The page listing Pitt Men’s Basketball Coaching Staff is still rather sparse. Former player, Chris Jones, is still listed as a Graduate Assistant. Jason Richards remains as Director of Basketball Operations. Garry Christopher remains as the Strength and Conditioning Coach. And that is it.
We know Pitt took it’s time before hiring Jeff Capel as head coach, but that doesn’t mean the hiring of assistants has to remain up in the air this long.
If I had to hazard a guess, I would say that the hold-up is waiting for Brandin Knight to make up his mind. The day after Capel’s hiring, he made it openly clear that he would like to have Knight return to Pitt as an assistant.
Knight left Pitt shortly after Jamie Dixon departed for TCU. Knight interviewed for the Pitt head coaching job, but was never a seriously considered candidate by Scott Barnes. There was an attempt to keep him at Pitt as part of Stallings’ staff, but Knight had little interest in that. Instead taking a position as an assistant at Rutgers.
And that is all anyone knows. No one seems to know what Knight wants to do. I’m making assumptions here, but I imagine to get Knight to come back to Pitt he would have to be named the Associate Head Coach/Lead Assistant. That affects the pecking order of the staff and who gets hired.
If Knight were to say, “thanks, but no thanks,” then it becomes a question of how much Capel wants a former Pitt player on the staff. Conceivably he could promote Jason Richards to assistant coach and hire Tray Woodall to be be Director of Basketball Operations. Woodall just completed his first season as DBO at Robert Morris. Mind you, this is pure conjecture and spitballing on my part.
Kevin Sutton, who was an assistant for Kevin Stallings, is widely liked by the players and was the only former assistant to attend Capel’s press conference. Sutton was also on Jeff Capel’s father’s staff at Old Dominion. He still seems like a possibility for the staff. Sutton’s future seems up in the air.
On the player staying or going front, Parker Stewart has made it official that he will transfer out of Pittsburgh. It’s disappointing, but not a surprise. Stewart emerged as Pitt’s best and most consistent player over the course of the season. Once he got his release, he was one of the players that received a lot of high-major interest.
Kham Davis, though, has decided to remain a Panther. That’s a positive thing. The four big ones to get to stay now are Marcus Carr (which I find unlikely), Terrell Brown, Ryan Luther and Malik Ellison.
I have to believe Ellison will stay. He sat out last year as a transfer, and I doubt he wants to do it again.
Terrell Brown is a big question mark. For his development, I hate saying it but a transfer wouldn’t be the worst thing. He really could use a development year and would have that as he would sit for the following season as a transfer. Still hoping he stays, though.
HbgFrank … Shamiel is a good glue guy. I’m not sure how much upside he has but it’s good Pitt is keeping him.
Players leaving this year could/should be beneficial, if we assume that HCJC can attract a higher quality recruit than XHCKS. Glass half full???
I’d like to see them get at least one guy who can recruit, and who would like to stick around assuming Capel leaves at some point – eventually. It would nice to have a “Dixon in waiting” situation – I took that for granted last time around. I’m not 100% convinced Knight can recruit, but then again he wasn’t in the best situation down the stretch. I also think passion around the program means something.
I tend to side with those who aren’t in a huge hurry. Next year may be a little frustrating – I think most of the sane amongst us understand that. Take the time to find the right guys for years two and three. I’m one of the insane people here that think if Capel can pull one or two top 50-100 players out of his butt, things could get interesting in two years 🙂
I think Shammy has some potential – maybe off the bench on a good team – but we may not have that next year. So what – character is going to be important in the near future, so anyone who can bring people together and deal with adversity well should have a sport on the team if they have some talent.
Hey Justinian – did you hear what you just said? We’re INTERESTED in how the staff shapes up! We’re actually INTERESTED. A couple of weeks ago, a lot of us were worried that there might not be ANY interest in the program moving forward.
This might actually be FUN ! 🙂
If Capel can bring in a few studs to go with what remains of this group, we would have a tournament team again.
Brown is the big keeper and he committed to Capel tonight. He is the only D1 player I saw on Pitt’s team this past year and he could be a very good one.
Think things will fall in place now that Brown is back.
Capel needs to get a staff he’s comfortable with and that compliments his strengths and back fills his weaknesses. Until he completes the staff its hard to judge whether he has done a good job or not.
His experience as a head coach hopefully prevents him from making the mistakes Narduzzi did with his staff, i.e. his initial choices for DC, OC and OL. coaches
Although this talking head gave the hire a C ….
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