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August 10, 2015

Newkirk Heads Elsewhere

Filed under: Basketball,Transfer — Chas @ 6:13 am

I know, this should be nothing but football coverage at this point. But…

In the space of his two years at Pitt, Josh Newkirk went from speedy sparkplug, to the guy some wanted to supplant James Robinson at point guard, to the guy who became lost on the court, to one of the players many expected/wanted to transfer because his play had fallen so far, to “oh, he had an injury, that explains it.”

In May, we finally learned how bad his injury really was. He needed microfracture surgery on his left knee.

Microfracture surgery is still such an emerging surgical technique for athletes after an injury. In some ways it is akin to UCL (Tommy John) surgery in the 80s. It works, but the recovery rates and level of recovery from where the player was, vary greatly.

Some players never quite recover — Joseph Uchebo should immediately spring to mind — and Newkirk was looking at at least a year of rehab.

Faced with the ongoing rehab, the almost certainty of redshirting this year, and questions of his role on the team when he came back; Newkirk is opting to transfer.

“Josh is looking to get closer to home while he recovers from knee surgery, and we are in full support of his decision,” Dixon said in a statement.

Newkirk selected Pitt over Georgia Tech, Memphis, Missouri, Arizona, Indiana, N.C. State, Oklahoma State and Tennessee. N.C. State is located in Raleigh. He appeared in all 34 games with four starts last season.

Newkirk’s transfer leaves Pitt a little thin at point guard.

Senior James Robinson, who started every game at point guard last season, had foot surgery in June. He, too, is expected to recover in time for the start of the season. However, freshman Damon Wilson is the only other true point guard on the roster.

Junior shooting guard Chris Jones and graduate transfer Sterling Smith, who plays shooting guard, also are recovering from offseason surgeries.

Heck of a summer for surgeries for Pitt.

The depth at point guard isn’t terrible — provided Damon Wilson gets his academics cleared by the NCAA. Pitt had already cleared him, but the NCAA is investigating his high school, Our Savior New American. He and his former teammate, Kansas-bound Chiek Diallo are still in limbo, while Davon Dillard has apparently been cleared to play at Oklahoma State.

ACC rules prohibit transfers within the conference, so he isn’t going to end up at one of the Tobacco Road schools. Newkirk is more likely to consider East Carolina, Charlotte or even South Carolina.





Breaking down the Pitt roster, position-by-position. August 7, 2015 by Jerry DiPaola

link to blog.triblive.com

Comment by Jackagain 08.10.15 @ 9:22 pm

Seeing as we were scoring about 37 pts per game the last 5 games of last year, I hope Cheney and Peterman don’t screw it up.

Actually, since they are so much better, I guess we should expect 45-55 pts a game??

Sounds good!!! lmao

Comment by Dan 08.10.15 @ 9:24 pm

Emil – I’m all for raising expectations again. Just saying this team will be better than a lot of you think.

Comment by Tossing Thabeets 08.10.15 @ 10:45 pm

Tossing, I am all for optimism…when Charlie Brown commits to kicking the ball he forgets all the past heartbreak Lucy put on him and goes for it! I am a PITT FAN, and Pitt Fans = Charlie Brown after all.

My hesitation with this year is simple history:
1. Last year defense was terrible
2. Last year rebounding was terrible

You can win, and win big in slogball…I have no issues with slogball, those who complain I find ridiclous…this is Pittsburgh afterall, we have been pround of countless teams in all sports that score low and win with defense…but slogball requres the above two things in droves. Maybe one of the new centers totally pushes the needle on both things. And it is possible. Or not.

Bottom line, none of the three new bigs is really a proven entity in high level D-1 BBall…so I will have to wait and see whether you are correct. But make no mistake…Young, Artis, Jeter, JR, etc. etc…none of these kids have played Pitt-level defense in the past two years and it is really hard to think they will all of a sudden figure it out…if Dixon couldn’t teach them/change them in the past two years, hard to imagine he will this year. And Young is great…but just does not have the knack for rebounding at any position…and again I do not see him magically finding the knack.

But as always…it will be fun to find out!!!

HTP.

Comment by DD 08.11.15 @ 8:19 am

as someone who has performed micro fracture and has one performed on myself, I can tell you at his age it is not a good sign that he has many years of BBall left

Comment by DocJLK 08.11.15 @ 8:37 am

DD – they had so many players out of position because of a lack of a center. Everyone falls into their natural spots this year. It’s the same team back with a year of experience and an improved center situation. You can complain about quality of recruiting all you want but if you look at player rankings it’s right up there with all of Dixon’s other teams.

Comment by Tossing Thabeets 08.11.15 @ 10:06 am

No optimism. I’m not calling for a deep run. Just that it will be a prototypical Dixon team this year.

Comment by Tossing Thabeets 08.11.15 @ 10:07 am

You geezers have lost it. Before the injuries caught up to Pitt – they had beaten UNC and ND. With a young team dominated by sophomores. Give me a f’n break. They will make the tournament this year easily.

Comment by JohnRamella 08.11.15 @ 10:20 am

JohnR – right on.

Comment by Tossing Thabeets 08.11.15 @ 10:40 am

Well it was great we beat the Tarholes and ND, I mean come one.

Those were both games we shot an incredible shooting %.

Against UNC we shot 65% FG.
Against ND we shot almost 60% FG.

Those were anomalies.

As over the course of the season we shot 45% Fg

Comment by Emel 08.11.15 @ 3:35 pm

The game before ND we lost to a 2 win team in Va Tech.

The game after ND we nearly lost to a D2 team in Bryant. (72-67)

Comment by Emel 08.11.15 @ 3:38 pm

Last year’s team btw was the first Pitt since Ben Howland’s 2nd team in 2000, that wasn’t ranked at all at any point in the season.

Quite possibly the worst or 2nd worse team in that time period.

Comment by Emel 08.11.15 @ 3:41 pm

Emel – it was a bad year. We agree. They still almost made the tourney and they’ve improved this offseason. Too many players playing out of position and first time players getting playing time. Not the case this year.

I’ve said you still won’t be happy. I’m just pointing out that they’ll be good enough to keep Dixon off the hot seat … to your chagrin.

I’ll hold them to higher standards and demand more like I am with the football team but Dixon has earned a little more trust from me.

Comment by Tossing Thabeets 08.11.15 @ 7:30 pm

voytik starts hands down

Comment by paul shannon 08.12.15 @ 6:13 am

I find it interesting that some on this board are judging Dixon’s performance by Newkirk’s injury and decision to move closer to home while recuperating/rehabilitating.

If only Dixon had had a crystal ball and saw this all coming.

Think about all the development opportunity that Newkirk would have in 2017 or 2018. Just like Joe Ochebo for whom Dixon was beaten up for having him transfer in after microfracture surgery.

Holy crap! If you have an axe to grind on Dixon this is the place to be.

@Tossing you wasting your time with Emel.

Comment by Barvo 08.13.15 @ 4:48 pm

There was magic in the 60 series, magic similar to Francos IR. Double play ball to Kubek, hits a pebble, caroms and hits Tony in the throat; he collapses, can’t breathe. Never happened before in a WS, or since.

Comment by Old School Panther 08.22.15 @ 8:15 pm

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