if we don’t land vargas, antigua should be gone. has he ever brought any major recruits into the program. since dixon is unable(unwilling) to close with a top recruit, we need an ace recruiter that can. i thought once we got close with beasley, we might have a shot at the next big recruit. going to louisville hurts!

if something was definite or even a strong possibility Doke would have reported it over at the
Pittsburgh Sports Report. This rumor, that Vargas is headed to UL, has been around for awhile. Lets just see what pans out.

Bill Stull was officially named the Starting QB tonight! No big suprise, but still wanted to comment.

HAIL TO PITT!!!

Hmm, American Heritage. Let the negative recruiting in South Florida begin. I was waiting to see how long it would take before the recruits remembered, “Oh yeah, it’s the same mental midget who screwed up my favorite team!”

That said, I think it’ll all depend on how Randy Shannon’s boys do coming out of the gate. Also, if you’re getting offers from the Big 3 schools and you live in Florida, you would be stupid to go out of state. Say what you will about Bowden (who I think is on the decline, a la Paterno), but you don’t turn down Urban Meyer or an upstart like Randy Shannon.

Huh? Vargas plays basketball…

You hate blinds any rational thought. Go crawl back in your hole. Here’s a clue: Eloy plays with the round orange ball, not the oblong brown one.

Go bother dophin fans blogs.

Oh, my bad. It’s much easier to discuss this stuff in forums, where at least basketball and football are separated (I haven’t really paid attention much to Pitt basketball recruiting vs. Duke basketball recruiting). That said, he’d be a fool to turn down Donovan, unless he doesn’t trust that he’ll stay. In that case, he’ll get a heavy pull from Pitino. Haith may not be back at Miami if his team doesn’t get its act together.

It was completely obvious you’d come back with some more garbage.

“He should get on the bandwagon…I just repeat what I’m told…Wanny=bad…blah blah blah…”

When you have an original thought, come back. No one wants to hear your whining – especially because its the same shit we’ve had to listen to for the last 2 years. Go get on whatever bandwagon is popular now. Better yet, come back in two years, then you can tell us if you were right or not. Until then, you’re just rehashing the same bullshit.

Like i said, you’re reasoning is blinded by your hate. You didn’t even know what the hell we were talking about here. You have no idea who plays for pitt in what sports or who we’re recruiting except for what you look up at espn/scout after we point out your stupidity. But we all know “wanny = devil.”

Go bother these people: http://www.blackshoediaries.com

To be honest- I dont know Orlando role with the basketball. He was highly recruiting out of HS and panned out to be an average player with a great sentimental story (i.e bullet lodged in skull). To be honest, if vargas is a similar player to Orlando in HS we should pass and walk away. To win in college you need strong point guard play (i.e Texas A&M). When pitt was at its high point it wasnt the orlando’s or brian shorters, it was the millers and knights. We need a point guard and I hate to say this but we may need to get another head coach. Dixon plateau a year ago and now is on a decline rapidly. His system will get us 17-22 wins a year and secure 4-8 seed in the tournament but there is nothing else after that.
Do you see how deep we were last year? Not too many teams in the nation were as deep as PITT (Kansas is the only team to come to mind)

We need a stud to put pitt on ht ebasketball map

Thanks again for the insight Joshy boy…you’ve somehow managed to make us all dumber for having read your posts…

Dixon is only scratching the surface. The guy is going to take Pitt to multiple Final Fours, if he stays. Pitt went as far as Aaron Gray could take them last year and that was the sweet 16. He was in much better shape for the NBA draft. I don’t know why he wasn’t in better condition during the season, injuries maybe.

Pitt is slowly getting the horses to make a run to the final weekend. Vargas would be a big piece in the puzzle for ’08, but if he slips away Dixon and company will find someone else. They always do. Antigua will be on the hot seat if they can’t land Vargas. He was leading with Vargas and Pitt was on him early. If we don’t land him, then Antigua needs to make a splash for ’09.

Omar,
I a huge pitt fan but help me see the light. Where is Jaime scratching the surface? Jaime is falling and no one wants to see it since we made it back to the sweet 16. We underachieve the past two years Jaime was our coach. Jaime is doing an admirable job as a stop gap with Ben leaving but Pitt is going no where with him manning the ship.

jaime needs to put additional work into his profession. Come out with his own scheme. Dont mimmick Ben’s because we saw on natioanl tv ben embarass jaime.

We need a point guard. Vargas is not the answer. A point guard and a shooter. RR is not the answer.

Omar- help me see the light. You have very insightful repsonses that I am interested in hearing about Jaime.

Fields needs to be in better condition, but we can definitely win with him at the point.

Dixon has adapted the offense and defense based on the personel. Our offense the last two years was much different than the one we ran with Chevy, Taft, and Krauser. There was significantly more cutting and movement in the post with those guys. This season we relied heavily on getting Gray in the best position and had much less cutting and motion in the post. Defensively he has been much more willing to use a zone to mask some of Gray’s weaknesses and stopped having him hedge so much in man-to-man. He has also shown an ability to tailor an offense in mid-season for smaller and quicker post players (see the offense in the Seton Hall and the second Georgetown game).

As far as recruiting, we have a great point guard prospect coming in with Woodall. Darnell Dodson is a 6’7″ athlete with a silky smooth jumpshot. He will probably red-shirt this year. We are stacked at the wings right now, a big man is the number 1 priority.

