What do we expect of Pitt basketball?

 Basketball, College Basketball  Comments Off on What do we expect of Pitt basketball?
Jan 062015
 
The pain, oh the pain

One more thought from Chris Dokish’s post about 2015 thoughts:

I find it very disheartening that so many people are ready to throw Jamie Dixon under the bus so quickly even though he’s known around the country as one of the best basketball coaches in the country. Does he have to do better in the NCAA tournament? Yes. Does he need to land more elite prospects? Yes. But he’s also been extremely productive in his career. [emphasis mine].

I’ve constantly been hearing that the program is done under Dixon. Let’s get this straight. If you end up in the top 10 for a few years, and then don’t, that doesn’t mean that your program is done. It means it’s hard to be in the top 10 every year.

Let’s not forget that just four years ago Pitt was ranked No. 1 in the country and was a No. 1 seed in the NCAA tournament. In the two years prior to this season, they finished fourth in the Big East and fifth in the ACC. Not only is that not disastrous, it’s something that all but a small percentage of teams of teams would kill for.

Jamie_Dixon_(Karwoski)Again, as with the football program, we want the basketball program to do better. But let’s not allow tournament disappointment to blind us to the fact that Jamie Dixon has been one of the best coaches in the land. It took Jim Boeheim 10 years to get to the Final Four and he didn’t even make the NCAA tournament every year.

Getting into the Top 10 is hard. Finishing in the top half of the two toughest conferences in the country as Dixon has so often done is harder. Continue reading »

Jan 022015
 
football-stuffed-with-money

I consider myself as a lucky sports fan. At least I’m not a Cleveland sports fan. I can find hope without looking too hard. BUT! C’mon, everyone wants some of their teams to do better. So here’s my wishlist for college sports in 2015. Click here for last year’s wishlist. Seeing as how we are dealing with the passions and whims of 18-23 year olds, as you can see, I was totally on the mark. Er sumfink.

Pitt Football

UPDATE, post-Armed Forces Bowl: For Gawd’s sake, my biggest wish it to stop the Pitt-ing! But… but… perhaps in order for Pat Narduzzi to change the culture, to remake Pitt into a contender, first they needed to get all the crazy out of their system. To pull an all-time soul-punching moment… ie, giving up a 21 point lead with 3 minutes left via two successive on-sides kick recovery failures and giving up a 2-point conversion. I’ve been a Pitt fan for over 2 decades and this is definitely the most PITT of PITT-ings.

Also, eff you Matt House. Please, don’t even bother coming back to clean out your things. And whoever coaches special teams for Pitt. I think that was Chryst, wasn’t it? It’s cliche to say that the seniors deserved better because Houston also has gone through a coaching change but seriously, these seniors deserved better!

Narduzzi should have come down on to the field in the final quarter, c*nt punched House and taken over the defense himself.

  • Better recruiting and 8-4
    • I’m truly excited about Pat Narduzzi getting the Pitt job. I don’t think Paul Chryst was a bad choice but his tenure was pretty underwhelming. The guy knows how to build an offense but his not-insignificant disinterest in recruiting on the defensive side handicapped the development of the program.
    • Narduzzi is, of course, known for his fast, aggressive defenses but just as important is that he embraces recruiting. Pitt’s defense won’t be fixed in one recruiting cycle and there’s only so much one can do with better coaching.
    • Next season’s team should be able to win a minimum of 8 games, even with a little in growing pains. Should. This is still Pitt, after all.

college football map

Pitt basketball

  • Further Maturation and the NCAA tournament
    • Coupled with the Maui Invitational and the ACC-B1G challenge and Pitt is “only” 10-3 coming out of their non-conference schedule. This is one of the youngest teams that Jamie Dixon has ever fielded. He’s playing way more freshmen and sophomore than he’d like. But there’s so much to like and hope for in this team.
    • Sophomore Mike Young is probably the most consistent of the youngsters; he’s a great finisher and is really coming on strong. Jamel Artis & Josh Newkirk have been inconsistent but give glimpses of becoming really solid players. Ryan Luther is only a freshman but he plays hard and once the light comes on (albeit probably next year), he’s going to be a really strong force. James Robinson has been more aggressive this year and Cameron Wright is rounding into form coming off injury. Pitt’s achilles heel is not having a proper Center though. Joseph Uchebo plays hard and has shown glimpses of the player he could have been but that’s it -“could have been”. Derrick Randall is just, well, no.

