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December 16, 2008

Diving Into Basketball

Filed under: Basketball,Players,Puff Pieces — Chas @ 12:02 am

Sam Young gets a puff piece from SNY.tv. It covers the usual things — poetry, gymnastics, piano, his brother — but adds a new addition.

One day last summer, Young was just messing around in the school pool when he caught the eye of Julian Krug, Pitt’s assistant head coach for diving.

“Totally unbeknownst to me, he went right up to 7 1/2 meters, went out to the end and stood there for a second,” Krug recalled. “I made sure there was nobody below him. I thought he was going to do a plain old jump.

“But he raised his arms and ended up doing a straight two-and-a half,” Krug said, referring to two flips and a dive. I’m thinking in midair, ‘Oh my God, I just killed a basketball player.’ It only lasted a second, but he went straight up and down in the water. His body was too big, but he could’ve been a diver.

“He got two thumbs up. It’s mind boggling to see somebody that big go up there to 7 1/2 meters. We all clapped like the dickens. It was amazing.”

I think I’m beginning to hate Sam Young.

Worst loss of the weekend? Gonzaga losing to Arizona. Now the AZ folks are seeing flaws in Mark Few, and making Coach Dixon more attractive.

Few’s on-court presence is, shall we say, minimal. He just doesn’t have The Look. Yes, his record speaks louder than his presence, but he doesn’t have a commanding presence. He comes off as a Mystery Guest more than a Court General.

In a face-off, he is a distant third behind Pitt’s Jamie Dixon and anyone else you choose to name.

I try not to think or worry about it, because I don’t want it to ruin what could be a great season and so many other things could happen. Still, it’s hard not to cast an eye that way periodically.

The good thing about the time off for exams, the early injuries are not too much of a problem now.

“It’s good that everyone is getting healthier,” senior forward Sam Young said. “DeJuan [Blair] is getting in shape. Levance is getting in better shape. It’s about that time that we’re getting closer as a unit. We’re starting to get that chemistry that everyone looks for at the end of the year.

“We’re definitely coming to that hill, and we’re moving up at the right time. We’re going to play Siena. After that it will be some really tough teams. We’ll be getting into Big East play and it’ll be a tough matchup every night. We’re progressing as a team.”

Fields and Brown especially looked to benefit from the time between games. Fields, who had been struggling to find his 3-point shot, was 3 for 3 from behind the 3-point line against UMBC. He appeared quicker and had more jump in his legs than previous games.

Jermaine Dixon’s groin is the only thing still hurting (insert cheap joke, here).

Not that it was much of a concern in the decimation of UMBC. If you watched the game, the second half had a small parade of guests including Football Coach Dave Wannstedt. Half-jokingly, the discussion turned to which of the players could be on the football team. DeJuan Blair was mentioned. Looks like someone else listening decided to ask Fittipaldo.

Q: I think DeJuan Blair’s size leaves him a tad too short to be drafted for a power position in the NBA whether playing power forward or especially center, but perhaps ideal for the NFL. It wouldn’t surprise me to see him as a tight end instead, ala Antonio Gates, who played hoops for Kent State. Your thoughts? Does he ever talk about the NFL? Did he play football in high school?

Fittipaldo: Blair did not play football in high school and I can tell you he is 100 percent committed to a basketball career. I asked him once about football and he said he never had the desire to play. That doesn’t mean it can’t happen down the road, but it’s not in his thoughts now. People get excited about the thoughts of basketball players playing in the NFL because of the success of Gates and Sam Clancy, the former Pitt hoops star who went on to a successful career as a defensive end in the NFL with the Cleveland Browns and Indianapolis Colts. But those guys are the exceptions. People seemed to think Chevon Troutman, who actually did play a little high school football, had a chance to play in the NFL because of his size and athleticism. The Washington Redskins had him come down for an open tryout, but Troutman did not perform very well and was sent home. For every success story like Gates and Clancy there are probably 10 failures.

Troutman was just trying to get paid somewhere in the states. Rather than focus on basketball first or  get ready for football tryouts, he tried to do both right after the season ended. Antonio Gates took a couple years of trying to play basketball before deciding to give football a chance.





Hello there,
I am Peter Robert Casey and I am a basketball columnist. I have initiated an idea to create a sports blogroll where bloggers from all sports disciplines could participate. All you need to do is to add my blog link to your blog and i’ll do the same. That way, we could have a mutual partnership and we could refer visitors to each other’s blog.
Please let me know if you would be interested.

Your’s in Hoops,
Peter Robert Casey
http://www.peterrobertcasey.com

Comment by peter robert casey 12.16.08 @ 12:37 am

Re: Jamie Dixon – I know it’s way too early to be speculating, but unless he comes right out and says he will be be leaving period, then it’s hard not to.

