12 pm, RSN (ROOT, various FOX, etc.) and ACC Network Extra/WatchESPN.
Miami is somewhere in the mushy-middle of the ACC with Pitt (yes, I still think of Pitt as a middle-of-the-pack ACC team, but consider that middle of the pack in the ACC likely encompasses roughly 6-13). As such, this is a game Pitt can win.
Should win? Arguably.
Must win? Absolutely.
This is a home game for Pitt. You cannot lose the home games to teams that are about the same.
Miami is starting three games on the road in the ACC. They are coming off a tough, close loss at home to Notre Dame (been there).
Miami is among the slowest tempo teams, nationally. They have a very good defense and a decent, methodical offense.
It is an aggressive defense. One that really defends on all shots — inside and outside the arc. As such, they also foul a lot, so opposing teams find themselves shooting free throws. Pitt (*cough* Mike Young *cough*) will need to put their effort at the free throw line at Louisville in the past for today.
Aside from Dewan Huell and Ebuka Izundu (who combine to play about 30 minutes a game), Miami doesn’t play anyone with size that will be an issue for Pitt.
On offense, their weakness is a penchant for carelessness with the ball. Pitt, though, is not one of, but the worst team nationally in terms of creating turnovers. And that is even after what happened in Louisville.
There’s been a bit of turmoil for Miami in terms of roster turnover. They have now dismissed two transfers from the team. One who sat out last year, and this week, one that was sitting out this year.
Also worth noting, Pitt football has a big recruiting weekend for the final push before National Signing Day. Hopefully the crowd is there for this one.
His inability to recruit big men and guards sealed his fate. That and the big contract.
Ancient history now. Pitt will lose revenue until they build a competitive program. Stallings will get two years to get results, if he doesn’t it is back to square one.
Herman should be told to pack up his front porch into the Munstermobile and scram.
But no, he will be allowed to lame duck and collect coin for another two months.
In the meantime, Pitt will hem and haw and go safe and stupid.
Didn’t they have learned their lesson in the 80’s when they let the football program tank.
Check this out. They like Pitt were a BigEast upper tier team. And actually BC had a longer history of being good. As they were Elite 8 in 1981, got beat by the Phi Slamma Jamma Houston crew. Were in the Sweet 16 in 1980, 1982 and again in 1984. (Coaches in this time period was Dr. Tom Davis who left for Iowa and Gary Williams who left for Ohio State)
Then again closer to present day, they were Elite 8 in 1993 under Jim O’Brien who went to Ohio State after Williams left for Maryland.
When Al Skinner came in…. the last several years they were in the BigEast before transitioning to the ACC they were:
2000 – 27-5
2001 – 20-12
2002 – 19-12
2003 – 24-10
2004 – 25-5 BigEast last year
2005 – 28-8 ACC
2006 – 21-12
2007 – 14-17
2008 – 22-12
2009 – 15-16
2010 – 21-13
2011 – 9-22 (bottom falls out)
2012 – 16-17
2013 – 8-24
2014 – 13-19
2015 – 7-25
They couldn’t maintain their momentum they had built up in the BigEast, after they transitioned.
And Pitt if you remember was even starting to dip a little in the last few years of the BigEast(26-10, 19-15, 21-12). Early exits from the BE Tourney and as always sans 2009, early exists from then NCAA’s.
What you really needed was a highly energized, highly motivated HC, not a guy who is looking to ride out the string and get to coaching win #500 (he’s at 467) and call it quits.
And he and Pitt certainly looked like they layed down today for Laranagga’s 600th win.
Dumb, dumb, dumb.
You just made me very sad with that BC trend analysis!!!
I can’t imagine pitt not being relevant in basketball for years!!
God I miss the howland/early Dixon years!!!
Start at minute 13:00. We need to make this a drinking game. Everytime Herman’s fat ass says Im excited we need to drink. Noise is a double shot.
Gallagher is new blood and wants to win. If there is a problem I just don’t see it. You don’t always get your hires right. Barnes didn’t see PITT as home for his family.