    Continue reading »

A Case for Sports Pain

 Basketball, College Basketball, The Bigger Picture  Comments Off on A Case for Sports Pain
Feb 132014
 
tweet

Or… Justifying Wednesday Night RAW

It’s probably an understatement how raw I feel at the moment. Here’s the reason. Don’t make me talk about it. In fact, I think this tweet perfectly encapsulates how most people should deal with me after a close loss:

This next tweet doesn’t describe how I feel after every loss but it most certainly applies tonight. Yes it does, yes it does, yes it does.

Anyway, I know I take sports pretty seriously. It opens me up to feeling really horrible at times. It also affords me ridiculous feelings of elation and euphoria. I’ve said that I do consider myself a pretty lucky fan overall so I’m not lamenting my current position. Too much.

Those who understand will, even if they’re on the opposite side, at least have some sympathy. However, some folks won’t/don’t/can’t understand how or why sports can bring a person so low. The best they can do is give a jagoff like me a wide berth when I’m pissed off. But they do so shaking their heads. I don’t think it’s lack of empathy. Perhaps, lack of imagination. In a way, I pity them.

Continue reading »

The Fates of College Basketball’s Blue Bloods

 Basketball, College Basketball, The Bigger Picture  Comments Off on The Fates of College Basketball’s Blue Bloods
Jan 252014
 
Former Pitt guard and current Arizona basketball coach, Sean Miller

… And Those Who Aspire to Join Them

bluebloodI’ve been thinking about the Blue Bloods of college basketball. The programs that are the elite of the elite. That you automatically expect to be ranked in any given week. That you automatically expect will make the NCAA tournament. Whose fan bases and administrations are so irrational that they will contemplate firing a coach for not winning a National Title or getting to a Final Four once every couple years.

Kansas, UCLA, Kentucky, UNC, Indiana, Georgetown, Michigan State. The historical titans of the game.

Yes, I left off Duke and Syracuse. I haven’t included Florida. I think Duke and Syracuse are better programs than Georgetown or Indiana at the moment.

To be truly mentioned among the titans of the game, a program has to survive the loss of its legendary coach. UCLA basketball will always be associated with John Wooden but what makes this program the elite of the elite is that it has survived and thrived after Wooden. Choppy waters along the way but UCLA can still capture the national imagination and does own a National Title, post-Wooden.

Duke and Syracuse are undoubtedly among the modern giants of the game. But the legends of these schools coach them right now. Duke was a very good program prior to Krysysskwsswwskksi in the same way that Penn State football was a very good program prior to Joe Paterno. Syracuse had a little bit of history but was not held in the same regard before Jim Boeheim’s tenure. In fact, Boeheim was hired only after the previous head coach was hired away by Tulane.

Continue reading »

Jan 022014
 
college football map

I consider myself as a lucky sports fan. At least I’m not a Cleveland sports fan. I can find hope without looking too hard. BUT! C’mon, everyone wants some of their teams to do better. So here’s my wishlist for college sports in 2014.

