Well … I try to find a way to get enjoyment or excitement out of every season. I even enjoyed several points during last season. But in total, I don’t expect to be very excited about post season chances.
Thoughts on this Potential Roster?
- Thread starter Jcbrush34
- Start date
What if we get wakes last season?
For the record, i don't think we will but man that'd be a kick in the nuts
No doubt … it certainly was. But there were so many games with less than 2,000 people, even if 1,000 stayed away because of COVID, it was still a really bad showing.
Would it be okay if we were in the NCAAs (by some miracle) when he dribbled it?
To be honest … I’d be thrilled with Wake’s season. I’d love for the chance to be sitting there on selection Sunday hoping to see our name called. I’d be much happier with that scenario than knowing we aren’t making the Big Dance but sitting on the NIT bubble.
But make no mistake … I’d be thrilled enough to make the NIT at all. But even with what we’ve added, I just don’t see it yet. I see 10th or 11th in the ACC which misses the NIT mark.
I promise to eat crow in any way my fellow posters want to serve it up if I’m wrong. And for me, NIT = crow dinner.
Good point!
If our name is called on selection Sunday, I think I’ve earned the right to be the first to “officially” say WE ARE BACK!
But believe me … I’ve learned my lesson. Those words will never prematurely come from my computer even again.
Since most on here seem encouraged by the roster addition, here is something for discussion:
I haven‘t yet quite decided whether I believe Capel’s Pitt results are mostly due to poor Xs and Os coaching or mostly to a lack of overall adequate talent or some combo of both.
My sense is that he doesn’t adjust his offensive style to the talent (or lack thereof) on hand but runs a style of offense that would only be very successful if he had the level of talent that Duke and UNC typically have—one heavily dependent on talented players making plays.
Would a more disciplined approach such as Jamie Dixon or UVA’s Bennet use have won more games with the same rosters to work with?
What do other Pitt fans believe about this?
I haven‘t yet quite decided whether I believe Capel’s Pitt results are mostly due to poor Xs and Os coaching or mostly to a lack of overall adequate talent or some combo of both.
My sense is that he doesn’t adjust his offensive style to the talent (or lack thereof) on hand but runs a style of offense that would only be very successful if he had the level of talent that Duke and UNC typically have—one heavily dependent on talented players making plays.
Would a more disciplined approach such as Jamie Dixon or UVA’s Bennet use have won more games with the same rosters to work with?
What do other Pitt fans believe about this?
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If you can’t shoot from 3 , your pg turns it over way to frequently and TB was your best big man for 21/2 of the 4 yrs he’s coached here not sure how anyone can really evaluate how good or bad a coach he is .
I don’t think it’s really either, at least in terms of the biggest problem. I think he’s been a bad manager of people. All of the lack of success we’ve had stems from that weakness. It’s the most important part of being a college coach, and it’s the thing that I’ve been most surprised (negatively) about with Capel.
The question was could he actually coach , there’s no question his tenure here at Pitt has been a failure from a won loss perspective . My thoughts are who knows how good he can coach he’s never recruited enough good players to tell .
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In short, I believe Capel's offense is a pretty basic pro-styled screen and go offense. It's an offense that lets a player's basic skills beat the other teams skills. It's different that Dixon who runs a motion offense or Bennett who runs a mover-blocker. For folks like Dixon and Bennett, it's more running the offense that creates offense. For what Capel does, it's more the players who create the offense. Really though, what Capel does is no different that what Calipari or Coach K have done for decades. Capel just hasn't had the players to make it work consistently.
Point taken. Capel has actually brought decent talent. Trey, X, Champ, Xavier, Big John are legit talents. But the fact that the roster has almost always ended up a bit of a mess by year end is somewhat telling. I don't know what the issue actually is, but there is enough evidence to know that it is "something."
Does or will he have them now? Maybe Pitt needs the Dixon or Bennet type coach to ever field a winning team?
The important question is your first sentence. We can only know when we know.
Even when Pitt was very good.we won as a team and with the intangibles more than pure skill.
I doubt Pitt will ever have the talent to win consistently with the style of play indicated.
I hear you and don't disagree, per se.
But it's not like every team with "lesser talent" has to run a system offense to be successful.
For example, from what I saw, St. Peter's was running a pretty basic dribble drive offense, not unlike anything we run with Capel. And their talent wasn't any more significantly special than ours. But their team looked pretty great on the way to the Elite 8, certainly better than anything we saw from our guys last year. But St. Peter's was also a team that lost to St. John's by 21 in November.
He's been a D1 head coach for 13 seasons. If that's not enough time to figure out if he's good at it or not you are doing it wrong.
I also think it’s very possible that that type of system might be the most effective system to run in the modern era of high roster turnover. A more defined, structured system like the ones you mentioned have their advantages, but we also saw here how much time it often took before guys started to look comfortable running it. I don’t think many coaches have anything close to the same benefit of time on their side now.
So you're saying "dumbing down" offenses now is the norm because these guys don't have the ability and time to successfully learn and run systems. Makes sense.
That’s not what I’m saying. And there’s nothing inherently wrong or “dumber” with a system that’s predicated on reading and reacting - it’s not like Narduzzi’s system is aggressively complex or complicated. Guys get better because they get more experienced in the system and can start being football players and reacting instead of thinking.