I definitely don’t want to see him go. The only thing that I questioned before was his ability to get big-time recruits…with Taylor and others looking at Pitt, I’d say he’s answered that. If he does leave, I hope they go after someone who wants to be here for the long-term. Pitt is, in my opinion, a top ten job nationally (maybe even top 5 if you rate prestige a little bit lower) and is far past the stage where the job was still a question mark when Howland left.

At this point, they don’t need someone who will stick around for a few years and then bolt again. They need someone who will be a long-term fixture – someone that they can tell recruits will be here for the rest of their career (assuming they continue to win). I don’t know how many qualified guys are like that out there that would fall into that category for Pitt. Most of the time, it’s a former player or someone who graduated from here – Sean Miller? I’m hard pressed to come up with others.

Again, not pushing Dixon out the door. The ideal scenario is that he discovers this is his dream job. But until he says that (which to my knowledge he hasn’t), it will be hard to believe it for sure as his roots aren’t from here.

Comment by Maile Man 12.16.08 @ 12:23 pm

I’m sure he’s been asked about the AZ and ASU jobs this year by someone. Has he said anything about either job (other than probably the standard ‘I’m only focusing on this year’?).

Comment by Maile Man 12.16.08 @ 12:24 pm

I DO NOT wanna see Dixon go anywhere. If he would, Sean Miller has got to be the #1 candidate though.

Comment by TJ 12.16.08 @ 12:29 pm

I guess ASU coach Herb Sendek (from Penn Hills) would qualify as well…although his track record, while solid, is nothing to write home about.

Comment by Maile Man 12.16.08 @ 12:32 pm

No one’s hair will ever be as slick as Dixon’s.

Comment by pittpanther 12.16.08 @ 12:40 pm

Let’s face it, unless you’re Duke, UCLA or Carolina, you have to worry if you’re coach is going to leave for greener pastures. Kansas lost their coach! If Kansas can lose their coach to Carolina, no matter who we hire, it’s always a possibilty. Even if Dixon goes to AU, we hire Miller and he wins a couple NCAA’s. What if Duke wants him to replace Coach K? Would he leave? Most likely.

Comment by Crackbaldo 12.16.08 @ 12:55 pm

I think we should just bring Ditka in and let him coach bball if Dixon leaves.

Comment by Greg in New Orleans 12.16.08 @ 1:54 pm

That’s a good point about Kansas.

But, I don’t know. Would Sean Miller really leave Pitt if he won a couple of titles here for Duke? Pitt is one of the most winningest teams in the past five years and the only thing missing are Final Four appearances. If they suddenly solved that problem, why would Miller leave? What exactly would be the point?

I think many coaches might. But someone with strong roots here like Miller who grew up and played here might be inclined to stay. If Pitt were ever to win a title or two, there’d be no reason for someone like him to leave because at that point, they should be landing the All-Americans and have really built the prestige of the program up.

Comment by Maile Man 12.16.08 @ 2:07 pm

Curiosity about Chevy led me to some googling. He plays for a team named “Adecco ASVEL Lyon-Villeurbanne” and is doing quite well. I’d love to hear what their cheerleaders do with that name.

Anyways, here are his stats:
link to eurobasket.com

Comment by steve 12.16.08 @ 2:46 pm

Dixon has stated time and again that he loves this city and doesn’t want to coach anywhere else…but that’s pretty much the standard line these days. Coaches use that line days, perhaps hours, before they are introduced as the new head coach of XYZ University.

It is a shame that no matter how things go this season, there is going to be the whole Dixon leaving worry in the background. Dixon leaving might mean our recruits don’t stay either, so no Dixon might very well mean no Dante Taylor. While Pitt has been able to string together a VERY impressive run here during the Howland/Dixon era, given our school’s history, is it really all that “out-there” to think that this program is one or two bad seasons away from being right back where it was? We’ve had trouble recruiting highly touted guys during this amazing stretch, one or two .500 seasons out of the gate with a new coach could take us off their radar completely.

Comment by Jake 12.16.08 @ 2:49 pm

Roy Williams left Kansas to go back to his alma-mater and the state that he grew up in. So to me, that makes sense and is a completely different scenario than say someone like Miller leaving his alma mater and going to Duke where he has absolutely no ties.

Comment by TJ 12.16.08 @ 3:18 pm

OMG, we Pitt fans are the most insecure group I have ever seen. Some guy in Arizona writes a wishful article and the PantherNation is all paranoid that the sky is falling. Dixon has repeatedly said he loves Pitt and Pittsburgh, he has shown his loyalty in the past, he has landed arguably the best recruiting class Pitt has seen in well over a decade and we are obsessing not only about him leaving but about whether Sean Miller would also leave Pitt for the Duke job. If I am putting my money on a wager, it is that Dixon retires as Pitt’s all time greatest coach in any sport and possibly the best ever in Big East history. HTP

Comment by The Turk 12.16.08 @ 3:27 pm

Nobody is paranoid. I think AZ is probably one of the few realistic possibilities for Dixon though. Of course there is a chance that we wouldn’t be able to hold onto him. That being said, I believe he is happy in Pittsburgh and at Pitt. He has great facilities, the support of the administration and is really just beginning to bring in top-notch talent that can legitimately contend for a national title. I believe that he has built the Pitt job into a desirable one that has staying power.