college football map

Pitt football

  • Better recruiting on Defense. I expect that Paul Chryst and his staff will continue to build the offensive lines and reel in quality offensive recruits. That’s evidenced by getting 4-star RB Chris James as well as offensive linemen Mike Grimm and Alex Bookser. But I just don’t see those studs coming in on defense. Matt House took some pretty harsh criticism for the defense this year. Some of it was deserved, some not. But Pitt’s whiffed on some local kids who would have helped out a lot on defense. And that comes down to House’s and the defensive staff’s ability to recruit. He has to get better there. No amount of coaching ’em up will help if there aren’t capable players behind the schemes and instruction.
  • Pitt Logo - block letteringPaul Chryst’s growth as a coach. Chryst needs to become a better game day coach. Some of that is getting his guys in and up to speed. Some of it is just better in-game adjustments. There are times where you see what his offense is capable of. Games vs Duke and ND. The near comeback against UNC. The bowl game vs Bowling Green. I like Chryst and believe he can become a great long-term coach but he has continue to grow as a coach.
  • Tyler Boyd contending for the Biletnikoff Award. He had a monster season and with the emergence of Manasseh Garner and return of JP Holtz, I expect that Boyd will continue to put up big numbers. (Especially if he’s left in to return punts or kickoffs).
  • 8-4 regular season record. Simple and easy. Winning more will improve recruiting, improve the morale of fans and draw more people to Heinz Field. It will show tangible proof of the growth/regeneration of the program. Avoid pulling a Pitt more than once next season and 8 wins is doable. Navy should have been a win. Same with Georgia Tech. That there would have given Pitt an 8-4 regular season record.

Pitt basketball

  • A strong ACC season. The ACC is not as strong as the Big East once was. It isn’t. Not this year at least. It ain’t no picnic either but Pitt’s been down this road before. I expect that Pitt, warts and all, should be in the top half of the conference. Outside of Duke, UNC and Syracuse, whom should Pitt fear? NC State, UVA, ND, UMD – good teams, yes. But not other-worldly programs. Fourth place is there for the taking. Continue reading »

Pitt-Penn State: The Hatreds We Keep and Cherish

 Basketball, College Basketball, College Football, Football  Comments Off on Pitt-Penn State: The Hatreds We Keep and Cherish
Dec 042013
 

The Post-Gazette’s Paul Zeise wrote the following in his build-up to the recent Pitt-Penn State college basketball game:

It used to be Pitt-Penn State in anything got people riled up no matter what the sport but to be honest, this is just another game. In fact, the athletic department issued a note today that tickets for the game still remained, which is amazing.

But that is the anatomy of how to kill a rivalry — join different conferences, don’t play each other for more than a decade in football and stop playing in basketball and eventually the fans will stop caring.

I hear people say that in 2016 when the two schools meet again in football it will be like old times but I don’t buy that. This young generation of fans has no reference point for the rivalry, they, unlike us, didn’t grow up with it, didn’t grow up with classic games and families split down the middle and rooting against each other one day per year.

Zeise may be right that it won’t be exactly like the old times but I doubt it’ll be all that tame either. I can guarantee there will be tons of fans like myself – in their mid-30’s (shit, I’ll be in my mid-30’s?!) and 40’s – who will remember it. Lots of people who did grow up with the rivalry who still remember it.

RenewingtheRivalry-PittPennState

Continue reading »

Aug 192013
 

As I was leaving the Pirates game on Friday, I ran into the couple that sits next to me at Pitt basketball games. They seemed pretty pessimistic regarding Pitt’s chances in this upcoming season. It’s a feeling I get from some others regarding Pitt’s first season in ACC basketball.

I can probably be forgiven for being a bit of an eternal optimist but I don’t see the cause for major despondence. Part of people’s trepidation, I think, rests with not being as intimately familiar with the ACC as we were with the Big East. Another rests with the two behemoths of ACC basketball, Duke & UNC. But as I’ve detailed before, the ACC is very top-heavy. Outside of UNC & Duke, who are we to fear? Clemson, Florida State and NC State aren’t exactly setting the college basketball world afire.

