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."
— Dan Sostek (@dan_sostek) March 21, 2016
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.
The facts are, he consistently took Pitt to the heights the school hadn’t reached. The NCAA has had a 64 team tournament since 1985. Pitt made the NCAA Tournament only 7 times before 1985. They made it 8 times from 1985-2003. 11 of 13 years had Pitt in the NCAA Tournament. That’s an impressive run at just about any program.
Pitt achieve #1 seeds in the NCAA Tournament twice. Reached the No. 1 ranking in national polls for the first time. All things that never happened to Pitt before.
Jamie was a great ambassador for Pitt & I wish him the best. We'll now focus on building on our strong foundation pic.twitter.com/S4o65Mg62G
— Patrick Gallagher (@PittChancellor) March 21, 2016
I hope Jamie Dixon builds something strong at TCU. I hope he does well there. I want to see him beating the Hoopies once more.
Sean Miller would be a big time hire. Recruiting should improve immediately.
HTP!
He can’t refuse.
He’s coming, from what I hear. Unless something changes.
Upittbaseball no more comments by you
Then again, if familial considerations are indeed a major factor for him, then Pitt might have better than a remote shot at obtaining his services.
Marshall re-upped a month ago and he ain’t going anywhere.
Either Miller works but maybe too many hurdles to overcome. I think Barnes is using the netjet hours big time.
Jamies last play call should tell you enough about him as a leader. He recommended Brandon Knight. What??
I’m sad to see Dixon go. I really am. I was at Pitt from 2001 to 2005. Pitt hoops are a huge part of my college experience and Jamie Dixon was at center stage.
With that said, IMO this is best for both parties. It was time. Amicable parting. It was time.
A huge thank you to Jamie Dixon for not only being the best coach in program history…but more importantly for being a great representative of our University.
I have a ton of confidence in Barnes, and our admin as a whole. Pitt will be fine.
I think many of you are thinking this moves makes us relevant again, but this senior group won’t be happy about learning a new system. Guys are going to transfer out, recruits will get out of their scholarships. Today the program took a few steps back, we didn’t move forward.
Unless Barnes and co. can bring in a top tier coach, who can convince guys to stay and knows the area, and can recruit we haven’t gotten better.
I agree the last 5 years were tough to watch but I liked our chances next year. The next few months could be rough.
Dixon reading posts and leaving because of it. Haha
Too bad he didn’t leave before the Badger game. (jk)
Winning Percentage: 73% under Dixon, 56% before Dixon.
Big East Titles: 4 in 22 years before Dixon, 2 in 13 years under him.
Tournament Appearances: 23% before Dixon, 85% with Dixon.
Sweet Sixteens: Four prior to Dixon (in 50+ seasons), three
with Dixon in 13 seasons.
Elite 8s: 2 in 65 seasons before, 1 with Dixon during 13 seasons.
Sean and Archie are not coming to Pitt, but the next coach that does has a lot to prove.
Even if they’re right.
The last remnant of worthless Steve Pederson and Nordenberg has been released. Dixon managed to turn fans on=and turn them off. Now let’s get a coach who lets talented freshmen play.
Apparently/fan comments on social media do count.
We’re going to get a Miller anyway, so no big deal.
Before Dixon we played at the Fitzgerald Field House which held 4K people.
link to pittsburghpanthers.com
The HC made about 300K a year.
Dixon had the Pete to lure players and made recently 3.2 million and was always in 1 of the 2 best BB conferences in the country and still couldn’t recruit. Most of these other Pitt teams you cite were independents.
He’s gone because he hit a ceiling and has been mediocre for 5 years.
I hated the that Jamie got complacent after his 56 year contract and his passion was gone. He forgot what got him there and just thought the results would follow and that isn’t the case. You always have to work for anything worth having.
Of course Seth Greenburg and John Calipari were assts then.
Curtis Aiken
Charles Smith
Jerome Lane
Demetrious Gore
Sean Miller
Rod Brooken (Rip)
Brian Shorter
Bobby Martin
Jason Matthews
Should have been a piece of cake to recruit to the NBA like Peterson Events Center.
Bottom line… change is coming. I hope it’s positive.
So hopefully we get a guy that is creative and will make the best of what we have and hit the ground running with recruits next year.
We still should make the tournament next year with the guys coming back, so no new guy excuses.
Will any of the players leave, time will tell, hopefully they stick around long enough to give the new guy a chance.
Perspective goes both ways.
He already is pretty loaded money wise. This won’t be about money.
We need the same approach with BBall. Great to get the local kids, when a Billy Knight or DeJuan Blair comes around, but we need guys from all over. Florida comes to mind.
The trend was not good, and I think if Jamie thought he could turn it around he would have stayed.
OPG — Dixon was a fantastic regular season coach and good dude…but major brainfarting in the big dance year after year finally caught up to him.
UPitt — Louie C. baby!!! Bring the chevron sweater and continually confused look…and Chris Mullin and Walter Berry while you’re at it.
I liked everything about Jamie except his complete lack of concern for guards who can shoot…he had a few now and again, but mostly preferred brick-tossing defenders. And who could recruit short, non-jumping, non-shooting point guards who dominated the ball and started all four years better than JD?
He was a good coach and good guy but the guard thing wore me out after Krauser, Fields, Robinson…
I also think if Birch would have been the real deal and Adams stayed for two years, Jamie would have made that Final Four.
Great players make great coaches, not the other way around.
Wow.
Bitter sweet.
But couldn’t be more excited for a fresh start! Plus I’ll love reading the many, many posts and comments leading up to the hire and next season!!! Reminds me of the good ole days of football coaching searches/debacles and the great Blather commentary!!!
H2P!!!
Welcome home!
Pittman4ever
It’s a shame. Chas is right. We lost a good one. Dixon is an elite coach. Unless we replace him with another elite coach like Shane Miller PITT looses big.
I don’t care what potential a young buck may have, you don’t replace a legend.
I sure hope this blog, as meaningless as it is, didn’t have anything to do with Dixon leaving. A lot of stupid remarks were made here by people that have no idea what they speak.
I’m in mourning.