Virginia Game & Other Dribbles ...

[NTOP]

I'm not disagreeing with your assessment of his shooting, or even the idea of playing him less, per se.

But I wouldn't chalk up his lack of improvement to "mental issues." Maybe it's more than he maxed out his ability as he arrived here.

Some guys just peak early....James arrived a mature player. Will leave at about the same level. That's pretty rare for a 4-year starter. Good kid, will be a coach, probably.

 

[Black_Man_Panther]

Dixon/Howland have always recruited quick, savvy PG's. For some reason Dixon went w/ Robinson - slow of foot. There is no break - cause he can't run. There is always pressure - cause he can't run. There is no penetration - cause he can't run. To top it off - he can't shoot. He is savvy and court aware - and despite lack of footwork can play pretty good defense.

But he is a failure. A massive failure for a PG. He is the reason the team has struggled the 4 years he has played. As far as stagnating offense - look no further than him. Young gets double-teamed - perfect opportunity for a shooter to get open. Problem is... Pitt has one, arguably 2 shooters. Smith who needs to be open by at least 4 feet and Artis who is streaky.

It is beyond stupidity that Dixon can let this crap go on like it has.

 

[PittPoker]

Some guys just peak early....James arrived a mature player. Will leave at about the same level. That's pretty rare for a 4-year starter. Good kid, will be a coach, probably.

Um he never peaked. He regressed.

 

[goalieman]

Well, not aiming this at you Goalie, but FIRST : The 10 year extension is and was no mystery whatsoever. Has everyone on here selectively lost their memory?

Pitt simply matched the offer USC put on the table, 30 years , 30 million dollars. Steve actually got a bit creative and saved some money with the way things got structured, treating it as an 8 year extension to his existing contract, with bonuses etc. And, we didn't quite match some of the detailed perks, like full use of a private jet for recruiting, etc. Dixon has SOME use of a jet but still spends a lot of time fying commercial. People have posted about seeing him flying coach class.

We had a very clear choice. Match the offer ( with a bit of home-town discount) or let Dixon walk. This was at the time when some posters were saying Jamie was not accompanying the team home from the Wichita State loss, but flying to LA to be announced as the new USC coach. Obviously, that didn't happen.

I was told that before matching the offer, Pitt had made quick contact with several young, "name" coaches to inquire if they would be willing to talk with us about a possible vacancy. ALL of them declined even preliminary talks.This really isn't a particularly attractive job.

The USC offer is gospel. Those details were openly and widely discussed on here and elsewhere. USC actually had another huge advantage to offer Jamie. His parents live in Southern California and he and his children could see them easily.

I don't KNOW the part about contacting 4 coaches is true but the people who told me this are reliable. I believe it and nobody in the know has ever contradicted me on that.

Maybe we COULD have low-balled him or offered LESS than USC had. Maybe he would have stayed anyway. But, again, everyone should remember that he was getting lucrative offers virtually every year. The long extension was supposed to end that almost- yearly intrigue and provide stability.

SECOND: Can ANY of those posters always harping about Jamie needing to fire his assistants actually name 5 college assistant coaches other than the handful of "name" recruiters? Or define exactly what any of those assistants from other teams actually do that might help us improve? Other than recruiters, college assistants are invisible.

Maybe we DO need some new blood to shake up things. But, frankly, much of the outcry for new assistants has been coming from people who can't even describe correctly what our problems are.

Hint, when you make statements about things that you say happened in a game and Joe the Pantherfan easily shreds your spin with facts, you clearly don't understand what you are watchng enough to be entitled to a serious opinion about much of anything.

Hey, it is VERY troublesome to me that for the second year, these guys are seemingly ignoring Dixon's coaching. And presumably Knight's, Barton's etc. The team is regressing- Again. Because the core of the team is 3 guys who can't or won't play defense, next year may be just as bad or worse.

In the pros, you fire the coach because the money is invested in the players. Here, it's the opposite. The best way out of this is just to turn the roster over. There will be some additions next season. But, it's late in the recruiting cycle. Even if we did want to push out one of the core guys, we couldn't replace an Artis, Young or Jeter with an upgrade.

We have to live through this. Unless Dixon chooses to opt out, Pitt can't afford to fire him. We'd have to rebuild anyway with a new roster and a new coach. We'll have the new roster after next season. There's no good reason to gamble on a new coach too when we already have one of the top 25 guys here.

Some comments ......

1) First, my hope is that Jamie gets things turned around and he coaches at Pitt beyond his present contract and is more successful in his remaining years at Pitt then his previous years.

2) Regarding Jamie's contract extension ..... I have a friend who is in the same profession as me and I have known him for about 40 years ..... he is a pretty big booster of Pitt athletics, specifically basketball, and has personally known every Pitt head basketball coach since at least Roy Chipman ...... I was talking to him about other matters when the subject of Jamie's contract extension came up and he felt there was some interest on the part of other coaches but many were hesitant to come to Pitt under Pederson....... whether Jamie's extension was a good or bad thing will be determined over time ....... if he gets let go after the 2016-2017 season, it will cost us a lot of money ...... if it does happen, I'm more confident we will get a good coach with Barnes/Gallagher now in control...... hopefully, Jamie turns it around and we don't have to worry about a new coach.

