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Featured Fanpost: The Real Problem of Pitt Basketball

This Fanpost was written by a reader and not the staff of Cardiac Hill

We can sit here and squabble over how bad Stallings is versus "giving him a chance/what options do we have", but it might be more helpful to find the problem and possible solution.

What made Pitt good in the big east? It was a tough physical game and Howland and Dixon stressed defense. It played really well in the Big East and they were able to recruit the upper North East with success because of it.

2003 20th Nationally 4 recruits(NY, NY,PA,OH)....Cris Taft the big recruit from NY

2004 Keith Benjamin and Ronald Roman... both from NY

2005 10th Nationally 3 recruits(VA,NY, NJ) Young Fields and Biggs

2006 Gilbert Brown from CT

2007 12th Nationally 4 recruits(PA, PA, MD, IN)

2008 Robinson, Gibbs, Woodall(PA, PA, NJ)

2009 26th Nationally 4 recruits(MD, NJ, MD, TX) Tayler the big get

2010 33th Nationally 3 recruits (CT, VA, OH)

2011 13th Nationally 3 recuits (NJ, PA, MA)

2012 25th Nationally 3 recuits (MA, MD, NJ) Adams and Robinson came in.

2013(we enter the ACC) 31 Nationally 4 recuits(NC, NJ, MA, FL)

2014 Luther and Cameron Johnson both come in from PA

2015 Wilson comes in from NY and Dixon misses on many others including getting a big man

2016 Manigualt comes in from VA once again Dixon misses a bunch(possibly because they got paid)

2017 Stallings first full recruiting class(FL, FL, FL, AZ, TN, NH, PA)

2018 Golden comes from Maryland

At Vandy, Stallings pulled less then 10% of his players from the area that made Pitt successful. He recruits Florida and Texas.

When we moved to the ACC, Dixon tried to change it up and start recruiting kids from ACC territory. He made no bones about being upset that they left the Big East and the allure to the North East kids, especially from NY and NJ.

He didn't think Adams was going to leave and therefor didn't get a project big man to come in behind him. He scrambled to find Jucos and missed. That was what lead Pitt down a bad pathway. He also struggled with the type of play leading him to lose out on key 5 star players who once committed to Pitt. (Also a crazy father(rowan) and a player who chose to go to Auburn(shady) left him empty). DIxon missed on his way out, most notably he missed on getting a big man to follow behind Adams.

Stallings doesn't have the allure of the Big East, nor the right people to be able to recruit in NY, NJ, MA, MD, OH with a lot of success. So he dips into Florida assuming it is the same as in football I guess and that you can find a bunch of players who fell through the cracks because there is so much talent there.

In 2018 FL had 14 4 star kids. The area that Pitt used to recruit hard had roughly 35. Do you think it would make more sense to try and get back to our roots and try and pluck one or 2. Offers in 2018 22 from kids from(MD, NY,NJ, VT,NH,MA,OH,DC,PA,VA). 27 from elsewhere mostly FL, CA, MI. In 2017 he recruited 12 players from florida alone. Do we really think the solution to Pitt is to build pipelines in Florida????

What happening on the court makes anyone think recruits will want to come here? What we need is someone who is going to come in and bring Pitt back to its roots. We need the ACC adapt to Pitt basketball, not Pitt basketball adapt to the ACC. Virginia is doing it. Dixon tried to adapt and Stallings is bringing the exact opposite philosophy, as a matter of fact I don't know what his is other than chuck it up. I guess kids from Florida like to just chuck it up and not play defense so they want to come play for him(not the good recruits, but the rest).

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