Lots of articles over the weekend questioning Coach Jamie Dixon’s performance in his second year as head basketball coach. His grace period is over. I’d say the majority comes down to — and is justified — with regards to the bench. And by that, I mean who plays, when and how their performance is judged. It’s the one area, everyone can agree seemed to be his weakest point this year.
There are other issues of criticism — Pitt’s defense and 3-point shooting — that really can’t be blamed on Dixon. It’s not like Pitt was Wake Forest bad on defense. In fact, they were one of the better defensive teams again this year (#40). It’s that the personnel was different. There are very few players in the entire college game that could play defense like Page and Brown.
Part of this is self-inflicted by Dixon’s defensive response to questions about how the team seemed to take some steps backwards during the season. Instead, he claimed the team had improved. Well, that just opened the door.
I honestly don’t think Dixon is delusional. I think he was just trying to take the heat off of the players. The problem was that he did it the wrong way. Dixon needed to take the blame. Say that he made mistakes that cost the team. That he needs to get better, and specifically talk about the ways. Instead, he tried to put the blame on nobody. That maybe works when you lose some tough games that were well played (last year’s Big East Tournament Championship game comes to mind), but when there were glaring problems… Well somebody was to blame, and if it wasn’t the players…
For the most absurd thing to read, we can look to Kentucky where some locals wonder if Eastern Kentucky’s head coach Travis Ford may be becoming a hot coaching commodity after the effort in the first round against Kentucky. And where do they wonder he might be lured?
The effort and appearance in the prestigious tournament will enhance Eastern’s chances in the field of recruiting, but the success could force schools looking for a head coach to take a closer look at Ford’s resume.
Tennessee is looking for one, and Pittsburgh, which lost to Pacific Thursday. The Panthers might have their eyes on Ford, too. Pitt’s athletics director – Jeff Long – hired Ford when he served in the same capacity at Eastern.
Ford is still young, but yet has the experience of rebuilding a program from the bottom up and led it to its first postseason appearance in 26 years.
And they say the internet is a breeding ground for dumb rumors?
So it’s time to read the criticisms.
Joe Bendel has a good piece looking at the problems of the season and what comes next.
Dixon gets a chance next season to work with strong talent. If he struggles again, the scrutiny will continue to increase, particularly on the heels of a new ticket initiative that is asking fans to spend more money for seats at the Petersen Center.
His first mission should be finding a solid rotation and sticking with it. That means not putting Taft on the bench late in games (as he did at times this season) or yanking DeGroat for minor mistakes. His team needs continuity, and it is incumbent upon him to establish it on and off the court.
He also must find a way to re-establish the program reputation for being a physical team, one that intimidated opponents, particularly at home.
Otherwise, his sophomore jinx could last far beyond year No. 2.
Worth a full read.
Ron Cook takes his whacks at Dixon. His questions about use of the bench and figuring out who starts at small forward/three guard were perfectly legitimate. But then he shows how little he actually knows about basketball.
But how do you excuse Dixon for Pitt’s lame offense?
Dixon doesn’t teach offense. He rolls out the ball and his players play.
Pacific’s Bob Thomason teaches offense. “I don’t think if you haven’t played us that you can guard all of the stuff we do if we take care of the ball,” he said after the victory. Can you imagine Dixon ever saying that about Pitt? Or anyone else saying it?
West Virginia’s John Beilein teaches offense. You saw it when the Mountaineers beat Creighton Thursday night in the NCAA tournament and when they made it to the Big East tournament championship game. They run plays and players break free for uncontested layups. When’s the last time Pitt did that? The Brandin Knight era, maybe?
Pitt’s offense too often came down to Carl Krauser trying to create off the dribble or hit a 3-point shot. He had a superb season, but, as he put it, “It’s hard to be Superman.” He got little help from Taft much of the season, no help from Chevon Troutman in the final two losses to Pacific and Villanova (3-of-15 shooting) and inconsistent help from shooting guards Antonio Graves and Ronald Ramon (24 of 81, 21 percent, in Pitt’s final five losses, 13 of 25, 52 percent in its final two wins).
That’s a load of crap. Pitt runs an inside game. The offense is predicated on perimeter passing, while looking to get it inside. If someone keeps the inside guys from getting a good look, you kick it back out and either take a perimeter shot, or pass around some more for another go round. That’s why Troutman and Taft both finished in the top 25 nationally in field goal percentage — they got good clean looks at the basket.
Would I like to see more cuts from the perimeter guys? Yes. I said that last year about Page. Graves started doing more of it late in the season. Krauser has always been willing to drive inside.
Here’s something for the education of those who think Pitt doesn’t have an offense. Pitt was one of the most efficient offenses in the country. What does that mean?
Offensive/Defensive Efficiency – This is the number of points scored or allowed per 100 possessions. There are only about 70 possessions for each team in the average college basketball game, so these numbers are higher that the points-per-game statistics you see used by the media.
Like tempo, I average each team’s efficiency by game. The other way to do this would be to take a team’s total points on the season and divide it by total possessions. But this gives some games more weight than others depending on the number of possessions in a particular contest. Also, I only use games involving two D1 teams.
