PITT Basketball: A Sinking Ship?

I know the title may have gotten your attention and may be a little harsh considering it is Kevin Stallings first season at the helm.  But, when you talk to most PITT fans you would think the ship was sinking and there is no way to right it.

But, this was not a good basketball team even last season.  Jamie Dixon’s recruiting was below average and he was starting to rely on graduate transfers to help the program rather than building the team with recruiting and a player improving each year for all 4 years they were with the program.  Now, could that be because the pressure of being a top tier Head Coach was getting to Dixon, Maybe?  But, the way he recruited his last 3 years at PITT we all should of saw this downturn coming.

When Kevin Stallings was hired to the dismay of a majority of Panthers fans because of the false reports of Sean Miller being in the Pittsburgh area.  He was already coming into the program fighting an uphill battle with the fans and then add on the fact his team was not very good.  The cabinets were not bare, but they were aging with very little young talent left in them.

Stallings has 2 NBA caliber talents on this roster in Michael Young and Jamel Artis and that led to a part of the fan base believing they can sneak into the NCAA Tournament, if not at least get an NIT berth.

Then you look beyond those two and you see Cameron Johnson and Ryan Luther who are still young, raw basketball talents.  This season was still going to be a learning season for the two of them and unfortunately for Luther, most of the ACC season he was sidelined with an injury.  You could tell it was still a learning year for Johnson as well because he was very inconsistent at the start of the season, but lately he has started to prove that he will be a key player for PITT the rest of his career, especially from beyond the arc.

Ok, so PITT has 2 NBA caliber players, 2 promising young stars and who else?  Well, that’s it and they don’t have a true point guard or center either.  Justice Kithcart could have been the point guard of the future, but as we found out today Kithcart was dismissed from the PITT Basketball team for “conduct detrimental to the team.”

For the full PG story go here: http://www.post-gazette.com/sports/Pitt/2017/03/03/pitt-panthers-justice-kithcart-dismissed-kevin-stallings/stories/201703030209

As we saw many times this year, Jamel Artis was not who you wanted bringing the ball up in late, key moments of games.  A few examples of this were Notre Dame, NC State and North Carolina. Just looking back at Artis’ season, he has been a huge disappointment this year because once ACC play started he disappeared.  He dominated the non-conference schedule putting up huge point totals, but has been the definition of inconsistent in conference play.

Michael Young kind of was the same way, but he had the facial injury in the Louisville game to put some of the blame on.  He was dominate in non conference play, suffered the facial injury and struggle for the next few weeks after that.  But, once he got the face shield removed and went back to setting up at the foul line, the offense ran through him and PITT started to look like a formidable foe on offense.

The defense is a whole different story because they will look so good and shutdown the opponent in the 1st half, but once the 2nd half starts, it’s like they forget how to play defense.  This year’s PITT team has blown so many 2nd half leads, you just kind of expect it every game and don’t know what to say when you see it happen over and over again.

With PITT currently sitting at 15-15 (4-13 in the ACC), the only thing fans can hope for now is that they don’t just fade away to end the season. You can hope they keep fighting and maybe pull off a few wins before being eliminated from the ACC Tournament.

Looking ahead to next season now with the dismissal of Kithcart opening up another scholarship for Stallings to use, this is going to be a very young team.  The only players on the current roster that deserve playing time next season would be Ryan Luther, Cameron Johnson and Rozelle Nix.  The rest of the roster Stallings is going to need to take a long look at and determine if they fit into his plans for this team.

Along with the freshman that he brings in, I am willing to bet you will see 1, maybe 2, graduate transfers to come in to be the leadership for this team so maybe they can find their way back into the NCAA Tournament.  That is what graduate transfers should be used for, players that come in to hold down the fort for one season to be a mentor for a younger player to take their spot a year later or maybe even in the 2nd half of the current season.

Now, do I really believe that PITT Basketball is a sinking ship? No, but I do believe that this downturn may not be a one year blip.  Will this team be an NCAA Tournament caliber team the next few seasons?  Yes, but they will not be expected to go deep at all.  This team will be a team that you celebrate if they get to the second weekend of the tournament.

My suggestion is go to the games and support the student athletes. Party with the Oakland Zoo and make the Peterson Events Center a tough place to play. And celebrate when the win and just shake it off when they lose.  We will not be able to fully judge whether Kevin Stallings has been a failure until probably year 4 or 5 of his tenure because of what Jamie Dixon left in the cabinets when he bolted for TCU this season.

To wrap it up, there was just too much Jamie Dixon left in this team and it is going to take a year or two to get it out.  Dixon wanted to control every aspect of this team down to the most minuscule thing.  And you could tell right from the start that this year’s team loved having freedom, but didn’t quite know how to use that freedom to run a successful game plan.

In closing, this team was frustrating to watch. So just grab a cold beverage, fill out your March Madness bracket and look ahead to the players Kevin Stallings has coming in next season.