The best change to be made in the Capel era
- Thread starter Sean Miller Fan
- Start date
No, I'm saying you're a jackass....you claim only head coaches recruit, then praise Capel for being a great recruiter as an ASSISTANT. Only an idiot does that. Roy Chipman HATED recruiting...his staff pulled in those classes. did slice get those NYC kids, or was it Dixon/ Make up your mind.
I've NEVER said Capel can't recruit, ever. You insist that Dixon is to blame, not his staff....and give credit to Capel at Duke. Inconsistent.
To be honest Chipman , and much to his displeasure , Dr Roy had the benefit of the Golden Panthers .
It’s not just the HC it’s the relationships these kids have with whomever is recruiting them . For instance Dixon didn’t get Birch , Skerry did and when he left before the season ( after Birch’s signing ) Kim didn’t want to come to Pitt and he didn’t last long once here . Had Skerry still been on the staff maybe Birch stays because JD didn’t have a clue on how to handle the kid . Imagine how much better Pitt would’ve been had Pitt had Birch and Adams on the same team. Who your assistants are important ! Everyone who ever talks to a recruit plays a vital role in the recruiting process .
Did Skerry leave BEFORE the season?? I know JD was uncomfortable with that deal. Khem was talented, but a primadonna.. If Steven had played a second year, the frontcourt of Adams, Zanna and Patterson would have been terrific. Birch would have pushed Lamar to SG. Top10 team.
My recollection of the timeline was that Skerry left well before the season started ( during the spring or summer ) and Birch didn’t want to come to Pitt ,but as we know he showed up .
I had several interactions with him at Greentree , seemed like a good kid ,but was very quite . Almost to the point of being shy . What I saw was the upperclassmen giving him a pretty hard time . Trying to coach everyone the same might sound like a good idea , but sometimes coaches need to know how to handle their players . Some take abuse better than others some need praise .i believe JD mismanaged the situation , Pitt fans all wanted to call him a spoiled brat a crybaby , but while he was at UNLV he was a defensive force and rebounder . He’d have looked really good in the Pitt lineup .
Thinking that all players are treated the same just look at the NFL , if you can play there’s not much you can do wrong . Ernie Holmes shot at police helicopters and he didn’t miss a game with the Steelers ! Let a backup have an issue and he’s gone .
Skerry left Pitt at the beginning of April, 2011.
And Khem was very immature when he came to Pitt. I don't believe the situation was mismanaged, Just a very bad fit.
To your point, the top 2019 player in Michigan, who is from metro Detroit and had offers from everyone, just verballed to DePaul yesterday to the surprise of all of the national and local recruiting heads etc. The kid gave a press release and stated that it was all about the relationship with the assistant coach that recruited him. That's one of the worst programs in the Big East, so everyone was shocked, especially the majority that felt he was a lock for MSU or Michigan.
The Euroleague, yes, but I was talking about total money made (my estimate). Wanamaker has only been in top leagues for the last 4-5 years. He spent a lot of time in Germany which isnt a great league
UNLV seemed to figure out a plan to keep him happy . We forget sometimes that these are 18/19 yr old kids who’ve been coddled their whole lives because of their ability to play bb . They’re not adults ! If you need to babysit a big time talent for awhile until they feel comfortable you do it or you don’t recruit guys like that .
It's been my belief that this situation was the biggest reason Dixon started to struggle with recruiting. I think this situation really reinforced for him the notion that he WASN'T going to recruit guys like that anymore. So there was no coddling at all in his message from that point forward.
And he lost a player who would’ve made a hugh difference to his future .
Every coach has decisions to make with what he wants in/from his players , just look at teams like the Raiders and Bengals .
I’ve no idea what was involved behind the scenes I just know what the results were and Pitt was never the same team /program under Dixon after the Birch affair .
What I never understood was the reasoning for Dixon's philosophical shift away from the physical, grinding, post-based scheme that he and Howland installed at Pitt, and the recruiting shift that followed. Guys that had spoken to Dixon or people close to him discussed it on the board back in the day--Harve, and maybe you as well? My memory is the word was it had to do with the move to the ACC and the perception that he was going to need to amp up the offense with more wing-oriented players. Whatever the reason, it caused the program to drop off precipitously. If we had just stayed the course, and continued to bring in the players that fit that style, we could have been the UVA of the league. Instead, Dixon's ACC teams had no discernible identity at all, and they were soft as hell.
Where we probably disagree to an extent is with the overall impact of Khem, especially as a freshman. I do know a great deal of what went on behind the scenes and his beef was really about playing time. But I believe the truth is that he was playing exactly as much as he should have been at the time -- 10 games into his career.
I also think Khems results at UNLV showed that he never really came all that close to being the player that his high recruiting mranking would have suggested.
And I also think the much bigger blow was Steve Adams leaving after a year. The staff completely believed he would be around for two years minimum.
The teams were indeed soft, but I don't think it had anything to do with the move to the ACC actually. I do think it had to do with trying to recruit higher ranked guys and simply missing on them. It was something of a philosophical rift between Dixon and Brandin, who still liked the tougher 75-150 types.
JD buried Birch behind Zhanna.
So Birch left
He had a point
No way Birch should have been playing Zhanna at any point in his career
Pitt needed someone who could bang and rebound
Zhanna was neither; Birch was both
I have no inside knowledge
Maybe it had to do with seniority or internal team management
But the view from here was: JD got this one wrong (and I loved Dixon)
Same could be said for Gilbert Brown and DeGroat
Your facts are a little off. Birch was actually starting and splitting time with Dante Taylor at the five. Zanna was playing behind Nasir at the four.