3) Come on Harve, you know what assistant coaches do and I hope you know they are important ..... otherwise why not have student managers as assistant coaches ...... different assistants have different job descriptions ..... but you know they recruit, teach and develop players, scout and gameplan for upcoming opponents, help with in game strategy, and a host of other valuable things....... the head coach cannot do everything and the better help he gets, the more effective he can be ....... maybe we don't know what each assistant at Pitt specifically does but we see the cumulative results on game days ....... if I was given the choice of having Brandon, Barton, and Smoke as my assistant coaches vs Lombardi and any 2 of the present assistants, I personally would take the latter group with Lombardi .... just my opinion..... or maybe you are right and assistants are invisible.

4) Players ignoring Jamie's coaching ....... if players are ignoring his coaching, they should be benched until they take heed ...... but did you ever consider a couple other possibilities ... 1) that maybe the players are not ignoring Jamie but are playing to the limits of their ability .... OR 2) that maybe they need better coaching to improve, something different assistants may give them ...... I don't know the answer but I doubt you or others do either ..... just some thoughts for discussion.

 

[SoufOaklin4Life]

Nobody tells a good story like Harve. 10% of what he says is actually true. He combines some facts with mostly made up stuff that is half-believable.

The most hysterical thing in this post was when he said some secret source of his said Pitt made contact with several young name coaches when it looked like Jamie might take the USC job and none would even talk to us. Do you know how stupid that sounds? If anything, young name coaches use jobs like Pitt for leverage so if Pitt calls up an Archie Miller for example, he's not going to hang up the phone. He's going to talk to Pitt to get a raise out of Dayton, for example.

Even Sean Miller would act seriously interested in Pitt, to get a raise from Arizona. Thats how it works. But guys like Harve, Kiwi, and Souf demean this program to no end to continue the narrative that Dixon is the best we'll ever get.

True... His story has some truth.
Yours are complete works of fiction

 

[pittbb80]

Some comments ......

1) First, my hope is that Jamie gets things turned around and he coaches at Pitt beyond his present contract and is more successful in his remaining years at Pitt then his previous years.

2) Regarding Jamie's contract extension ..... I have a friend who is in the same profession as me and I have known him for about 40 years ..... he is a pretty big booster of Pitt athletics, specifically basketball, and has personally known every Pitt head basketball coach since at least Roy Chipman ...... I was talking to him about other matters when the subject of Jamie's contract extension came up and he felt there was some interest on the part of other coaches but many were hesitant to come to Pitt under Pederson....... whether Jamie's extension was a good or bad thing will be determined over time ....... if he gets let go after the 2016-2017 season, it will cost us a lot of money ...... if it does happen, I'm more confident we will get a good coach with Barnes/Gallagher now in control...... hopefully, Jamie turns it around and we don't have to worry about a new coach.

3) Come on Harve, you know what assistant coaches do and I hope you know they are important ..... otherwise why not have student managers as assistant coaches ...... different assistants have different job descriptions ..... but you know they recruit, teach and develop players, scout and gameplan for upcoming opponents, help with in game strategy, and a host of other valuable things....... the head coach cannot do everything and the better help he gets, the more effective he can be ....... maybe we don't know what each assistant at Pitt specifically does but we see the cumulative results on game days ....... if I was given the choice of having Brandon, Barton, and Smoke as my assistant coaches vs Lombardi and any 2 of the present assistants, I personally would take the latter group with Lombardi .... just my opinion..... or maybe you are right and assistants are invisible.

4) Players ignoring Jamie's coaching ....... if players are ignoring his coaching, they should be benched until they take heed ...... but did you ever consider a couple other possibilities ... 1) that maybe the players are not ignoring Jamie but are playing to the limits of their ability .... OR 2) that maybe they need better coaching to improve, something different assistants may give them ...... I don't know the answer but I doubt you or others do either ..... just some thoughts for discussion.

Great post. Not a JD hater but this was the year I thought we'd see the team turn the corner..........Lots of time left but Im not hopeful this particular team will be able to pull it together to make te NCAAs...........Next year is huge Kithcart and the Big HAVE to be productive otherwise the result will e the same

SP was absolutely toxic when it came to attracting coaches.. HCPN said himsef that hed never have come if SP was still here So while it may be true that they were turned down, its not because Pitt is an unattractive school Pitt is far more attractive in Hoops than VT and they got buzz williams.

Lets hope the kids coming in next year begin the process of righting the ship...........because having to maake the decision to eat JDs contract and cut him loose 3 years from now is not in PItts best interest

 

[KiwiJeff]

Um he never peaked. He regressed.

