Well, here’s one cliche you can almost certainly count on hearing and reading this year about Coach Jamie Dixon: “This may be Jamie Dixon’s best job of coaching a team, ever.”
The odds of this sort of cliched comment in a telecast or entire puff piece will increase exponentially starting at about 16 wins.
It fits. You have three starters in Fields, Young and Blair gone. The top reserve player, Biggs gone. Gilbert Brown suspended until late December. Lots of youth on the team. Now Jermaine Dixon has a setback that keeps him from rejoining the team until at least mid-November.
The latest was Dixon, who will miss a minimum of eight weeks after undergoing foot surgery Wednesday morning at UPMC South Side Hospital.
Dixon, the team’s lone returning starter, reinjured the same fifth metatarsal bone he initially broke in July. He had been back playing for about a week and was reinjured Tuesday night during a pickup game with other Pitt players.
Coach Jamie Dixon said Jermaine Dixon was jumping when another player landed on the foot “with heavy, major force.”
Pitt opens practice Oct. 16. Its first regular-season game is Nov. 13 against Wofford. Eight weeks would put Jermaine Dixon’s return in the middle of November.
I would dispute the cliche, though. If Pitt has a season that still manages to finish .500 or better in the Big East it would be his best job as a teacher. Preparing the kids. Working them in the practices. Teaching them. Not as a coach in the games themselves.
It all leads to a less than serious question as to whether forces beyond the those of mortal men have aligned against Pitt.
3. It seems as if Pitt has been snakebit since Scottie Reynolds beat the Panthers at the buzzer in the Elite Eight. Should Jamie Dixon be worried?
DeCourcy: In the bad karma department, you really need to take it back a bit farther, to when the Panthers held a 67-63 lead and the ball with 3:05 left. The Panthers advanced the ball against a Wildcats press, Levance Fields gave it up too soon and guard Jermaine Dixon dribbled into a midcourt trap. Instead of calling an immediate timeout, he surrendered the ball. That’s where the bad news began for Pitt.
Since Reynolds’ shot went down, though, there’s been at least as much good news.
It’ll be tougher for them to reach their potential with Dixon missing most or all of the preseason with a broken foot and Gilbert Brown suspended for the fall term. But with the United States U-19 team, Jamie Dixon demonstrated once again that he’s an outstanding coach by leading the Americans to the gold medal. And Ashton Gibbs, recruited essentially to be a backup guard at Pitt, started at point for that team and played exceedingly well.
The Panthers will begin the season with their most coveted recruit in two decades: 6-9 power forward Dante Taylor, a McDonald’s All-American. They’ve got three excellent commitments for 2010 and 2011.
It’ll be a struggle to extend the string of NCAA Tournament appearances to nine, but the future at Pitt remains promising.
It’s admittedly been a bad few weeks. I suppose there could be a bigger case made with both Young and Blair slipping on draft night about things, but I think most Pitt fans were happy with the offseason. The USA U-19 squad coached by Jamie Dixon took gold. Not to mention that Dixon rebuffed overtures from Arizona and USC to stay at Pitt. Plus the transfer and immediate playing time for Chase Adams to help at point guard.
And Dante Taylor made Andy Katz’s list of freshmen who need to have an impact.
Panthers coach Jamie Dixon knew DeJuan Blair was likely headed to the NBA after his sophomore season.
Sure, there could have been a meltdown, an injury, something that would have kept him in Pittsburgh. But Dixon went hard after Taylor, and Taylor committed, knowing full well he could come in and make an impact. The difference between Blair and the new guy is this: No one expected Blair to be a star and off to the NBA in two seasons. Taylor? He comes in as a McDonald’s All-American with a lot of hype.
“Nobody was writing about DeJuan as an impact freshman,” Dixon said. The Panthers will likely pump up Taylor in the preseason, and they should, but Dixon isn’t going to put too much pressure on him. He arrived at the USA Basketball trials in Colorado Springs last June for the team that Dixon ultimately coached to the gold medal at the Under-19 World Championships in New Zealand. Playing a few days there was a good experience, but Taylor wasn’t ready to make the squad and was not in the best shape possible. “He was a little heavy then at 250, but he’s lost about 15 pounds,” Dixon said. The Panthers did receive some bad news this week when their one returning starter, senior guard Jermaine Dixon, broke his right foot again; he will be out for the next eight weeks. Pitt was already down a wing after Gilbert Brown was deemed academically ineligible by the school for the first semester. Still, the experience Ashton Gibbs had on the gold-medal team this summer and the return of scorer Brad Wanamaker still make the Panthers a threat on the perimeter. But if they’re going to make it back to the NCAA tournament for a ninth straight year, Taylor will have to produce in the post. “He needs to rebound,” Dixon said of his prized recruit. If Taylor rebounds, he’ll score. This is a good year to come into the Big East as a freshman big man. The league suffered a big-man vacuum in the offseason as forwards Hasheem Thabeet and Jeff Adrien of Connecticut, Dante Cunningham of Villanova, Blair and Sam Young of Pitt, and Earl Clark and Terrence Williams of Louisville all left for the pros. There are still plenty to deal with, such as Gates, Georgetown’s Greg Monroe, Notre Dame’s Luke Harangody, Marquette’s Lazar Hayward, St. John’s Anthony Mason Jr., and Syracuse’s Arinze Onuaku and Rick Jackson. But Taylor has the body to compete with all of them. “He’s got good hands, he runs well, his post-moves are developing, and he’s a great kid,” Dixon said. If he can handle the hype and board — score on plenty of putbacks — he’ll be even more celebrated by March.
As for further in the future, John Johnson (noted back in late August as being a likely commit) made it an official verbal for 2011. Expect a lot of talk about his grit — like Wanamaker and Robinson — other recent Philly area recruits.
But in Philadelphia circles, he is considered the second-best player in his class behind Rakeem Christmas of Philadelphia North Catholic. He averaged 21 points, 5 assists and 3 steals per game as a sophomore last season. He scored 30 in the PIAA Class A championship game victory against Kennedy Catholic.
“His heart is his biggest asset,” said Jonathan Stewart, an assistant coach at Girard. “When he steps onto the floor he’s going to bring it 150 percent. He has that constant aggression.”
Johnson chose Pitt over Saint Joseph’s, Virginia Tech, Penn State and Georgia Tech. All had offered scholarships.
This is the quote that makes me really want to see Johnson at Pitt and succeed.
Johnson made his decision yesterday, a day after Pitt assistants attended a Girard College open gym.
“When Pitt started [recruiting him], you just saw his whole personality change,” [Girard College coach Tyrone] Morris said.
The 16-year-old is a good long-range shooter and has a great burst off the dribble. His quickness and playmaking ability make him a good fit.
The two-time Associated Press Class A all-state performer led the Cavaliers to their first PIAA Class A state title last season. Johnson averaged 21.3 points, 5.5 assists, and 3.4 steals en route to garnering third-team all-Southeastern Pennsylvania.
“I felt like I was already on the team,” Johnson said of Pitt. “They didn’t fill my head up with dreams like you are going to be this and that. They told me I have to work for what I want. That’s what I wanted to hear.”
[Emphasis added.]
Pitt will also be part of ESPN’s November 17 college hoop marathon with the game against Binghamton (my old law school roommate’s alma mater) on ESPN2 at 5:30 pm.
