Here’s a simple reality. It is very likely that Pitt basketball is going to slip a little further in the short term before it improves.
Complain about the disappointments of this season, but there aren’t that many examples of programs that lost their head coach after being in the NCAA Tournament — and improving immediately. Let alone tread water. In the last five years, the only examples that spring to mind are just this past year: Shaka Smart to Texas, Iowa State under Steve Prohm and Will Wade at VCU. And again, all three didn’t do dramatically better. They stayed constant.
There are just so many changes. From style of play, lost recruiting class, transfers, graduations.
Well, now basketball gets on the coaching carousel.
I am saddened. I know plenty of you are celebrating. Fine.
It probably was the smart move for Jamie Dixon and Pitt. This wasn’t a case where the AD wanted him gone like Jeff Long to Walt Harris. At the same time, the school was not exactly stopping him.
Barnes: "Yes there was a buyout, and it was as big of a buyout as I've ever seen in the marketplace. And we softened that buyout."
The stuff I referenced earlier today about Buzz Williams has been turning over in my mind. I have to believe Dixon spoke with Ben Howland and was reminded of how that ended.
I liked Jamie Dixon as a coach and as a representative of the University of Pittsburgh. I don’t think things were as gone as some suggest.
I’m not pretending things were great, but some of the revisionism and denigration of Dixon to rationalize why he should go was beyond stupid.