The problem at the end of this season, as it was by the end of last season, was that Pitt’s perimeter/guard production was not happening. When that your guards aren’t scoring and you can’t get the defenders to come out, you have defenses sagging inside. This means more defenders to grab rebounds and less chances at second chance points. It also means the openings to pass inside are fewer and fewer.
Both the examples he cited for running offenses, had two things Pitt didn’t have: good, consistent perimeter shooters and a forward who could go inside and out. Last I checked, that goes to personnel not coaching.
In the Pitt News, there is an urge to defend Dixon but frustration over Dixon’s “improved” comments.
There are so many questions to be asked. Yet they were rarely answered this past season, just avoided. Which is what Dixon did again on Thursday when he responded to the question of why his team failed to improve?”
There’s no need for Dixon to avoid the facts. He is still a young coach. It’s completely OK to have a sub-par season, and in my eyes excusable. Look back at the major turning point of this season. It was something that neither Dixon nor Pitt nor any fan could have prevented — the loss of Yuri Demetris.
Prior to his departure, because of off-the-court issues, the team was a team. Stability was in the lineup and believe it or not, it had seniority — as in someone who understood the Pitt defensive and offensive schemes. Demetris was pulling down 3.4 rebounds a game and had 18 steals and 33 assists in 14 games, which is a lot more than what his replacements managed.
After Demetris was deservedly dismissed from the team, Pitt fell to St. John’s, and finished the season 8-7 without its senior guard.
My point is that Dixon was forced into a tough situation. Ever since Demetris was lost, this team has been in disarray and looking for help, and it never got what it needed.
With Chevon Troutman gone, and Taft and Carl Krauser each with one foot out the door to the NBA draft, Pitt could be returning only one weathered starter next year — Antonio Graves.
A clean house, however, might be good for Dixon and the Panthers. Pitt has four highly recognized recruits in Levance Fields (5-foot-10-inch point guard), Tyrell Biggs (6-foot-8-inch power forward), Sam Young (6-foot-7-inch strong forward) and junior-college transfer Doyle Hudson (6-foot-8-inch power forward) coming in next season.
Freshmen Ronald Ramon and Keith Benjamin are both capable of being starters next year, and quality starters at that. The same applies for Aaron Gray, Levon Kendall and DeGroat.
With all the talent and potential coming to and remaining at Pitt, there is only one thing left to do as this disappointing season comes to a close: Admit there was no improvement and work on improving.
We can argue about the value Demetris actually provided, but when he was playing, there was at least some predictability to how the bench was (or wasn’t) used.
Next year will be a difficult year for Pitt, even if Krauser and Taft come back. There will be so much talent in the Big East. Dixon will need to go out in the community and work the crowd. He is going to need some support for the difficult times.
In a comment, Steve asked:
If he was “good cop” to Howland’s “bad cop,” who was the bad cop the last two years?
If they don’t have one, should get one.
A columnist down in Indiana, PA has a similar question.
Jamie Dixon, by many accounts, is a good man who is well liked by his players. When Ben Howland left the University of Pittsburgh to accept the head coaching job at UCLA, the players he left behind made no secret their desire that Pitt promote Dixon, who had been Howland’s top assistant.
…
Being a likeable guy is a good quality if you’re selling products, trying to make friends in a new community or searching for your soul mate.It might not be so good if you’re a Division I basketball coach.
This especially holds true if you are an assistant who has been tabbed to replace a successful head coach.
It seems as if the assistant coach acts as the liaison between the head coach and the players.
When it comes time to discipline, that is up to the head coach. In that situation he’s like the bad cop.
The good cop, a.k.a. top assistant, often reassures the players that all is fine. He develops a rapport with the players, who come to respect and admire him.
It’s not to say that Dixon can never become a great coach at the collegiate level. It is to say, however, that a major college sports team often is asking for trouble when it promotes from within a top assistant to head coach.
The top assistant sometimes is so used to being close to the players that he becomes uncomfortable with having to get tough when the going gets tough.
This season was as good a time as any for Dixon to get tough.
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Dixon will have to show that he can be tough with his players when all turns sour. Or else he might not have a future in Pittsburgh.
It’s not that I disagree with this. It’s that no one knows what Dixon says to the players. Dixon, clearly, is not going to publicly rip players. There have been reports that when a bench player isn’t giving a good effort in practice, he doesn’t get playing time. We saw Taft on the bench for long stretches when he played uninspired. Because Dixon won’t say anything or explain why a particular player never got on the floor other than in vague coach-speak responses it frustrates. It wasn’t an issue last year, when Pitt was always winning. Heck, it wasn’t much of an issue until the 3 game slide in February.
To some degree, it’s like Bill Belicheck coaching the Browns versus coaching New England. The fans in New England don’t care about not being clued in to things since they are winning. So, the press — who is more likely frustrated doesn’t get much mileage out of complaining about a lack of information. In Cleveland, the team sucked, and there was no explanation. Then, you want more info. You want to understand.
Ultimately, Dixon has two choices if he wants to keep everything quiet and not ever discuss the players and his decisions. He has to keep winning, or he better be prepared to be a career assistant. Otherwise, he has to start talking a little more candidly to the press and the public.
