As much as it would appear that the talent is down — and compared specifically to last year’s team it is — for Pitt this year, my feeling is that the biggest issue is not simply a lack of experience or talent on the team. For most of the decade, Pitt has had continuity with the guys on the court. Guys who started at least the previous year before to keep things moving forward. That is something sorely lacking from this team.
Even as the team moved from Brandin Knight to Carl Krauser after 02-03, Jaron Brown and Julius Page were still there (03-04). They left but Krauser and Chevon Troutman were ready (04-05). Then it was Ronald Ramon and Krauser (05-06). The following year it was Ramon, Levon Kendall and Aaron Gray (06-07) to make the Levance Fields era go smoothly. Even as Sam Young emerged with DeJuan Blair the following year there was Fields and Ramon plus a guy like Keith Benjamin (07-08). And of course last year’s triumvirate of Fields, Young and Blair. Plus Biggs. Among all of those names there were only 3 second round draft picks (4 if you want to include .
Now, that brings us to the here and now and what everyone knows. Pitt has operated without its only returning starter in Jermaine Dixon. The top bench guy expected to start in Gilbert Brown is suspended until late December. I will skip the rehashing of the lack of experience on this squad.
There are guys with experience like Ashton Gibbs, Brad Wanamaker and even Gary McGhee. Guys who have been here a year or two and seen s0me playing time. But they were not regulars in the system. Still learning, finding their way and now have to make a much bigger jump.
Now I don’t think that just experience alone will make the team an elite team. But that isn’t what should be the issue. Chris Dokish pointed out what kind of talent has to be on Final Four teams, and what teams have the top talent in the Big East. That is not in dispute. Those are facts. You will not win big without big talent. Pitt does not have enough of that right now.
Talent alone, however, is not enough. Experience makes a huge difference. Why did Georgetown miss the NCAA Tournament last year? Or UConn in 06-07 (Thabeet, Dyson, Adrien, Price and Robinson) or ‘Cuse in 07-08 (Harris, Flynn, Greene, and Onuaku)? All teams with plenty of talent. All teams with excellent coaches.
Louisville has plenty of that top talent. A lock hall-of-fame coach. They also just lost at home to Charlotte (A-10) by 22.
But this drifts afield. The issue this year should not be whether Pitt has enough big talent on this team right now. Few Pitt fans (sanely) believe that. It’s whether the talent that is on hand will be enough to compete in the Big East and get into the NCAA Tournament this season.
My opinion is that they do have the talent, but they still might not make it. It is not a top-25 team at this point. It’s not related to the talent. It is related to the team still learning what to do. That takes time.
This is the first time we really are seeing a full team have to learn to play together, and without a clear guy that is tops in the pecking order. This team will get better in the season. It will not be smooth and a straight-line progression. There will be games where the team takes a step forward. Then fall flat on its back. Take a big jump and then tumble.
Get used to it.
We have the depth, personnel and athleticism to do that. Stop trying to fit square pegs into round holes. Dixon needs to be looking at the Nolan Richardson/Mike Anderson approach rather than the Ben Howland approach.
Besides, while that “40 minutes of hell” system seems appealing and easy to run, it isn’t. It requires a lot of discipline to run in addition to the athletes. That’s why few teams successfully do so.
It certainly won’t be as good as that legendary Duke game…but ya never know!
GO PITT!!
Building off Chas’ article, I think the maturation process is very much a key strategic element of a Dixon-led team. Creating this “continuity” is critical for Jamie because it allows him to cross-train players and make game day decisions that negate some of the talent discrepancies or in-game issues that happen throughout the year.
IMHO, the maturation process requires three things:
1) System experience
2) Continuous role development, and
3) Raw Talent.
Chas alludes to this, but Dixon is used to having strong/respectable levels of #1 & #3 — while working on #2 throughout the year.
Developing/Cross-training is a Dixon trait that suits him well on Gameday; think of all the ways he used Jaron Brown, Levon Kendall, Ronald Ramon, Sam Young etc.. to adjust for injuries, matchups, foul trouble. I think this is the most underrated aspect of Dixon’s coaching skills/scheme, and is often the reason why we can close the gap “on the talent side”…
This year, however, he is fighting to expand #1 & #2 with respectable levels of #3.
We’re playing solid defense, but our offense is anemic. If we emphasize our current strength, step up our pressure on defense and force some more turnovers, we may create more easy opportunities at the offensive end of the floor. I think it’s likely that we’ll find ourselves forced to do this as our offense will probably put us in some deep holes this year. We won’t be able to play the half-court game like we have in the past.
Over time, the players may be successful in the current system. Dixon certainly has a history of getting the most out of his players. But I don’t think we’ll see that leap this year.
Right now they just need to pile up as many wins as possible, whatever the competition. Looking ahead, the early January schedule is potentially gruesome – after DePaul, they play (in order) at Syracuse, at Cincy, at UConn, Louisville, G’town. Things may look really bleak after that stretch, although none of us should lose sight of the fact that the schedule gets a bit easier (just a bit – hey this is the Big East) after that early stretch.
The article is comical.
Sound reasoning, but I think you’re holding back athletes that could be more successful in a uptempo style. I agree, you open yourself up to a different set of problems if you speed the game up. But I think we’re better equipped to handle those problems than those we’re facing now, namely an inability to even initiate the offense, much less execute it.
