A very good piece from Craig Meyer in the Post-Gazette. Talking about Pitt basketball trying to regain more then simply its footing.

In the past three years, going back to its later years under former coach Jamie Dixon, the program has faded from the national relevancy it once relished. In that time, it has posted a win percentage of .560, down significantly from the .763 percentage it posted in its 13-year peak from 2001-14. If anything, its recent mark is a regression to the mean, much closer to the .550 all-time win percentage the program owned prior to the 2001-02 season.

With those numbers come pressing queries. What can this program become? And where does it go from here?

I suspect this will be the sort of topic revisited more then a few times over the summer. There’s no easy answer — regardless of who the coach is or will be.

It strikes me as important not to react like this article is saying Pitt sucks or that the basketball program is a historically poor one. The fair reading of Pitt’s overall basketball history — especially if you look back before the past 15 years or so — is of slightly above average. Not dominant for extended periods, but rarely a perennial basement program.

The article cites the recent and not so recent success stories of programs that found themselves again — Arizona, Georgetown and Maryland. You could toss in places like Iowa State and Virginia.

But there are just as many that lost it and are still trying to get it back. Georgia Tech is cited, but in the ACC alone you can point to BC, Wake and NC State. The major conferences are littered with programs that had reached major heights within the last 20-30 years or so, but haven’t been able to get any consistency — or even crashing into misery — since: St. John’s, Minnesota, Illinois, Ohio State,  Washington, Stanford, Arkansas, Alabama and  Tennessee all come to mind. Schools with money to burn. Schools with rabid fans that support basketball.

Having the right coach and players is obvious, but nothing is ever assured. St. John’s, Minnesota and Tennessee all had scandals of one type or another that took out their momentum and have been searching for consistency and relevance ever since.

Wake, NC State, GT and Washington have had talent-laden rosters and/or top-ten NBA draft picks but little to show for it with wins and making noise in the NCAA Tournament.

In what should feel familiar for Pitt fans, Ohio State missed the NCAA Tournament for a second straight year. In 2015, they had the 5th ranked recruiting class nationally. They do not have a single member of that class left in the program.

The article cites the poster-child these days for building a sustainable power — Villanova.

…[Villanova Head Coach Jay] Wright returned to a recruiting philosophy that had helped him achieve what he had earlier in his tenure. Instead of continuing to chase top-10 recruits he felt compelled to given Villanova’s newfound standing, he refocused his efforts on top-50 or top-100 prospects he believed had a better chance of staying in school for three or four years.

Part of me wants to laugh at how simple it reads. That a program and coach just needs to stay in his lane and it will come together.

It isn’t. It requires having an excellent coach and staff — for both recruiting and developing. Unmentioned is the little noticed fact that Jay Wright’s core coaching staff had not been poached or gotten new jobs in nearly seven years. Continuity from the top down.

This had been Pitt’s approach as well for most of the time under Jamie Dixon. Heck, it really isn’t that different from what Stallings was doing at Vandy. But, even recruiting top-100 players means you are going after 4-star/high 3-star kids. It’s not like these players are being ignored by all the other programs — even the schools that regularly get 5-stars. And you just can’t miss on too many. Can’t have many injuries. Too many transfers can’t happen. A lot has to go right.

It only looks natural, easy, and the way things should go when it is all going the right way.