There will be interest with BK coming back for curiosity sake and his legacy. That’s more than we have now and it will get much much worse this year.
The Citadel Game & Other Dribbles ...
- Thread starter DT_PITT
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Wasn't the Oh-fer team blown up by Injuries to Luther and others as well? No excuses. This program is a total failure if we can't at least compete this season. Capel and everyone associated with it need to be tossed. The entire culture around this program needs re-wired.
If this is it....this is year 4. I posted on the pay board two examples of unheralded coaches coming in and taking over disasters, and by year 3, not only were their teams in the NCAA, they made it to the Elite 8 and Sweet 16 respectively (WVU and Pitt).
When year 4 is worse than year 1, and years 2 and 3 weren't any good either.....there is absolutely ZERO reason to have a year 5.
It can be turned around, but not by this guy and his staff. And it doesn't have to take 20 years.
Ben Howland took over a mess from the Williard era team that went 3-13 in the Big East and 10-18 over all to a team that won the regular season Big East title 13-3, played in an epic BET title game, and finished 29-6 and sweet 16.
WVU went 1-15 in Gale Catlett's last year in the Big East, it was so bad they hired Dan Dakich who got there and QUIT within a week!!! Hired some Beilein guy from Richmond and in year 3, they went to the Elite 8.
I think we all need to recalibrate what this program needs as a coach. It needs a COACH, not a recruiter. Sean Miller can recruit, but his coaching sucks. No one aside from maybe Lorenzo Romar did less with more.
When year 4 is worse than year 1, and years 2 and 3 weren't any good either.....there is absolutely ZERO reason to have a year 5.
It can be turned around, but not by this guy and his staff. And it doesn't have to take 20 years.
Ben Howland took over a mess from the Williard era team that went 3-13 in the Big East and 10-18 over all to a team that won the regular season Big East title 13-3, played in an epic BET title game, and finished 29-6 and sweet 16.
WVU went 1-15 in Gale Catlett's last year in the Big East, it was so bad they hired Dan Dakich who got there and QUIT within a week!!! Hired some Beilein guy from Richmond and in year 3, they went to the Elite 8.
I think we all need to recalibrate what this program needs as a coach. It needs a COACH, not a recruiter. Sean Miller can recruit, but his coaching sucks. No one aside from maybe Lorenzo Romar did less with more.
As I've said before, I think the dreadful attendance is actually a reason that Capel will be retained. Of course there's zero enthusiasm for this team, but we can only assume the ticket sales were before we lost two of our starters, and it is still this bad.
There's no reason for Pitt to pay Capel to not coach when we have such little revenue coming in. It makes far more sense to (hopefully) let COVID play out and bring in a new coach like Knight when it is obvious there are no outside factors discouraging attendance.
As much as Capel whines about everything else, if fired, he's surely going to whine about not being given enough support at Pitt. I think Lyke will wait until it is well beyond obvious to anyone that Capel can't win here, or probably anywhere, as HC.
I don't think Pitt was wrong for thinking this could work. Stallings left so little talent behind, trying to build the team in the traditional manner might have taken 4+ years anyway. Regardless of what happened years after, that first class that Capel brought in was far better than most coaches could've delivered.
I do agree with you that the experiment has failed, and if Capel couldn't attract NBA talent here, nobody will. To use the volleyball program as a comp, Fisher has a good eye for talent and has just slowly increased the talent level in every class he has. Now after 8 seasons, he's on the national stage and bringing in All-Americans.
Offensively, we expected this team to be challenged, especially when both shooting guards went down. But it's much harder to understand why we were this bad defensively.
And after the switching and screens problem you mentioned, when we went zone we gave up easy dribble penetration into it, or had absolutely no awareness that Roche was a shooter. Forget that he hit 8 of 14 threes. The thing to focus on is that he GOT OFF 14 threes, with seemingly little difficulty at all.
Like I said, we can all understand why this team is offensively challenged. But they are going to need to win games on defense and that doesn't seem to be the team's mindset right now.
I come back to this as well. We charge 500 dollars for most of the upper level season tickets. Anyone buying tickets right now would give the money to Pitt no matter what it costs. I don't think they are worried about the value of their investment.
They need to do a $100 pass that gives you tickets to every game, best available seat on day of game. You can only buy max 4 together or something like that. I still don't think they'd sell out.
Well winning certainly elevates a program. I am shocked at Capel's inability to recruit here, I am not talking losing kids to Carolina or Kentucky or even LSU, but Seton Hall, St Johns, Illinois, etc....
I thought this was a home run hire. I didn't expect to duplicate the X's and O's and execution of the program under Howland/Dixon, but I expected the talent level to exceed their levels.
