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Today, we continue to rank the careers of all of the 67 basketball players ever to suit up for Jamie Dixon. As a reminder, here's the drill. Editor Anson Whaley, contributor Jim Hammett, and myself ranked each player and our composite results are displayed.
Before we get started, we employed a few main rules here:
1. Only the Pitt portion of a player's career counted - Khem Birch played less than a season with Pitt. While he became a productive college player elsewhere, the fact that he spent so little time with the Panthers showed in our rankings.
2. Only the time a player spent under Dixon counted - A player like Julius Page, for example, would rank higher, but he spent only his senior year under Dixon.
3. Best career, not best player - This isn't about determining the best player under Dixon. It's more about who had the best career at Pitt under Dixon. Steven Adams may be a better basketball player than several of the guys on the list but he only played at Pitt for a year and has certainly developed more in the NBA since then.
As we go through this list, we want to hear from you about players slotted too high, too low, or even the ones you think we got right. I've organized the rankings and would love to hear from you on Twitter as well @AronMinkoff.
| 55. Nick Rivers |
Position: Guard Games Played: 25 Year(s) under Dixon: 2009-2012 MPG: 1.7 PPG: 0.5 RPG: 0.2 APG: 0.2
Cardiac Hill Rankings Aron Minkoff: 52 Jim Hammett: 63 Anson Whaley: 56 Average Ranking: 57
Again, my ranking placed him significantly higher than the rest of the crew. Rivers is the feel good story. The Mark Titus story. He is the kind-of guy you dream of being. Well that is for those of you that realize the Division I dream is gone long before it started and look towards being a team manager instead.
Rivers served as the team manager before earning a spot on the team as a walk-on for the final three years of his college career. He played meaningless minutes in his time under Dixon, but was a core, important piece of the team. He was the Josh Ko kind-of guy before Ko even graduated high school. Rivers was the exact kind-of guy you want at the end of the bench, and he was a fan favorite. |
| 54. Cassin Diggs |
Position: Forward Games Played: 9 Year(s) under Dixon: 2007-2008 MPG: 6.8 PPG: 1.8 RPG: 2 APG: 0.1
Cardiac Hill Rankings Aron Minkoff: 54 Jim Hammett: 53 Anson Whaley: 53 Average Ranking: 53.3
Diggs was purely a big body and not much more in his short stint with Pitt. He would later transfer to Boise State but never played there. He only got into nine games with the Panthers under Dixon, but he jumps several of our walk-ons since he received more significant minutes. |
| 53. Isaiah Epps |
Position: Guard Games Played: 19 Year(s) under Dixon: 2011-2012 MPG: 5.4 PPG: 0.1 RPG: 0.2 APG: 0.8
Cardiac Hill Rankings Aron Minkoff: 55 Jim Hammett: 43 Anson Whaley: 60 Average Ranking: 52.7
Epps came to Pitt with a lot of potential and at the time, was a fairly highly-ranked recruit. He had potential to be a decent guard, but he proved to be a fringe-Division I player that later transferred to Monroe College, a junior college in New York. He had talent but really never paved a way at the Division I level. |
| 52. Dwight Miller |
Position: Forward Games Played: 16 Year(s) under Dixon: 2009-2010 MPG: 5.2 PPG: 0.6 RPG: 1.1 APG: 0.1
Cardiac Hill Rankings Aron Minkoff: 58 Jim Hammett: 48 Anson Whaley: 51 Average Ranking: 52.3
Miller only played for Pitt for one season before he transferred to the University of Tennessee. He played about the same type of minutes at Tennessee as he did for Pitt before suffering a knee injury in 2012 that sidelined him for the rest of his collegiate career. |
| 51. Doyle Hudson |
Position: Forward Games Played: 25 Year(s) under Dixon: 2005-2007 MPG: 3.5 PPG: 1.1 RPG: 1 APG: 0 Aron Minkoff: 49 Jim Hammett: 50 Anson Whaley: 50 Average Ranking: 49.7
Hudson played sparingly but made the most of his limited minutes in his two seasons under Dixon. He also managed to appear in 25 games, which vaults him ahead of many on our list. |