It’s more because today’s college basketball doesn’t allow for luxuries like redshirting and not being expected to contribute until you’re a redshirt sophomore. Before, guys could adjust and get more experienced and figure out how to be basketball players before they were expected to contribute - now, that development needs to happen in game action. The system we run is closer to the types of systems that kids are running before they get to college - it’s no different than when the NFL started to adjust its schemes to incorporate more of what college offenses and quarterbacks were used to so that they could contribute faster.
To some extent I can see your point; however, I think back to Howland's first year and even a hoop Xs and Os challenged fan like me noticed how he took the same talent and coached them up immediately. It was night and day.
Obviously Ben did change Willard's system to what Ben and Jamie used. But isn't that what good coaches do? Maybe Coach Capel gambled that he could quickly recruit player who to fit his system.
Champ showed promise from day one. I can't point to any other player who this staff has developed significantly. They still stand around and play sloppily most of the time.
We've gone over this for
years, especially relating
to Capel's offense. Very
simply he ran a pg oriented
offense. He had X as pg with
the talent to run it. As we
all know and said often on
here there was Good X and
there was Bad X. There
were games where he did
execute the O, but there
were many games where
he was undisciplined,
selfish, and out of control.
Capel's offense calls for the
pg, and the others to react.
We had no (NONE) big with
the know how or talent to
do this, so X gave up trying.
We basically had an outta
control pg running an outta
control offense.
Another poster mentioned St.
Peters doing it....yes they did.
However they were disciplined
and especially at the pg
position.
Either way, Capel isn't totally
lacking Bball knowledge. At
this level coaches know the
game. Of course the level of
knowledge is not the same
with all coaches. My biggest
concerns with him are his
poor management of the
program, and of his players,
along with his inability to
recruit players at an ACC
level.
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He had enough success at VCU (.658 winning % ) to get the Ok job and had early success there with a 30 win season and reaching an elite 8 before two losing season prompted his dismissal .
Of course your going to say he had Blake Griffin in Ok and every highly successful coach in the history of sports has had great players .
If Pitt had a roster full of 4&5 star players I’d agree wholeheartedly that he can’t coach , but they don’t . There’s been such obvious weaknesses with everyone of teams that expecting more out of his squads is delusional.
His failure at Pitt as I see it is in not recruiting the players he needed to compete in the ACC not in his X and O’s .He was hired for his recruiting abilities no one ever claimed he was a bb savant .
George Bush was still in office the last time he had a winning record.
Had he been an active HC during all those yrs this would be relevant . You could say his last 6 yrs …..
The logical corollary to this idea is that only the “Blue Bloods” will have a strong chance to consistently make it to and advance in the NCAAs because they will almost always have the better talent. Couple this coaching style that depends more on individual rather than more disciplined team play with the continuing officiating emphasis on freedom of movement and it will further advantage the “Blue Bloods” over everyone else, IMHO.
Caveat: I don’t mean to imply that the less team-disciplined style means that there isn’t team play. The less disciplined style still requires individual players to be voluntarily unselfish to fully succeed.
It's all part of coaching in college. If you have great systems but can't recruit the players you are a failure. If you can recruit the players but your systems suck you are a failure. If you can get good players and your systems are OK but you can't retain any good players you are a failure.
If you want to argue that he's failed at one of the major components of his job so that you can't be sure if he's a failure at the other part then yeah, sure, you can argue that. But at the end of the day, who cares? He's a failure no matter the reason.
To which I agree , but thinking that he and his staff are totally incompetent to teach and develop bb players and game planning is wrong . To say he hasn’t had the talent to compete is a more accurate statement .
When he has had backcourt talent, he hasn’t had talented bigs—Hugley being the only exception. Also, to date he also has never had 3-ball shooters who could shoot a decent 3-ball percentage—even the backcourt talent he has had were sub-par in shooting the 3-ball.
His recruiting efforts this go round seem to reflect his understanding of those problems—recruiting three 6-11 guys (two who may be also be good to excellent 3-ball shooters) and landing at least one (trying for a second) proven 3-ball shooter from the portal. Ironically, he may now lack a true talented point guard—or at least not have a good back-up point guard.
With 2 ships open he may yet get that 2nd 3-baller and a back-up point guard. We can hope.
You just want to say he’s been totally incompetent as a HC his entire career which isn’t true , he was very successful his first 7 yrs . Injuries and and ncaa Issues led to 2 poor seasons and his dismissal at Ok . He took over what could arguably be the worst D1 program in the country , not to mention a job which no one else wanted , and hasn’t been able turn Pitt into a winning program in 4 yrs. He’s been a failure at resurrecting Pitt bb and besides Heather and her bean counters no one wants him here anymore . The fact that he’s still here tells you all you need to know about Pitts commitment to winning bb vs the dollar .
With the talent that’s been at Pitt the last 4 seasons there’s not one coach in the country taking any of their teams to the NCAAs . If he somehow was able to recruit Duke like talent to Pitt and produced similar results then I’d agree he can’t coach . ( which was the question ) . His failure has been recruiting the players he needs to play the style of ball he wants to play not his coaching abilities. What player who left the program became significantly better ? ( no one is the answer)
Pitt will never hire a coach that by himself that will attract top talent . Not only will they not pony up the dollars required to lure that level of a coach to Pitt he will have far better opportunities elsewhere. Until Pitts boosters get behind the program and establish an NIL program Pitt will struggle to attract the talent necessary to win no matter who the coach is .
He took over one ready made team and maintained their place in the basketball world. He took over another ready made team and drove them off a cliff. And he took over an absolutely dreadful team and turned them into a well below average ACC team.
He has a track record, and even a blind guy doesn't need it in Braille to see it.