Louisville (less than PITT academically) seems to get its coaches and AD’s to stay. Pitino loves horses even though he is a Metro NYC boy. Go figure. I don’t like how or what Louisville does but they do win.
The Gappagher hire of Barnes made zero sense.
We just had a Down Day.
And Pittsburgh is so much a better city than dirty crime ridden Loserville.
Yet in every frickin search the Muckety Mucks make it seems like no one wants to come to Pitt or Pittsburgh. That is insane.
There has to be a word on the street about Pitt and it’s administrators.
And L-Ville’s most famous QB is a Pittsburgher, who grew up on Mt. Washington. The legendary Johnny U.
I could direct you to something to cheer you up.
But Reed took down…..Sybil. 🙂
link to collegebasketball.ap.org
Oregon State routed by an even bigger scoring margin than Pitt yesterday – maybe Tynkle (ikr) gets moved along by Barney and is replaced by Stallings, and the money flow starts all over again with the search firm gig.
We’ll have to research Tynkle to find out which school he is an alum of and what their BB coaching situation looks like…
Wayne is 6’10” and has a son on the current Oregon State team.
Enough of BB for a while as I’m sure others are mumbling in their sleep as I pour my coffee.
Better days ahead – Barney’s last day at Pitt is in a few weeks – will he show for LOI or will it be too “noisy” for his liking?
It is very intriguing that Jamie is suddenly able to recruit again.
Recruiting is the life blood of success in college sports. Yes coaching makes a difference, maybe 20-30% with the players at 70-80%. Which raises the question, why is it so difficult to recruit to Pitt?
It is unlikely that Pitt will win any game this year without solid efforts from Artis and Young. Duquesne beat us without Artis and Yesterday we saw what happens without Young. Luther also make a marginal difference.
So another question is how much of the performance for the last three games is on the players vs the coaches. If my original assumption is correct only 20-30%, then it is mostly the players. However, it appears that Stallings is not doing all that much with his 20-30%. IMO.
They claim the human body is composed of 90% water. I always tell folks that I am not particularly proud of what I did with my 10%. It’s doubtful Stallings is inclined to engage in similar introspection.
Barnes hastened Jamie’s departure, and then his own.
Maybe the problem wasn’t Jamie. Maybe it was a lack of funds, funds for recruiting, assistants, whatever. And instead of working through those issues, Herman points him to the door, but only after chopping the buy-out.
I say Herman was worse than Smiley.
It will be interesting to see what happens now with OOC scheduling. Barnes reached a four year agreement with WVU starting next year. Unsure of anything else that is in the works for next year. Probably won’t matter much if this ship ends up on the rocks and four seniors graduate with no players having been developed to fill those positions. Even in the relatively horrendous 2011-2012 (CBI) season Dixon had experienced guys like Woodall, Patterson and Zanna returning to fill for Wanamaker, Brown and McGhee.
And when was the last time a Dixon team did anything in the Big Dance. You’d have to look back more than 7 years. The writing was on the wall. The old Dixon was no Jackie.
Pitt loses in their alumni eyes. We see through this type of activity. Pitt has a much larger brand issue then I thought. Bring back the uniforms that we all identify with. Bring back an OCS, smaller of course. Keep practice facility with Steelers as that is what the kids want.
Heinz is an incentive for opposing players who get juiced for that game against us. Narduzzi should get a couple of flips, one local.
Also David Adams looks to be getting a downgrade in his rankings from Rivals. Looks like a 3 star is heading his direction. Not gloating or anything, just wondering if ND will now have second thoughts and we can pick up a player in a position of need. Let the Narduzzi magic begin!!
Look what Skunkhead is doing while we have Men’s Wearhouse Salesman Stallings…
The kid suffered a broken orbital bone against the L-Ville thugs and wasn’t even cleared by Pitt team doctors to play until 90 minutes before game time.
Did you see his eye ? Looked like he had been in a prize fight. He had to have a tough time even seeing properly out of it. And his shooting reflected that.
Plus he could have injured it worse.
Bad call by Stallings and Pitt to let him play in that condition.
