixon.
So significant a figure is Dixon that the man in charge of Pitt's money program, football coach Pat Narduzzi, flew to St. Louis to show support for the Big Coach On Campus.
Had Dixon's Panthers held on against Wisconsin, Narduzzi planned again to hop a charter plane to this Gateway to the West for what would have been Pitt's next game on Sunday.
But, come on, was there ever a chance of Narduzzi needing to take that trip?
Pitt has lost five of eight tourney games in six years.
And with this loss, Pitt is 1-6 against higher-seeded teams under Dixon.
If I were Barnes, I'd care an awful lot about that statistic, a lot more even than four losses to lower-seeded opponents by Dixon's squads.
Also, I'd be slightly concerned that the men's basketball program I've inherited has yet to produce a signature superstar in what has been the golden era.
Who's Pitt's Dwyane Wade?
Who's Pitt's Carmelo Anthony?
Heck, over the last decade-plus at Pitt, who's been Charles Smith? Or Sean Miller?
I'm trying to picture Miller running into Smith like Robinson did Young on Friday. I can't.
And, sorry, it's way past due that Dixon find a Miller or a Smith or a Jerome Lane. You know, a Panther who could “send it in” like Lane did.
Sure, those Panthers of the late 1980s never won squat in the NCAA Tournament, which proves just how hard it is to win in this crapshoot.
Still, it's folly to believe Pitt is going to win — in the ACC, in the NCAA Tournament, against better teams on a consistent basis — if it doesn't develop an offensive identity.
How is Pitt going to do that without a player whose offense is part of his identity?
Barnes needs to ask Dixon how Pitt is going to get that player? The lack of an It guy has been and continues to the basketball problem at Pitt.
At some point, the problem has to be that Dixon isn't capable of fixing it.
Rob Rossi is a Tribune-Review staff writer. Reach him at rrossi@tribweb.com or via Twitter @RobRossi_Trib.