Pitt coaching staff

Pitt coaching staff

But perhaps the major reason for trepidation is conflating Pitt’s now-annual March swoon with its ability to compete within the ACC regular season. We’re all disappointed by those losses but it bears noting that Pitt’s ability to excel in the ACC regular season is completely divorced from its seeming inability to compete in March Madness.

Continue reading »

Jul 292013
 

Apparently, the PAC-12 and Arizona State, in particular, have a problem with the idea of admitting for-profit universities to Division 1 athletics. The case surrounds Grand Canyons University’s soon-to-be entrance into the WAC. From ESPN:

“As a Conference — together with our Presidents — we believe that a broader level of discussion is needed before the final decision on whether to grant for-profit institutions membership in NCAA Division I,” the league’s statement read. “We have asked the NCAA Executive Committee to include it on the agenda of their August meeting. Our major concern is how athletics fit within the academic missions of for-profit universities.”

And this from noted party school, Arizona State University:

“We do not believe for-profit schools provide a good foundation to support student-athletes, who work so hard to balance significant time commitments to sports and their academic work,” the school’s statement read. “We cannot play teams that exist for profit and have them use their games against us to advance their stock prices, as was discussed by Grand Canyon University during a recent telephone call with investors.”

Now I tend to believe that student-athletes in the money sports (football, men’s basketball and at some universities, baseball and women’s basketball) get type-cast a lot. They may not be the most rigorous students but eventually most of them straighten-up, get through college and move into the real world. I knew a few at Pitt; these were good kids who knew their role in college. They loved their sports but knew they wouldn’t be making it big-time in the pro’s. So they did their best to balance academics and athletics and got their degrees.

Grand Canyon University Arena

Their universities, however, don’t make things easier. Tutoring and student services notwithstanding, there’s a whole laundry list of evils associated with the commercialization of major university athletics, most of it driven not by the athletes but the the arms races started by the universities themselves. Yet, college presidents and athletic directors go on and on with paeans to amateurism and scholarship, while making it even harder on the athletes. If high-major universities cared less about money and more about their football and basketball players, they wouldn’t deny their four year scholarships. They wouldn’t have added a 12th game to the schedule, with allowances that occasionally allow teams to play upwards of 14 games including their bowl game. They wouldn’t have allowed ESPN and CBS Sports and Fox and other networks to dictate more and more useless bowl games. I could go on and on.

For-Profit status actually saved Grand Canyon University from going-under. The athletics department’s budget went from $3 million to $10 million. It is building a $200 million arena. It has over 44,000 students, 9,000 of whom live on-campus. A school nearly goes bankrupt, gets saved and turned around and yet,  the nation’s venerable institutions of hypocrisy higher learning don’t want to let it play at the big boy’s table.

The level of hypocrisy needed in order to call into question a for-profit university’s commitment to its student-athletes while continuing to make a mockery of those same student-athletes simply boggles the mind. Especially coming from Arizona State University, one of the biggest party schools in the country. Pitchforks down.

Feb 132013
 

I recently met up with an old friend who has since moved down to the Carolinas for work. He asserted that Pitt would have a tough time in the ACC as compared to the Big East. I’ll agree that ACC football will be tougher than Big East football. But where I part ways with my esteemed colleague is in Pitt basketball’s ability to compete.

While Pitt doesn’t have the same long history as Duke or UNC, outside of those two behemoths, who are Pitt fans to fear? To the Wikipedia Cave!!!

Since the ACC expanded after the 2004-2005 season, no team from that conference has advanced past the Sweet Sixteen except UNC and Duke. NONE. Continue reading »

Jan 292013
 

Every time the Penguins play the Islanders, as they’re doing tonight, I can’t help but remember David Volek. Oh the name conjures memories of infamy, it does. It was Volek’s slapshot in Game 7 of the 1993 NHL playoff series between the Pens and Islanders that denied Mario Lemieux and company the chance at a three-peat.

It pains us, it does. It burnsss. It freezessss. Volek’s goal places him among the top sports villains of my life.

David Volek Continue reading »