Is it Actually Anger from Fans? I Don’t Think it Is

Heading into the 2017-18 Pitt Men’s Basketball season all we heard were the jokes, Do you think this team will win 1 game this year, No way they are going to win an ACC game and so on and so forth.  And PITT fans hate being the punchline for people’s jokes and that is why most PITT fans respond not very favorably to those people who use those jokes and talking points far too often.   And that is leading to something that people are calling anger, but I don’t think it’s anger at all, it’s simple frustration boiling over right now.

That is one reason I am proud to be a part of the PITT fan base as an alum because yeah we may only get 50,000 to 60,000 to football games and what is it, 12,700, to basketball games when the teams is doing really well and average 40,000-45,000 at football games and 8,000 at basketball games no matter what.  Some times that may just be ticket sales as we saw at a football game or two this season, but you get my point I hope.  The PITT fan base is what I call a “Family” fan-base because we support the teams, we support each other and support the athletes/coaches usually no matter what.  I think that is what drives some people in the sports talk show industry crazy some times because PITT fans act like that.  And it’s because we want to see our teams all have success and win championships year in and year out.  And it pains us to see them struggle and we look for answers why.  The school in central Pennsylvania can have their 107K strong on Saturday’s in the fall, I’ll take what we have at PITT.  FYI, that 107K strong wasn’t true on a few occasions this year as well, but I digress.

Now onto the point, I’ve been hearing a lot of anger the past two years directed toward Kevin Stallings and I just don’t get it.  From the moment the hire was announced, you had some fans and even some media already ripping the hire because they thought Brandon Knight didn’t get a fair shake.  As much as I liked Knight as a player and even as an assistant coach, the way Jamie Dixon was going here, once he left, the University needed to make it a clean break from Dixon and his staff.  People forget that the arrow was pointing down at PITT in the last few year’s under Dixon because he didn’t want to adapt to the style of play in the ACC and that stunted the growth/consistency of PITT basketball.

I know Stallings’ wasn’t the sexy pick as some would say, but he does have a good resume as a Head Coach for being at Vanderbilt all those years.  And so looking back at when the hire was made, we could of done a better job of welcoming him to the city and the University.

Going into his 1st season (last year), Stallings had a team that honestly with the talent/experience on it was a fringe NCAA Tournament team at the start of the year, but they lacked the leadership to pull the team together.  Artis and Young were great players, but I wouldn’t call either of them leaders.  And that lack of leadership showed up twice last season, the 1st time was during the 8 game losing streak at the end of January/beginning of February and again on the 4 game losing streak to end the season.  So after year one, Stallings with players that he inherited from Dixon to put into his system, PITT went 16-17 (4-14 in the ACC) and missed both the NCAA and NIT tournaments.

Heading into this season as I said, we heard all the jokes about how many wins this team will have and some in the media started saying if Stallings fails in a big way this year than he should lose his job after this (his) 2nd season.  That I don’t agree with because with college coaches you have to at least give them a full recruiting cycle and that is usually 4-5 seasons because you have to give him a chance to implement his system and get his players in here.  Well, with the roster turnover after last season with all the graduates and transfers, Stallings had a chance to fill the roster with players he wanted heading into this season.  Adding 7 freshman to a team with 3 seniors, 3 juniors and 2 sophomores.

This team was going to struggle this season because of the youth and it was going to be frustrating to watch at times because the fans know what PITT Basketball has been since 1999 and that is one of the top tier teams in the country.  This team was 8-5 heading into ACC play and the non-conference losses were a 9-pt loss to Navy to open the season and that game was much closer than that until free throws at the end, a 6-pt loss to Oklahoma State and they had plenty of chances to win that game as well and a 9-pt loss to WVU that they also had plenty of chances to win and probably should’ve also.  The only ugly losses were the 5-pt OT loss to Montana at The Pete and the 31-pt loss to that team in the middle of the state at the “Tournament” game in Brooklyn.

The argument could be made that this team should’ve been 11-2 heading into ACC play if they had a little more experience and knew how to close out games in the 2nd half.  Talk about a record that would have been turning heads across the country with a really young team under Stallings.

And now we are in ACC play and they currently sit at 0-7 in the conference and that is painful to see, say and type.  Looking at the ACC schedule, you can argue the 14-pt loss to Virginia Tech was closer than that until the end and was a winnable game and the 14-pt loss to Syracuse which was also closer until the end was a game they should have won.  So, there is an argument they should be 2-5 in the ACC if they were better at closing out games in the 2nd half and that is just something a young team like this has to learn to do in college basketball.

But, unfortunately we can’t talk about the record I think they arguably should have, you have to talk about the actual record and that is 8-12 overall (0-7 in the ACC).  And that has some people in the media calling for Stallings job and I think that would be one of the most stupid things you can do right now.  And the fact that there is a vocal minority that agrees makes me cringe.  I don’t think it is actually anger coming from that minority of fans, even though that is what some media members believe it is.  I believe it is just frustration boiling over this season and it makes it seem like anger because once again we know what PITT basketball has been this century and this 2-year re-tool/rebuild is not fun to watch.

And that is one thing fans can’t have happen and that is let the frustration boil over into anger because that is what the people who revel in that want to see because they know they can strike a nerve then.  We knew that last season was going to be tough, but we thought maybe they could still sneak into the tournament and they didn’t and we knew this season was going to be rough just because of how young and inexperienced this team is.

You just need to look at the positives this season so far and the first one is PITT has a PG now and hopefully for the next 3-4 years in Marcus Carr.  He has had some growing pains this year, but when he’s going well this team is going well.  The second big positive this year is that PITT finally has a pure shooter that when he gets hot from the floor the other team needs to look out and that is Parker Stewart.  The third positive is Khameron Davis as a shooter and a pretty good defender and Kene Chukwuka as a solid rebounder and can be a presence in the paint when things are going well for him.  And the final positive is that Luther will most likely be back next year after the medical redshirt and the experience of next year’s team will be even greater.

Two players that I still want to see more from in terms of consistency because they have the talent are Shamiel Stevenson and Peace Ilegomah.

I see at least 3 wins left on this ACC schedule and potentially more, but at least 3.  And the 1st one I see is tonight against N.C State at The Pete.  The Wolfpack are also a team still finding their identity as a team under a new coach and this could be the type of team that PITT needs to play to gain some confidence heading into the final month of the regular season.

Looking ahead at the schedule of game and tickets available (according to StubHub):

Tonight (1/24): vs N.C State (374 tickets Left): Starting at $6

Saturday (1/27): vs Syracuse: Starting at $30

Wednesday (1/31): @ Miami (FL): Starting at $6

Saturday (2/3): @ UNC: Starting at $55

Thursday (2/8): @ Clemson: Starting at $18

Sunday (2/11): vs Louisville: Starting at $25

Tuesday (2/13): vs Boston College: Starting at $12

Sunday (2/18): @ Florida State: Starting at $10

Wednesday (2/21): vs Wake Forest: Starting at $10

Saturday (2/24): vs Virginia: Starting at $19

 

So, I conclude with the following questions for you, What is your frustration level so far this season and what’s causing it?  And two, What is a positive or two you have taken away from this season so far?