Skerry vs Dixon

[Sean Miller Fan]

Tomorrow's game is really interesting. We play the coach who played a significant role in Pitt's demise. I wonder if we never hired Pat Skerry, do we sign Bond instead of Birch and does that equal a couple extra wins over the years and maybe things are a but different now.

What is most interesting is a lot us felt the Skerry/Birch thing was Jamie's attempt to get his hands dirty a little. Something about the deal didn't seem right. Yet, at a CAA commuter school with almost no fanbase and few resources, Skerry actually recruited BETTER than Jamie did at Pitt for the 13, 14, 15, and 16 classes. Skerry has put together an NCAAT caliber team through what would appear to be very honest recruiting. And quite simply, he was able to get better players to go to Towson than Jamie could at Pitt.

I watched Towson play. They are good. They're like a 12/13 seed type of team. Very similar in a lot of ways to those Akron/Kent State teams. I would expect that even a good Pitt team wouldn't have a cakewalk in this game. I'd be very very surprised if Pitt won this. Towson clearly has better players and they are seniors.

Tigers 79
Panthers 68

 

[Deer Head]

Skerry is obviously cheating and Dixon should have never played that recruiting game.

I don't think it had any impact at all as it was extremely short lived.

 

[BFo8]

Tomorrow's game is really interesting. We play the coach who played a significant role in Pitt's demise. I wonder if we never hired Pat Skerry, do we sign Bond instead of Birch and does that equal a couple extra wins over the years and maybe things are a but different now.

What is most interesting is a lot us felt the Skerry/Birch thing was Jamie's attempt to get his hands dirty a little. Something about the deal didn't seem right. Yet, at a CAA commuter school with almost no fanbase and few resources, Skerry actually recruited BETTER than Jamie did at Pitt for the 13, 14, 15, and 16 classes. Skerry has put together an NCAAT caliber team through what would appear to be very honest recruiting. And quite simply, he was able to get better players to go to Towson than Jamie could at Pitt.

I watched Towson play. They are good. They're like a 12/13 seed type of team. Very similar in a lot of ways to those Akron/Kent State teams. I would expect that even a good Pitt team wouldn't have a cakewalk in this game. I'd be very very surprised if Pitt won this. Towson clearly has better players and they are seniors.

Tigers 79
Panthers 68

Agree with most of this, but Towson is not a 12/13 seed type of team. They were underdogs to Oakland the other night and were beaten convincingly. If they played 10 times Oakland probably wins 5-7 of them. I guess my point is that if you think Towson is a 12/13 seed you must think Oakland is an 11/12 then.

FTR Towson has opened up offshore as about a 3 point favorite, which seems pretty fair.

 

[gary2]

Agree with most of this, but Towson is not a 12/13 seed type of team. They were underdogs to Oakland the other night and were beaten convincingly. If they played 10 times Oakland probably wins 5-7 of them. I guess my point is that if you think Towson is a 12/13 seed you must think Oakland is an 11/12 then.

FTR Towson has opened up offshore as about a 3 point favorite, which seems pretty fair.

Towson has 4 players that play for them that have some muscle. Brown, Peace and Kene will have a difficult time trying to body them up.

We will need a big game from Stevenson and everyone will have to pitch in on the defensive glass.

 

[Thee Jackie Treehorn]

I don't think it had any impact at all as it was extremely short lived.

But we could have had Bond for four years, so the damage extended beyond Skerry's short term here. And we haven't gotten a recruit from that region since then.

 

[Chescat]

Towson has 4 players that play for them that have some muscle. Brown, Peace and Kene will have a difficult time trying to body them up.

We will need a big game from Stevenson and everyone will have to pitch in on the defensive glass.

It's hard to guess what we'll do against Towson, especially without Luther. It's just not
Luther's stats, it's his presence on the floor and with it, his overall knowledge of the game.
He knows where to be, when to be there, and anticipates. Of course being a senior, he should know these things. Also he's our only Big.... capable or rebounding, playing adequate D on the inside, and having any semblance of a post game.
Given all of that, I also wouldn't be surprised at anything our mostly freshman players
actually do tomorrow. They're capable of looking terrible and getting blown out by 20.
They're also capable of playing above their heads (as they've sometimes done) and
making a close game of it and maybe even pulling out a win.