Comment by SC Steve 12.16.08 @ 3:36 pm

I don’t really see what the deal is with Arizona. Dixon is from the West Coast…but there is a lot of land between Tucson and the Pacific Ocean. He spent a couple years as an assistant at Northern Arizona but, at this stage of the game, what makes Arizona/Arizona State or any Pac 10 coaching job better than Pitt & the Big East? It would be one thing if he went to Arizona and always wanted to coach there – but he didn’t…so stop the paranoia at this stage.

Comment by Joey D 12.16.08 @ 4:19 pm

I prefer to call it “prepared for shit” than to call it “paranoid”. Dixon leaving for Arizona is a real possibility, that’s a good post to head. Will Dixon ever leave for a good west coast school? I would say yes, but I don’t know when. It could be after this season or it could be in 5 years, but he will most likely leave. Consider it a huge win for the school that he stayed this long. Dixon fixed our souls. I would love for him to stay forever, but money and family talks.

Sean Miller is my top pick. He recruits well and uses his people correctly. He is the type of person that can lure kids away from a Kansas or a Memphis. Only problem is, I hear that he signed an extension so we will have to hurt some people to get him. I can live with that. My only fear is that Dixon leaves after next season, Kentucky fires Billie Gillespie and Pitt goes after him. I think that would be a bad fit. I think I would rather take Mark Few over Gillespie…I will probably regret typing that when the season is over, maybe. Herrion would be another possibility but when Pitt passes him over, he will leave as well. He might go west with Dixon.

Jamie Dixon is the best fit for this program. He might not get us to a Final Four or even an Elite Eight this year but he’s our guy. My ideal situation ends like this *Goes into dream mode*… Dixon retires a Pitt coach and then hands the reigns over to someone like Brandin Knight. That’s a tough one though, we can’t win them all. I guess we wait and prepare.

Comment by Panthoor 12.16.08 @ 5:13 pm

Ok guys, I read each one of the 16 post on here and all of you make great points and I can not argue with any of them. I personally thinks he stays for a lot longer than any of you may think, but can we please just forget about it!!! Let’s all look at the positive right now. He is here coaching a top 5 national championship contender and whether he leaves or not, should not even matter. I hope he comes out 2morrow and says he has no interest what so ever in leaving PITT, oh wait, he has already said that time and time again. Again, let’s just consentrate on this season and get to Detroit!!!

Comment by UCantCMe247 12.16.08 @ 6:05 pm

A sublime destination any way you look at it.

Comment by steve 12.16.08 @ 8:21 pm

Yeah, I didn’t mean to start the whole “anti-sky is falling” nonsense. It’s a message board where rumors/opinions run rampant…that’s what it’s for.

Trust me – I’d hate to see Dixon leave, but it’s not something anyone but him really has control over. My only point, I guess, was that the program is in much better shape that it was even ten years ago and should they need to get someone, who might make sense as a long-term replacement rather than a short-term fix. Further, the program is much more stable now with the winning seasons Dixon has had than when Howland left. The team was just as good then, don’t get me wrong, but it was still kind of a question mark if they would be able to sustain it.

I think they’re on very solid ground now and if Dixon happened to leave, I would hope the program wouldn’t miss too much of a beat because so many things are in place (winning history over the past 7-8 years, new facility, solid recruting pipelines, etc).

To me, as I mentioned, I’d have a hard time naming someone other than Sean Miller (who HAS signed an extension as someone posted) or possibly Sendek as someone who probably wouldn’t mind finishing their career here because of their roots. Brandin Knight could be another more down the line.

Comment by Maile Man 12.16.08 @ 10:41 pm

Stop worrying about Dixon leaving and enjoy watching one of the best teams in the country play in a BEAST of a conference this year. The Big East is showing it’s power in the rankings!

Comment by Dishman 12.17.08 @ 9:55 am

When I think of Dixon I think of him kneeling beside Cook at the garden, of the kids talking glowingly of him when the search was on after Ben left, of him talking up the University/City/BB program, of the ascent in basketball recruit’s talent and the way the man coaches even when the team is up by 20-30.

I never worry about him leaving because I will take the man at his word and he has not said he is leaving nor looking for greener pastures. Also I believe the school will do all they can do to keep him at Pitt.

Comment by Kenny 12.17.08 @ 12:11 pm

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