Also, I don’t want to see “40 Minutes of Hell.” Never said that. Just want to see us do something different. Perhaps Woodall picking up the point from 75′ out or possibly more half-court trapping.
Finally, we have to move beyond the grind-it-out style at some point if we want to move this program to the next level. It’s been very good to us, but we’re limiting our talent pool. As important as it is, kids don’t want to focus on defense. They want to put the ball in the basket.
And that’s another luxury that we don’t have this year.
Jack was Georgia Tech’s best player. Their big man was Luke Schenscher, not Chris Bosh. They are a good example of how much talent you need to recruit to succeed: they’ve put Bosh, Jack, Schenscher, Mario West, Thaddeus Young, Javaris Crittendon and Anthony Morrow (props to the NBA’s top 3-point man last year for the W’s!) in the NBA in the 2000s. And yet, they’re still not that good. Your point that those guys weren’t the stars is part of Dokish’s point. Mainly, that you have to recruit A BUNCH of talented guys, because even then, not all of them will pan out. Funny that you don’t remember Juan Palacios, since he was a Pitt recruit for a while. He wound up being a solid role player. That Louisville team had Francisco Garcia, Larry O’Bannon and Taquan Dean average a combined 45.3 ppg. Garcia shot 36.6% from three, while O’Bannon and Dean shot 42.5 and 44.7! All were over 81% from free throw line. Palacios chipped in 9.7 points and 6.5 rebounds in that season, shooting 38.5% from three as a 6’8″ forward. Also, he played every game that season.
Pitt that season had no one over 77.4% from the free throw line, and only Antonio Graves (4th leading scorer at 7.8 ppg) over 40% from three (unless you count Yuri Demetris before he got chucked off the team). Since then, we’ve had the following number of guys over 80% from the free throw line: 1 in 06, 1 in 07, 1 in 08, and 1 in 09. Only once was the guy a top-3 scorer on our team (Ramon in 06, and he was 8.0 ppg while Krauser had 15.0 and Gray 13.9).
By contrast, that Louisville team had all three of their top scorers making their free throws at a high rate.
Also, on the OK State team, you mean Joey Graham, not Joey Crawford.
Odd to me that you’d call Tyrus Thomas LSU’s best player just because he got drafted highly. He was their third leading scorer at 12.3 ppg, and benefitted greatly from the attention Glen Davis (18.6 ppg and 9.7 rpg) drew, as well as their shooters, especially Darrell Mitchell (16.8ppg). That team also overachieved in large part because of the Thomas/Davis combo. Thomas got drafted highly, but he’s a 7 and 5 guy for his career so far, only once averaging double-figure points, and only once over 6 rebs per game. In their run to the Final Four, Thomas did not start games 1 or 2. He played 19 minutes (5th most) in game 1, scoring 9 pts (also 5th best). In game 2, it was 20 minutes (5th most) and 7 pts (4th most). In game 3, his first start, he was still only 5th in minutes (25) and fifth in points with 9. He broke out at the most convenient time for him, the regional final against Texas, with 39 minutes (t-3rd most, game went to OT) and 21 points (2nd most). In their loss in the national semifinals, he started but played just 17 minutes (6th most) and scored 5 points (4th most).
In none of their tournament games did he lead in points or minutes played.
You need a lot of top-echelon talent to go deep. That’s the point for Dokish, and the stats bear that out.
You are correct regarding Chris Bosh, my bad. Also, sorry about the Joey Crawford mix-up. I guess I had the NBA referee on my mind. Regarding Louisville, their three best players weren’t top-50 guys. Palacios wasn’t terrible, but he also never, ever lived up to his hype. 10 and 6 are decent numbers, but they aren’t going to win you any awards. Darrell Mitchell wasn’t a top-50 player on LSU.
The point is talent can be found outside the top-50. That is a fact. You don’t need 3 top-50 guys to win the championship. You simply need 3 talented guys.
Pitt had a chance last year, but their three most talented players were mediocre defenders. That is why Pitt lost in the regional final. They gave up something like 1.25 points per shot. Even a little bit of defense wins that game.
Pitt has okay talent right now with very little experience. It isn’t fab-5 type talent, but it also isn’t Pitt circa 1997 talent. If these role players can develop into really good defenders, then with the talent coming in we should be able to compete for a final 4 in a season or two. Dokish alludes to this in his piece. I just felt that his analysis was poor.
I don’t think that should be an issue with recruits. He’ll run when he has the guys with the skill and experience to do so.
Ben Howland go top talent at UCLA but still chose a more defensive brand of hoops. Does anybody who feels like checking know how he’s done in recruiting (I know his team is struggling early on this year)?
Didn’t Arizona have like two bigtime NBA prospects on their roster last year, yet only get 20 wins, barely made the tournament, and was ousted immediately?
I think you need three players playing at an elite level, whether they were highly recruited or not. The point, I think, is that there’s a better chance to have a bunch of elite players is to get elite recruits. No doubt we had the talent last year, and you certainly don’t HAVE to have any top 50 recruits.
To the person who pointed out Diener: Dokish specifically says Wade is an exception and obvious hall of famer…and he was also a high recruit. Steve Novak also makes a living in the NBA (as does Diener). Three NBA players on that team.