 

[HailToPitt1985]

When we start talking about how a Towson OOC game is one that Pitt may lose let alone probably will lose, we have sunk to new levels. Towson may be close to some of the bottom teams in the ACC not named Pitt. They're not that good. Speculating on a probable loss to that type of team would not have happened even 2 years ago.

 

[pittjas]

When we start talking about how a Towson OOC game is one that Pitt may lose let alone probably will lose, we have sunk to new levels. Towson may be close to some of the bottom teams in the ACC not named Pitt. They're not that good. Speculating on a probable loss to that type of team would not have happened even 2 years ago.

Doesn't this act get old for you at all?

Towson is a top 100 team, it'd be a scary one on the Friday before Christmas for any team. Obviously it's even worse for a team that's starting 5 guys new to D1 basketball and missing its top player. This wouldn't have happened under Jamie because we never played these higher mid-majors.

Lastly, are we going to get one of these posts every game? Like obviously things aren't how they were 5 years ago, we obviously get that.

Why can't we just focus on the now and the future of the program?

 

[HailToPitt1985]

Doesn't this act get old for you at all?

Towson is a top 100 team, it'd be a scary one on the Friday before Christmas for any team. Obviously it's even worse for a team that's starting 5 guys new to D1 basketball and missing its top player. This wouldn't have happened under Jamie because we never played these higher mid-majors.

Lastly, are we going to get one of these posts every game? Like obviously things aren't how they were 5 years ago, we obviously get that.

Why can't we just focus on the now and the future of the program?

The now and the future of the program is not looking good. That's what I'm focusing on. No recruiting and a piss poor coach. If that hurts your feelings, don't read it. Pitt deserves better and too many on here are content with giving this coach a chance. Instead, some brain dead boosters and an incompetent AD ran a highly successful coach right out of town. How stupid was that? No wonder a good coach won't come here.

Don't give me that BS about Dixon not playing these what you call "higher" mid-majors. We always played them and beat them and knew going into the game that even with a bunch of new guys, our chances of beating them were very high to being a certainty. Not any more.

 

[TiredRam97]

The Jaylon Bond saga was a huge factor in this program’s stagnation. He would have been a fantastic player at Pitt.

 

[BFo8]

The Jaylon Bond saga was a huge factor in this program’s stagnation. He would have been a fantastic player at Pitt.

Why so?

He was pretty much just an average player at Temple and Texas.

 

[MarshallGoldberg]

Yeah Jaylen Bond and Khem Birch saga writ-large was more like "oh crap we're in a new recruiting reality and haven't caught up to it." As a player, he wasn't exceptional.

 

[oldpanther]

Tomorrow's game is really interesting. We play the coach who played a significant role in Pitt's demise. I wonder if we never hired Pat Skerry, do we sign Bond instead of Birch and does that equal a couple extra wins over the years and maybe things are a but different now.

What is most interesting is a lot us felt the Skerry/Birch thing was Jamie's attempt to get his hands dirty a little. Something about the deal didn't seem right. Yet, at a CAA commuter school with almost no fanbase and few resources, Skerry actually recruited BETTER than Jamie did at Pitt for the 13, 14, 15, and 16 classes. Skerry has put together an NCAAT caliber team through what would appear to be very honest recruiting. And quite simply, he was able to get better players to go to Towson than Jamie could at Pitt.

I watched Towson play. They are good. They're like a 12/13 seed type of team. Very similar in a lot of ways to those Akron/Kent State teams. I would expect that even a good Pitt team wouldn't have a cakewalk in this game. I'd be very very surprised if Pitt won this. Towson clearly has better players and they are seniors.

Tigers 79
Panthers 68

Surprise! Pitt wins by 5. Wasn't pretty, numerous turnovers and at one point in the game Pitt was 1 of 15 shooting the 3.