If Pitt fired Capel and hired Miller or big, scary Rick Pitino, they could sell out the Pete if they reduced ticket prices to the lowest in the P6 (as they should be). For 1 or 2 years, make them dirt cheap, get people back in the building, create excitement and then when the team starts winning, jack them up. I'm talking like $100 upper endzone seats. $150 upper sidelines. $250 lower endzones. $500 clubs.
I don't think Pitt could sell 10,000 seats next year if the new coach signed the Lakers.
They absolutely would if tickets were cheap and they sent Miller and Pitino out on a marketing tour to meet all the alumni chapters.
After we fouled him while shooting that three midway through the 2nd half I said sort of jokingly that at least that time we had someone close enough to him to actually foul him when he was shooting the ball.
The sad thing is that I think that was the only time all night that we could have fouled him while he was shooting a three.
After watching that kid hit 8 or 9 3s in his first college game, I thought of 2 things:
1. I hope Capel "recruits" him for next year (this is when I thought Mintz might sign and Capel might be here
2. When was the last time we had a guard who could shoot like a FR from a South Carolina military school?
Please don't think my comments is second guessing the Capel hire. It made sense. I was for it. Everyone was. It was a good hire. A great hire. Just for whatever reason, and part of that is on Capel, it did not work out, and a actually became a disaster. So I am not criticizing the Capel hiring, I am just saying there is another blueprint out there that seems to fit our program better.
Bad as we feared? What happened to all that “addition by subtraction” that was supposed to happen when the team lost its best players and scorers??? They were selfish, locker rooms cancers, dragging down the rest of the team, n’at, weren’t they? The combination of Oladapo, Payton and Gueye were gonna more than make up for the loss of Champ. Deadeye Santos, the latest member of Vader/Steel Curtain, all-AAU box score team, was gonna shoot the bottom out of the basket and be the “X factor” from deep this year, wasn’t he?
Yes, losing Nike hurt badly. The team was short handed for sure. But anyone with any kind of objectivity could see this year’s team was destined to struggle badly regardless. You can’t compete in big boy basketball with 2 real ACC guys and a bunch of low P5 recruits and Tier 3 transfers.
Lamar Patterson shot 25% his first year at Pitt. Lamar Patterson shot 34% his full second year at Pitt under Jamie Dixon.
The rest is history, including Patterson playing inside the NBA.
You can continue to throw salt on a player that has played 1 total game in his entire college career as you wish. I find it ridiculous since you don't even remember how some of our former players started off their first 2 years.
And this applies to Jeffress too who could break out of his shooting slump at some point as an 18 year old kid, not a 22 year old redshirt sophomore.
It's the culture and toxicity of Capel that is most concerning to me. No doubt he's not the right coach for Pitt and needs to be fired or leave yesterday. But I doubt that is happening, unfortunately.
If Pitt wins no more than 5 or 6 games total this year, and that is very likely, I think Lyke has to make the easy but expensive decision to throw Capel out the door and get a good coach.
Jeffress looks like he might be a monumental bust. But I felt the same about Wannamaker at this point in his career, so I'm not giving up hope.
I've seen only the scrimmage and one game, but I find it hard to believe that Collier and even Oladapo are getting more minutes than Payton.
This game was discouraging but hardly surprising. They had one scholarship guard available. These guys have very little experience playing together, then they lose their two leading returning scorers a few days prior. How can they even have a decent practice with the current players available? I'm sure they will look better if they get Burton and Horton back, but I have doubts about how much better.
We had no spacing without a player that can make midrange to 3 point shots consistently. Everything opens up in the offense with 1 legit outside shooter let alone 2. When you dont have any shooters from the midrange or from 3, the paint is going to get packed up quickly with sagging defenses. The Citadel had all kinds of spacing with shooters to open up their offense. We had none.
Considering Femi and Big John had little spacing to work with, they far exceeded expectations last game with their numbers. Unless someone steps up and starts making shots, Femi and Big John are going to have a much more difficult time when the entire opposing team defense is focused on stopping those 2 with zero respect for anyone else on the team. We cant have players continue to play and shoot 1-10 every game.
If Collier continues his dismal rebound rate percentage on the defensive end, especially when Capel blasted the team for poor rebounding yet he continued to play Collier who cant rebound and never could rebound, anyone with an understanding of basketball is going to call out Capel for who he is actually playing during the game.
Wanamaker was getting major minutes for a team ranked #1 in the nation as a sophomore and in the rotation on a very good team as a freshman. The 2 cannot be compared.
At this point in his career, Wannamaker had averaged 11 minutes and 2.2 points per game. Was shooting 17% on 3s.
So much of this is going to depend on how the actual season finishes and if we can actually get Horton back before the season is over and win some acc games There has to be some light at the end of this long tunnel, or in other words, some reason for optimism or hope to move forward.
The 2023 class could be salvaged with Barnes and Gallagher as they are legit talents. But the 2022 class is in some serious trouble right now.