The season started with Birch playing behind Nasir at the four and Khem really struggled there. Then Dixon moved Birch to the five where he started from the Penn game until game 10 -- and then he left the team.
Also, Gil didn't ever play behind John Degroat. Degroat was gone by then. Gil played behind Mike Cook who was the far superior player as a junior than Gil was as a freshman.
I said back then that Dixon should never change from the system that produced the best record in BE play. Let the ACC make the adjustments. The BE was the equal of the ACC when Pitt was in there. Football forced the move, because the BE was run by hoops guys and never got traction for FB.
I felt like Birch was starting to show some things right about the the time he bailed. I remember watching the Tennessee game early that year and he made a definite impact at both ends in very limited minutes. ran the floor and blocked a couple of shots, ripped a few boards, got out on the break and finished with a big dunk. Pitt has had very few big dudes that were even capable of getting out and finishing on the break over the years. I remember thinking he'd be an impact player by the end of his freshman year, with his combo of size, length and athleticism.
No doubt in my mind that if he'd have stuck it out and bought into Jamie ball and his role, he'd have had a very nice career and Pitt basketball would've been the better for it.
I said it too. Be who you are, and work hard to try to identify the occasional diamond in the rough talent that can get you over the hump and to the FF, ala Bo Ryan with Frank Kaminsky. I think if Dixon had done that he'd still be here, and may have even made it to the FF by now. At worst our biggest gripe would be what it always was, that the regular season success didn't translate to the postseason
Pitt was never going to be able to compete with the Dukes and UNCs by trying to do what they do, only with vastly inferior players.
Personally -- I've always believed this "difference in the style of play" between the conferences was somewhat mythical, if not maybe media narrative.
If anything, for quite a while in the Big East, Dixon had talked about the idea of playing with a team with 3 or more 6-6ish guys who can play interchangeable positions. Over time, you could see some evidence of him going that route.
Regardless, my take is that Dixon wasn't trying to recruit different players for a different conference. He was just less successful in getting good players, and or good enough players who would buy into what he wanted (which always included defense and rebounding.)
I knew that this quote was complete nonsense so I went back and looked at the numbers and it's actually amazing at just how similar the career numbers of Zanna and Birch really were. Talib played against better competition and was a little bit better offensively with a higher usage rate while also being a slightly better rebounder but Birch was slightly better defensively and obviously was an elite shot blocker. But they were both efficient offensive players who got to the line a lot, were very, very good defenders and elite rebounders.
So it's funny how that worked out.
Hell, they have both even had similar pro careers, being D-League All-Stars and playing for very successful European clubs while not being quite as good in Europe as they probably were expected to be. Birch just got his NBA cup of coffee last year is the big difference.
Right -- Khem did have a nice 4 minute burst against Tennessee when he had 4 points, 3 rebounds and 2 blocks (that was pretty much his entire output for the whole game beyond those four really nice minutes). But it was the only such stretch that he had really had to that point, save his 15 point, 10 rebound performance against Penn, a team who didn't have a regular player over 6-5.
Still, I agree that he would have had a nice career and Pitt would have been better for it.
But the guy bailed after just 10 games, and was starting and playing almost 20 minutes in the games he started. I can't agree that this was that much on Dixon, if at all. If Khem had bailed after the season almost all on the bench? Sure. After 20 games barely playing? Maybe. But when you've been a less-than-mediocre performer to start the year, who is still a freshman, and who is starting and playing 15-20 minutes a game, I find it a little hard to go along with the idea that he should have been demanding more playing time.
The counter to that is that you also run the risk of losing the entire team if you allow one player to come in and overturn established team culture.
Khem was limited offensively , but he was big kid who could run and jump. He would have been the same player here as in Vegas a good rebounder and shot blocker .
After watching Adams at Greentree I never felt JD used him as effectively as he could’ve . Losing him after his freshman yr was really bad for Pitt , but it worked ok for SA !
I agree that Birch would have been the same player here as he eventually became in Vegas -- which was a pretty decent -- but not great player out there.
But as a freshman, he was still quite far away from being that player. He didn't become that player until two years later.
I agree and that’s why we can’t expect any of these freshman to instantly turn Pitts fortunes around . They need time to develop.
Having suffered thru 4 years of Zhanna getting pushed under the basked; having virtually every put back blocked; and playing about as hard as a runny stilton, what's "complete nonsense" is any attempt to compare him to Birch in terms of playing hard. If you think that's what the number suggest, then the numbers lie.
There is NO comparison. Birch was broad-shouldered bull. Zhanna (with the exception of his last few post season games) was just weak.
I recall Zhanna getting more minutes than Birch and thinking that Birch is gonna leave and that he'd have good reason to go. The same could be said if Taylor was getting more minutes. Zhanna and Taylor kept each other company after getting pushed under the net for their entire careers.
As for Brown and DeGroat, those are two players who, I bel'v, JD did not use well. When Brown filled in for Briggs he was clearly better. But then he got buried the next yr and never played enough to hit his stride. DeGroat, like Birch, may have started, but was quickly yanked and never got off the schnied.
For clarification, I don’t fault JD one bit for the Birch bail. He was a prima donna with buyer’s remorse. All I’m saying is if he had his head screws on right and had he stuck it out and put in the work, he could have been a big piece for Pitt basketball.
And Briggs?
Wannamaker?
Stephenson?
Browne?
Any other perpetual misspellings?
I wouldn’t say frail , he was a slender young man and compared to a veteran player whose spent 3 yrs in the program and the weight room he could get pushed around . There are very few Blair’s coming out of high school . The raw athletic abilities he had would’ve helped Pitt .
