Stallings and Pitt part ways

Pitt’s 2017-18 season has reached its seemingly inevitable end, as the University has fired head basketball coach Kevin Stallings.

Stallings, the 15th coach in Pitt history, was hired in the spring of 2016 to replace Jamie Dixon, who won 328 games in 13 games. His first season with the Panthers saw the team finish with a 16-17 overall record - Pitt’s first losing record since the 1999-2000 season - and a 4-14 mark in the ACC.

This past season, bad turned to worse, as the Panthers managed just eight wins overall and none in the conference schedule. That was the first time in school history Pitt has gone winless against conference competition.

The Panthers finished the season on a 19-game losing streak - the longest in school history - and Stallings' Pitt record stands at 24-41 overall and 4-32 in the ACC.

There were certainly complicating factors that doomed Stallings' second and final season at Pitt. He experienced unprecedented and nearly total turnover of the roster, replacing four seniors, five transfers and one dismissal. As such, Pitt's roster this season was made up of nine players seeing action on the Division I level for the first time, including seven freshmen and two junior-college transfers.

Despite the roster turnover, Stallings’ hire was rejected by fans almost immediately. He came to Pitt from Vanderbilt, where he had a 332-220 record in 17 seasons with the Commodores. After Dixon, who made the NCAA Tournament 11 times in 13 seasons, seemed to have been pushed out by then-Athletic Director Scott Barnes, Stallings, who made seven Tournaments in 17 seasons at Vanderbilt, was perceived as an unimpressive hire.

When Barnes left Pitt for Oregon State last winter, Stallings found himself auditioning for his job with a new athletic director in Heather Lyke, who was hired last spring.

With Stallings officially gone, this will be the biggest task yet for Lyke, who is not yet a full year into her position at Pitt. She has done well in making new hires with the wrestling and women’s soccer programs, as well as getting a contract extension for football coach Pat Narduzzi.

Now Lyke will need to make a hire to solidify the basketball program and get it back to where Dixon had it before his final seasons.