Stop it. He had 1 HS recruit in 2021. Signed 0 for 2022 so far when most kids have already signed. And you are counting on a football recruit who is going to play 15 games when football ends?
I don't have the answer in this current situation nor am I going to pretend that I do.
If I was the AD and I can feel the fire under my chair with what is going on as Lyke's seat is red hot with this current mess, the one thing I would do is start seeing what could be done to bring in a Pitino type coach meaning Rick Pitino behind closed doors. We live in a 2nd chance, 3rd chance, 4th chance society. I would start pushing buttons and talking to see how I could get him in here. And if we couldn't get Pitino cleared, I would see who I can possibly get cleared and with how much actual money I have to work with. Capel's job is to win. The AD's job is to have an actual plan in place in case that doesn't happen.
One question was just answered. Mintz plans to wait. Will be interesting if Buchanan puts it off until spring, his mom was wanting early signing period.
"Former Pitt commit Judah Mintz told ESPN he’s heard from Tennessee, Xavier, Florida, Penn State, Marquette, LSU, Arizona State, Northwestern, Texas and DePaul since reopening his recruitment. Will still consider Pitt. Plans to sign in the spring. Ranked No. 43 in the ESPN 100"
Lyke's seat is only red hot in the minds of the people who think that the athletic department begins and ends with men's basketball. Well, OK, those people and the people who have been pissed off at her hiring since day one because, well, we know why they were pissed off at HER getting hired.
Her bosses, on the other hand, think no such thing.
There is no light at the end of tunnel. This is year 4 and we are getting blown out by the Citadel, and do not have any recruits signed for this signing period. The season isn’t going to get any better and good players in the 2023 are going to choose better options. Losing Mintz and nobody else signing was the final nail in the coffin.
Can we stop with the chances? What did Pitino actually do? Cheated on his wife? Had an assistant coach hire strippers? That is small potatoes. Lets not pretend Pitino is a hardened criminal. Lets also not pretend the Pitt basketball coach requires a person of higher character than the US presidency.
He is a BASKETBALL COACH. And he wins.
Its not "red hot" but its at least slightly warm. You cant make a mistake that costs $15 million and be loved by your bosses. She will get 1 more coach hire. The next HC hire she messes up will be her last. Quite honestly, I think she leaves for a lateral position like Barnes she doesn't have to deal with the fallout. Staying one step ahead is part of how to play the AD game
If by "slightly warm" you mean on a scale of 0 - 10 where 0 means there isn't even any thought in anyone who matters what so ever that there might even be the hint of a problem and 10 means the ax is ready to fall and it's just a matter of time, and you consider like a 1 to be "slightly warm" then yeah, sure, OK, "slightly warm".
She isn't anywhere close to getting fired. It's as if some of you folks simply cannot understand the concept that what you think are the only things that matter are NOT the only things that her bosses think matter.
This thread has gotten ridiculous.
Lyke is so far from having a
warm seat (sorry, just had to
say it...LOL). A few posters on
this board float that nonsense
every time something goes off
with our two major sports. Yes,
she hired Capel, a definite
mistake, but most on here saw
it as a good move at the time.
The overall status of Pitt's
athletic program is on the
upswing. Women's sports,
men's soccer, wrestling,
baseball are all doing well.
Pitt football is getting a lot
of national recognition.
The $$$ spent on the facility
upgrades are a feather in her
cap. We are a voice in the
ACC. Hanging with the Dukes,
UVA's, BC's. UNC's and GT's of
the athletic world is a positive
to the leaders of this university.
That's exactly what I meant by red hot. She is one poor basketball hire away from being fired if she messes up again. She already has 2 potential strikes. The hiring of Capel is one. The 2 year extension of Capel is two. She absolutely must get the next basketball hire correct or she is out. There is no way anybody is giving her 4 chances to get the basketball coaching position right.
You have an opinion and
nothing more. Comments
like "there's no way" only
show your ignorance. IMO
you have no clue of the
inner workings of Pitt's
administration. They have
a hiring philosophy....do
you know what it is?...of course
you don't. I'm assuming that
her recommendations of
coaching hires have to be
approved.
I suggest you learn the
difference between
opinion and fact.
Sure I have an opinion. But if you can find 1 AD in the country or in history for that matter that was given 4 chances to get it right for a football or basketball coach, Ill surely step down from what I say.
But given the track record of Pitt sports history, There always could be a first.
I don't have a problem with Lyke. I do have a problem with anyone at any school that needs 4 tries to get a quality basketball or football coach. Ive never heard of such a failure but maybe Im uneducated in this matter and someone can point out who was given 4 tries to finally get it right in basketball or in football.
Well that makes sense. now
that you've come off the
"red hot" bit.
Actually she could probably
make even a more upward
move than just "lateral."
Non Pitt people that I know
think very highly of her.
