Yep. Him too.
Hopefully he’ll be tweeting updates from New Zealand. The Pitt Athletic department issued a press release on Coach Dixon being the head coach of USA Basketball’s U-19 squad. Dixon in the statement speaks of it being a good for the school and program.
“It is a tremendous honor for the university and our program,” Dixon said. “Working with Coach Painter and Coach Lowery will be an outstanding experience. They are both good friends and have had great success coaching at their respective schools. I’m excited about the tournament, the entire process and the challenge of winning. I want to thank Coach Jim Boeheim, Jerry Colangelo and the Board of Directors, Jim Tooley and Sean Ford, along with the entire USA Basketball organization for this opportunity. I am definitely looking forward to July.”
There’s a good chance that Coach Dixon will get an early start on coaching Dante Taylor who is expected to try out for the squad.
Tryouts for the Under-19 team will be in mid-June in Colorado Springs, Colo. One of the invitees is Taylor, a 6-foot-9 power forward from Fort Washington, Md.
“I think I’m going to go,” said Taylor, who will be among 20 or so players auditioning for 12 roster spots.
Last year, players on the silver medal-winning Under-18 team included point guard Kemba Walker of Connecticut, North Carolina recruits Travis and David Wear and Villanova-bound Dom Cheek.
Dixon has input on the roster, but the selection committee has the final word, according to USA Basketball’s Craig Miller.
There’s a surprising amount of politicking and effort in getting players placed on the squad. So, I’m guessing one of the roster spots will go to a Duke transfer.
Duke is hoping Liberty transfer Seth Curry will be on the U-19 team competing in New Zealand this July so he can get game experience. Curry will sit out next season as a transfer and will likely be the starting lead guard on the 2010-11 Blue Devils.
Let’s see, Duke’s Coach happens to have been the USA Basketball gold medal winning coach last year. He might have some pull with USA Basketball on that.
The person that recommended Coach Dixon take the gig after Bob McKillop pulled out of it was Syracuse Coach Jim Boeheim.
The coaching selections were made by the USA Basketball Men’s Junior National Team Committee, chaired by NCAA representative Jim Boeheim (head coach, Syracuse University) and approved by the USA Basketball Board of Directors.
“This is an exceptional young coaching staff,” Boeheim said. “Matt (Painter) has done a great job at Purdue retooling that program and what Chris (Lowery) has done is remarkable. Jamie Dixon has won more games in the Big East Conference than anybody in his first few years of coaching, and there have been a few good coaches in the (Big East) conference. They’re young guys who have had a lot of success and I just think it’s really a tremendous coaching staff.”
Coach Dixon is also looking forward to the opportunity to take a paid trip back to New Zealand.
Dixon will be getting back to his coaching and playing roots in New Zealand. After his college playing career at Texas Christian, Dixon played professionally for two seasons in New Zealand and became somewhat of a star in the country. He averaged 42 points per game in his final season as a pro.
In addition to being a star player in the country, Dixon started his coaching career there. He helped coach boys’ and girls’ high school teams.
“It’s really a beautiful place,” Dixon said. “I have very fond memories of playing there for two years. It was a very good period of growth for me, basketball-wise and culturally. I really wanted to experience New Zealand in every possible way. I didn’t just want to play basketball. I made an effort and took great pride in coaching the little kids and working with the younger players.”
It’s even drumming up interest in New Zealand at Dixon coming back (even if they keep calling it Pittsburgh University).
PEOPLE who want to make it big in basketball don’t exactly have New Zealand in the equation.
But one man who swam against the tide to build his playing career at a humble Centennial Hall gymnasium in Napier has made it big in the coaching arena in the United States.
Not only that, former US Hawk import Jamie Dixon is at the helm of the Stars and Stripes under-19 team to compete in the World Championship to be hosted in Auckland in July.
The 43-year-old Californian is the head coach of the University of Pittsburgh, a role he has filled with aplomb since 2003.
His former coach and current Easy LPG Hawks general manager, Curtis Wooten, tells SportToday the guard, averaging 42 points a game in the National Basketball League (NBL) in the 1989-90 seasons, was a class act.
“His highest score was 63 points against Auckland. He was simply the best total package we ever had, both on and off the court, as a human being,” he says of Dixon who etched his name on the silverware of the most outstanding guard, leading individual scorer, the leading assist and making the All Star Five teams each season. Retired Hawk Willie Burton, a former Palmerston North player then, was in the All Star teams too.
Wooten says of Dixon: “He shot a three well, was competitive, had a great mind and was very instinctive.”
Wooten, who was named the NBL coach in 1989, said he was very coachable and had a magnetic trait for milking fouls off the opposition.
“He had a great cross-over and head fake (the ability of a player to raise their chin up and hoodwink the opponents into thinking he is going to shoot only to continue dribbling).
“We’d be 14-2 points down and he’d come to me and ask, ‘So what do you want me to do now, coach?’. And I’d say, ‘Just start shooting, man’,” Wooten reminisces with a laugh.
Apparently it was a bit of a run-and-gun team with little defense. I’m still trying to wrap my head around that concept and Coach Dixon.
