Would you be happy with Dixon’s TCU results from Pitt?
- Thread starter BballinsiderfromPitt
- Start date
Forget the great yrs of JDs run , the last 5 yrs of JD ball might be something we never see again , I have no confidence that Pitt will be able to dig themselves out of this hole without doing the things they object to in recruiting.
But heck, we should be able to make one tournament in five years, right?
Even if just as a 10 seed losing in a scrum to a 7 seed in a game played with scores in the 40's!
TCU's history means less than nothing. Recruits dont care what your program did 2 years ago let alone 10, 20, 30.
He is and people like you have gotten exactly what you deserve.
I know I'm not crying because he's gone. I'm crying because of what's happened since he left. I think I'm as die hard as Pitt Hoops fan can be, and I not sure how much more of this I can take and still stay engaged.
So who among us is going to the game on Saturday? I hear a lot of people talking and bitching. But who has their butts in the seats and supporting the team, even though we know the chances of a win are low? Sorry, but every game I go to, I see less and less people there. And I never see the band or cheerleaders.
The last game I missed at the Pete was Virginia Tech in 2014. I will be there Saturday.
Yea that’s a fair way of stating it.
Few probably are as die hard as you. I don’t know that I’d even be quite in the next tier. But I was close. I’m still hanging on but the last 6 years have been nauseating. Some of my best/most fun and worst sports memories are Pitt hoops. Probably more than any other team I’ve been into.
He mentioned Tcu’s history because it’s a difficult place to win you dink.
Correct- TCU has 3 NCAA tournament appearances over the last 50 years and Dixon has one of them. He will probably make it again this year.
We aren't even that much of a high level hoops program overall and we've at least made 22 NCAA Tournament appearances in the last 50 years.
This was my point. Pitt has no divine right to a 10-10 conference record. There's no reason Pitt shouldn't be Boston College or Wake Forest, or maybe we're worse.
But dare even offer the prospect of a losing record with some postseason action and our fans can't even hide their disgust!
No it isnt. There is no such thing as a "difficult place to win." So was Auburn. A good coach can win games in Kabul. TCU is in a hotbed of basketball and play in a great conference. A good coach can win there, Pitt, BC, Auburn, Iowa State, it doesn't matter.
You’re truly clueless about college hoops.
“a hotbed of basketball” theyre like 7th or 8th on the totem pole in texas, theyre 9th on the totem pole in their conference and you’ve said multiple times location doesn’t matter. “These kids all go to basketball factories anyways! You should be able to recruit from anywhere”
but now location matters. You’re a dolt
I think this is ultimately the simplest summation of where we were at, and where you fell on the “what to do about Jamie” question largely is determined by how well you thought Jamie could kind of reset and bring the juice back. The floor was still remarkably high, but the program just didn’t have the same juice.
I think there are a couple of reasons why - I think Jamie felt some pressure to try and recruit a different style of guy out of a different footprint when we entered the ACC, which I don’t think he needed to do. I think he felt burnt with the way the Adams situation played out (even though I don’t think he thought Adams was wrong for declaring, but more that he invested a ton into one of his first forays into serious international recruiting, and only sees one year of fruit out of it), the Khem situation, Slice’s forced/unsuccessful return, the Pete being just good and no longer state-of-the-art the way it was a decade earlier.
You also had some things that weren’t on Jamie at all that don’t really get discussed as much - I think the Big Ten adding Rutgers and Maryland took a little bit of the east coast advantage away from the NYC and DMV recruiting markets (not as much NYC kids going to Rutgers, but NYC in the big ten footprint opened up that territory for a bunch of Big Ten schools to flood in and compete). You also had Penn State hire Chambers and see him go totally all-in on Philadelphia kids. You think about some of those recruiting battles that Jamie lost for Philadelphia kids - Tony Carr and Lamar Stevens in the 2016 class just felt so much like classic Pitt basketball players, and losing them both in summer 2015 was a tough blow (thinking about Carr stepping in and filling Robinson’s PG spot especially hurts). Even kids like Shep Garner and DJ Newbill out of Philly and Josh Reaves out of DC would have been fantastic here, and in a different universe maybe they would have been.
I’m personally of the opinion that if given the opportunity, I think Jamie would have been able to reinvent himself and the program, kind of like we’ve seen in the past year or so at TCU. Maybe we would have seen him focus on more of the international market. Maybe we would have seen him double down on the NYC kids as a full stop gap and waited out those few years of Philly momentum that Chambers had. What’s so frustrating, too, is that some of the guys on the current roster or that we’ve had over the past few years are guys that I can absolutely visualize playing for Jamie.
No sir. A good coach can win anywhere. Anywhere. If Bruce Pearl took over BC, they'd be in the Sweet 16 within 3 years. If Robert Morris moved to the ACC and Nate Oats took the job, they'd make the NCAAT within 3 years. The school means ABSOLUTELY nothing unless you are a blue blood type. The rest simply require a good coach. Players commit to a HC not a program history.
I'm already out of ideas just as the thread is heating up! Time to sit back and enjoy.
There is no doubt Dixon would have succeeded in the current ACC if given the same resources as Capel. The ACC is down and Dixon would out-coach most of these guys.
I said this a few months ago. Dixon would be killing it in THIS ACC. I would question whether his coaching style lead to more player transfers. He's had a bunch of guys transfer at TCU but has also gotten some good transfers in.