He is now out with a stress fracture in his foot. Probably a month, who knows.
So effectively as of now, we have NO BENCH. And our best all around player has a broken orbital bone, which is going to effect the way he plays for probably the rest of the season, as he’s going to be ‘gun shy’ to mix it up underneath. And he’s our only post player that can score reliably.
This is going to get real ugly I’m afraid.
Dixon had the opportunity (the timing was right, as the TCU job came open) and that’s his alma mater and he played on their bball team.
And he only needed to look on his roster and see that after this year, there were no legit D1 ACC players on it and he had no one on his Pitt staff that could recruit ACC caliber players, including himself. And the program was sliding before that and the natives were growing restless.
So you have the opportunity (TCU job opens), the motive (Program sliding and Nothing on roster and nobody on staff could recruit) and Pitt and Barnes gave hive the **means** to leave, when they lowed the buyout.
And Barnes was brought in on a temporary basis to do the dirty deed and then bolt 3000 miles to the Opposite of the Continent.
I agree to the bench for the starters. If in the next game we fall behind early again then they should be on the bench early again for the whole game.
This team plays as individuals. The ACC bottom is our home.
In the B1G Joke conference, tOSU and MSU are struggling like Pitt. Let’s see which of these three teams improves over the next 2 months –
Still no word on the custom magic shooting gloves for the rest of the team…
…or the coach’s custom timeout kazoo though…
Active, engaging CEO vs a “stiff” collecting a giant paycheck.
Two similar BB programs with similar player talents – two opposite results.
Of course, it’s just ONE thing. A Michael Young who is NOT scoring!
This ain’t complicated. Pitt is EXTREMELY challenged Talent-wise thanks to the prior Coach and his Staff.
We went into this Season knowing that this Pitt Team only goes as far as Artis AND Young take them.
Well, guess what?
Gallagher has signed off on the hiring of DHR International.
The Company’s Website points out the following…
********
– DHR is the only retained executive search firm whose Sports Practice is led by a former Division I Athletic Directors and a former Division I Basketball Coach.
– The Sports Practice is a global practice with capabilities to serve clients in 6 continents across all sports related organizations ranging from Fortune 500 companies to private universities.
– We are the only “Top 5” search firm with a practice devoted exclusively to the industry. This allows us to better serve our clients with the utmost standards of professionalism, fast approach, strong ethics and outstanding quality.
********
No more messing around.
“Well maybe they can find a new Basketball Coach too!”
Sorry to steal the Thunder.
Stallings will eventually be fine. But as previous noted… after some serious STRUGGLES.
Come back in 2018.
Pitt needs to start by fighting for an entire game at Raleigh tomorrow. If they don’t the season may be gone and fan interest continues to wane. In that case Stallings may not make 2018.
Nordenberg and Smiley were cheap. Hard to imagine money was flowing into the hoops program – except to Dixon’s bottom line.
Now if that’s the case… big “IF” here… solving the AD problem will automatically solve all OTHER problems, including what Coaches stay and which ones GO.
A matter of building “trust”, which Pitt Admin has historically done a VERY poor job of.
“Do you believe Pitt needs an OCS?”
Anyone answering “YES”… is in.
Do you have experience running a big time athletic program in a big time conference?
Do you have proven results raising vast sums of money via fundraising?
Do you have a track record of hiring good coaches?
Do you believe in athletic excellence and are you committed to Pitt’s front porch?
Will you be committed to Pitt for the long term?
Can you unite and engage fans, alumni and boosters who have been ignored throughout the years?
Can you change the culture and mindset?
Do you know what SOP stands for and why its bad?
If the answers to all questions are ‘NO’, then Pitt has their new AD.
Maybe others here who really think Heinz Field is the GREATEST Stadium on Earth, actually believe Jamie was ONE Year away from a possible Final Four, and absolutely still think Wanny should be Pitt’s Head Football Coach… just don’t get your brand of humor.
Too bad for them.
First question of new AD candidates.
Do you believe in making Pitt Football Great Again ?
No sign of Tom Savage yet.
H2P!!!