Honestly, I think we underachieved in the NCAA Tournament two years ago when we had Krauser. This past season we just weren’t good enough defensively and Gray was not in the best shape at the end of the year. If he had been in better condition, then I would agree with you, but he was not. He ran out of gas physically and he was a wreck mentally after the Washington game. He was our focal point last year and we got as far as we could with him.

One other point about Dixon, he is excellent at developing players. Every kid that we have had has been better as a senior than they were as a freshman. This is a fact. Each player gets better every year, that is a testament to Dixon. Simply wait until the ceiling is a little higher with the players. As Dixon gets more talent to develop, the ceiling on the team gets higher. We have a lot of athletes now and I think in a few years we will be ready to go, maybe even this season.

Dixon is phenomenal. He is young, loyal, ambitious, smart and talented. Pitt basketball could not be in better hands.

Amen Omar…Pitt basketball couldn’t be in better hands – I couldn’t agree more.

Omar,
I thank you for your feedback and I was anxiously looking forward to your response.

I guess, I will have to take your word in regards to JD but I still see the cup half empty with a very slow leak. The games I watched I did not see the adjustment you mentioned and I definetly did not see the improvement in skills from players as they marticulate in class (Gray showed glimpse shis junior year but after the tournament game it went down hill). I see more of a regression in skills i.e field, hill, ramon

I want to beleive that JD is directing the ship in the correct direction but I cant see. this year pitt was ranked in the top 10. had one of the deepest in the nation, and underachieved. I understand things happen but they played lackluster for majority of the season. We did not have that fire. Our defesne is getting soft and our offense is not improving to compensate (this is the opposite of the ben howland blueprint jaime follows)

Help me out… what should I look for this year b/c we know the chips will be down. This year I will see if JD can coach and if your assessment is correct or if my assesment in correct.

Without looking at the schedule, here is my prediction- 18-20 (big home wins but poor showing on the road against top teams. We will beat duke!). Semifinals in Big East Torunament and either a first or second round exit from tournament.

Omar, i appreciate your feedback and fervor for pitt sports. what is prognosis for the season.

maybe you can answer this questions- is JD having problems motivaing his team? Sam Hill looked lost. Ramon became a very poor version of Craig hodges and the defense lost it fire and toughenss.
. field’s cant decide if he is a pg,sg or if he wants to paly linebacker for DW.

PS- who can shoot b/c fields can only hit the top of the key jumper and the jay is very sucept and slow

Omar, The sweet 16 is good but you dont get torch by your former coach. We looked bad down the stretch of the year. We had one of thedeepest team in the nation and we looked lost.

Dodson, Wanamaker,Blair will be an average strong players for us but in the end they will be like tafy, shariff and Morgan.

Point Guard play is errattic from from fields. I

Omar,

sorry… i went off on a tangent at the end and forgot to erase the bottom

Thanks in advance for you insight.

Can jaime close on a stud for the pitt program in the next year or so b/c other teams in the BE are quietly getting stronger with key signing, SU,UCONN, St JOhn, Rutgers, Nova, Depaul, Hall,

I also enjoy the conversation cdmoore. I think we all had unrealistic expectations last year. Losing Krauser was a big deal. He was the only vocal leader we had. Fields is a special player, but he was an underclassmen last year. I think he will be more of a leader this year. Gray just didn’t have the mental toughness you need from your best player. That fact, combined with his suspect conditioning and nagging injuries cost us more than anything Dixon did. I think we had a lapse towards the end of the year, but regrouped very nicely in the Big East tournament and played well in the NCAAs. People forget we were blowing that VCU team out of the water and they came all the way back. Even took a lead! A team with a soft head coach that didn’t have control of his team would have definitely lost that game. Against UCLA we just didn’t get any breaks. They definitely didn’t blow us out, we just never did enough to really make it a game. It was a strong year.

This season I think we will struggle a bit in the early portion of the Big East schedule. However, I think we will be an excellent team by the end of the year, make another run in the Big East tournament and make some noise in the NCAAs. I expect a season that is very similar to Louisville’s last year. Not as up/down. Blair is a beast from what I’ve heard and we have a lot coming back. I hope all the kids really work on their conditioning. If we are going to run more, then we need to be in the best shape. I think we will be fine.

Dixon is slowly seperating himself from Howland. I think he is less stubborn and is willing to try new things on offense. The guy is barely 40 years old. He is only going to get better. His teams are always tough and rarely get blown out. When they lose, they always regroup and play much better in the next game. That is the sign of a quality head coach. Dixon needs to pick it up a bit on the recruiting side of things, but college basketball recruiting is so dirty. I don’t think Dixon likes to get mixed up in all of the deceitful things that go on. I can accept that. If we keep having 20 win seasons eventually we are going to get the blue-chip D. Wade type kid. It is just a matter of time.

You know, I for once try to be nice and apologize for my ignorance, and this is what I get? Piss off, jagoffs!

is this a match made in heaven???? omar and cdmoore – might just be the start of something special 🙂

Ignorance had nothing to do with your post. All you had to do was read what Chas wrote and you would have clearly seen that it was basketball he was talking about. Instead you had an agenda that you wanted to spout off about and in turn rushed to post something – as a result made yourself look stupid and angry.

Paulhackett- Winning season in both football and basketball. we are trying to spread the pitt sports love