A regression, by definition, means a peak had to have happened, else a regression would not be possible.

 

[Joe the Panther Fan]

Nobody tells a good story like Harve. 10% of what he says is actually true. He combines some facts with mostly made up stuff that is half-believable.

Isn't it ironic, doncha think?

 

[InfoManiac]

** Folks can say all they want about Pitt Head Coach Jamie Dixon, and many of you certainly will, but there is one area that’s tough to question, and that’s his honestly when assessing his team.

** In his post game remarks, Dixon said that with the way his team plays defense, they are even fortunate to have the record that we do. Well … I agree.

** But defense isn’t the only problem. It’s an overall mental toughness issue, and when these guys aren’t shooting the ball well, they let everything fall apart.

** I know that I would not have been unhappy with a loss today. But I was quite discouraged and disheartened with the appearance that we really failed to compete in the second half.

** What’s even more discouraging is that this team simply isn’t making any progress traveling on their own road to becoming the best team they can be.

** Meanwhile, Virginia is speeding down that their own road, and they are a much improved team from where they were several weeks ago.

** However, I can’t say that I believe that Virginia is that much more of a physically talented team that the Panthers. But it’s night and day with how much better they are.

** Well, perhaps that’s not completely true. The Cav’s backcourt is very good, as opposed to ours which was just plain old terrible today.

** While parts of James’ offensive game were perhaps OK in this outling, his inability to hit a single open shot was among the largest factors that doomed the Panthers today. That, and the fact that he created next to no offense at all in the second half.

** Regardless, you can’t win by getting 5 points from the two spot for most of the entire game. I’m almost to the point where I’d rather see Damon Wilson at the two, with some Cam Johnson and Sterling Smith mixed in. But that’s about it.

** I’m not one to offer particular disagreements with a Coach. I consider the coach to be responsible for all parts of his team, and if they play well, that’s to his credit, and if they don’t play well, that’s on him too. Along those same lines, I realize that Dixon was looking for answers – any answers – for most of the second half. But some of the lineups that played for extended stretches in the final 20 minutes were curious at best, and were poor choices at worst.

** Or then again, maybe it mattered not one bit. Maybe all the choices would have been poor.

** When Tony Greene made a poor, poor call to wave off Jeter’s follow slam in the second half, my wife called to let me know that the replay showed that Greene was way off in his call. I replied that I suspected that this was the case, but I wasn't going to worry about it much, because it would matter not.

** I don’t know what Jamie Dixon can do to turn this team around. While they have several important shortcomings that we’ve all talked about, they are not playing equal to the sum of their parts.

** If Coach Dixon can't figure out how to get them to this level, he’s not going to have all that many brutally honest post game remarks left to offer.

This may have been mentioned already but Pitt needs to be able to score off an inbounds play under their own hoop.

It wasn't too many years ago when they were very consistent and actually used it as a weapon. I counted 7 straight to start the game with no scores and then I gave up.

They are close to being really competitive. But the guards were 1-14 late in the second half. I don't think they took bad shots, they just missed. This team cannot recover from that and they are better shooters than that.

If the guards can shoot their average and they score off a higher percentage of inbounds plays, they should finish strong. I say that because Jamie has the rebounds up, the assists up and the TOs down.

Jamie has been labeled as stubborn and set in his ways but when he tried something outside of his comfort zone (zone defense, full court trap) both backfired terribly. I give him an A for trying since little else was working but I guess the message is he plays man to man since it gives the team the best chance to win.

If the guards can shoot 40-50% and Pitt gets 7 buckets off of inbounds plays per game then I think season ends well.

 

[NTOP]

Dixon/Howland have always recruited quick, savvy PG's. For some reason Dixon went w/ Robinson - slow of foot. There is no break - cause he can't run. There is always pressure - cause he can't run. There is no penetration - cause he can't run. To top it off - he can't shoot. He is savvy and court aware - and despite lack of footwork can play pretty good defense.

But he is a failure. A massive failure for a PG. He is the reason the team has struggled the 4 years he has played. As far as stagnating offense - look no further than him. Young gets double-teamed - perfect opportunity for a shooter to get open. Problem is... Pitt has one, arguably 2 shooters. Smith who needs to be open by at least 4 feet and Artis who is streaky.

It is beyond stupidity that Dixon can let this crap go on like it has.

Huh?? Quick PGs at Pitt?? Who the hell were they? SAVVY, you bet, in buckets. Knight was OK, but Krauser, Fields?? Players, but not quick.....and neither played good defense. all 3 were better than James, but had better players around them.

 

[SoufOaklin4Life]

Huh?? Quick PGs at Pitt?? Who the hell were they? SAVVY, you bet, in buckets. Knight was OK, but Krauser, Fields?? Players, but not quick.....and neither played good defense. all 3 were better than James, but had better players around them.

Before injury, tray was probably the quickest, and nobody was declaring him great'm