Jamie is a really good coach and this league is pathetically bad. That's a good match. I mean Steve Forbes took over a garbage program and turned them around in 5 minutes. Jamie still would never beat NC State but he' do well in this joke of a league. I hope we offer him.
It’s been awhile, but you finally came through with a good post. Keep it up.
I agree. I just think he needed to do something to get the juice back. Maybe the juice would have come back by virtue of the ACC taking a step backwards over the past few years with Jamie and Pitt staying consistent. But I don’t think people are wrong when they say that Jamie was at an inflection point at Pitt. I tend to think he would have ended up responding well to it, just like it seems like he’s responded well to an inflection point at TCU.
I think there's some truth to what he is saying.
I think Baylor had been to one NCAA tourney in the last 50 years before Scott Drew. It was pretty much the ultimate shithole job.
Think everyone is giving Jamie his cred for this season a little too soon. Dixon is up to his old tricks as he did at Pitt play no one in non conf go 12-1. Everyone beating their chest about the year he is having, have you looked at remaining schedule?
Has 2 against Kansas, Texas Tech, WVU. 1 each against Baylor, Iowa State and Texas. See at least 6 losses coming but none of those are easy. Left out others like Ok state, Kansas State but those will be tough too.
Has 2 against Kansas, Texas Tech, WVU. 1 each against Baylor, Iowa State and Texas. See at least 6 losses coming but none of those are easy. Left out others like Ok state, Kansas State but those will be tough too.
TCU has made the Tournament THREE times in the last FIFTY years. Just making the NCAA Tournament is an accomplishment at TCU.
If he loses considerable games down the stretch and they have a difficult schedule then he won’t be making in the NCAA tourney thus the relevance of my post.
I guess we’ll find out soon enough, but it sure would be fun to be 15-4 right now and playing a bunch of meaningful games. The last time that happened was 6 years ago when Dixon was the HC at Pitt.
Carnegie Mellon hasn't made the D1 NCAAT in 100 years. It means nothing. If they go D1 and hire Bruce Pearl, they'd be a Final Four threat. College Basketball teams are Coaches. You might as well just call them by the Coach name like in Youth Sports because the name of the team is irrelevant. Team Dixon will be the same team regardless if he's coaching in Fort Worth, Pittsburgh, or Baghdad
You’d think that’s doable , even by accident !
You get a kid like Justin C whose grossly underrated and at the same time you have a couple of late developing players like a Gary McGhee and Trey Woodall and Walla !
I just think these guys who think the next coach is going to come in here and restore the program back to the glory yrs are dreaming . Somethings broken in attracting bb players to Pitt and until they figure it out I don’t see anything better than middle of the pack resulet’s . ( huge improvement though )
But Bruce Pearl isn’t going to CMU or Pitt . He needs a school that doesn’t care how you win and Pitt isn’t it !
I don't disagree with anything you are saying ... all I know is that I'm simply getting worn down with our team being terrible and I am getting tired trying figure out what is wrong ...
4-14 (next to last in the ACC)
0-18 (last in the ACC)
3-15 (tied for last in the ACC)
6-14 (tied for last in the ACC)
6-10 (12th in the ACC)
Currently 3-8 and 13th in the ACC
This is simply getting ridiculous. One would think that we could finish one year around 9th or 10th even by accident.
You know, I know Narduzzi broke through this year, but I also know you were a big Pat fan even before this, and it is astounding you could be OK with Pat's record his first 6 years but think Dixon sucked his last 5.
Nothing is wrong.
Capel proved you can recruit at Pitt. He just was a bad coach who couldn’t do the other things, most importantly maintain a roster.
Find a replacement who can both recruit at the Capel level and mold, control and maintain a roster.
Happy days will be here again.
I am always ready to throw my support behind any new hire And give the new guy a chance.
Last edited:
If you watched the TCU vs Syracuse game in their one tournament appearance under Dixon it wasn’t all that much worse. They were unbelievably tight and just couldn’t get it done as the much higher seed.
It looked just like some of Pitt’s early tournament exits, I have no idea why but JD’s teams seem to almost always turtle up when it comes to NCAA tournament play.
I think he is wound a little too tight come Tournament time, and it rubs off on his team. He needs to partake in a little Mary Jane or do a shot to calm down just a wee little bit. 😉
Again, not at you, but what I'm curious about the idea that Dixon deserved 2 more years to do what? Get back to the NCAA tournament? that would have happened under Dixon in '17.. get back to the sweet 16? That was never good enough. Another 1 seed? An ACC title? A Final Four? What on earth does giving him 2 more years to do something mean? The man didn't forget to coach. You don't fire people based solely on recruiting class rankings.
The whole idea that "moving on" in 2016 should even have been contemplated at that time was absolutely asinine. You have a proven, championship winning coach in your stable that was still getting in the tournament regularly and was highly and universally respected throughout the college basketball community, and who wanted to stay at the university probably for the rest of his career. Do people still not know how rare that is? After decades of walking in the wilderness in football. After suffering through the 90s in hoops. Decades of next to nothing in every other sport. Look around at college hoops programs all across the landscape that struggle to have anywhere near the consistency of his last five years. If anything, you double down on getting a coach like that what he needs to succeed until he would prove that he couldn't. There is nothing in the track record or his competitive drive that would have suggested that fixing what was "not working" wouldn't have been the more likely outcome. Shoving him out at that time took a special kind of stupid. One can only hope, given the chance, Pitt isn't so stupid with the next proven coach in a bit of a comparative down cycle, but the university's historical track record doesn't give me the confidence that would be the more likely outcome.
Last edited:
