The 3-2-1 Column: Dream schools, nightmare hoops and more

In this week’s 3-2-1 Column we’re talking Pitt hoops, Pitt football, recruiting and more.

THREE THOUGHTS

No, really, that was the worst one
There’s been a lot of competition for Pitt’s Worst Loss of the Season this year. The schedule has been littered with missed opportunities and blown chances, whether it was a shot to notch an impressive win like the Iowa game or simply the possibility of adding to the win column against a mediocre team like Boston College or Wake Forest.

Game after game, Pitt kept coming up short, and each time I think we believed we had finally seen the Worst Loss. I was pretty convinced that we had seen the bottom with the Wake Forest game; the plane crashed into the mountain on that one, and I was certain that nothing was going to top it for sheer badness.

Then came Wednesday night’s affair in Atlanta.

That was rock bottom. It was the equivalent of crashing a car into an overpass, sizing up the error, backing up for a second attempt and doing it again.

If there’s a lower point than what we saw in Pitt’s loss to Georgia Tech, I’m afraid of how bad it might be. Maybe a scoreless half; that would possibly be worse than Wednesday night, but not by much.

Look, Georgia Tech is bad. The Yellow Jackets have taken a step back every year under Josh Pastner and they entered the matchup with the Panthers on a seven-game losing streak. They were one of the teams in contention for the title of Worst in the ACC.

Georgia Tech is out of the running for that one. So are Wake Forest and Boston College. Pitt is pretty much it.

I guess Miami and Notre Dame are still lurking out there. They have three ACC wins each and they’re the final two teams Pitt will face this season. Luckily for the Panthers, one of those two games is actually at home (an advantage not enjoyed when Pitt faced the other bottom-feeders in the league).

But we’re long past the point of expecting wins, aren’t we? If Pitt couldn’t put it together against Wake or Boston College or Georgia Tech, there’s certainly no guarantee that the Panthers will figure it out against Miami or Notre Dame. In every game, a fatal flaw has doomed them, whether it’s rebounding or three-point defense or shooting - and it’s often a combination of all three.

On Wednesday night, it was the free throw line, where Pitt went 20-of-38 (52.6%) and three players combined to hit 9-of-22. You don’t need me to tell you how big those 18 missed were in a game the Panthers lost by eight.

But every game there’s something that holds this team back. On Wednesday night, it was as ugly as ever, and I’m getting the sense that for a lot of people outside the program, the sooner the season ends, the better.

Romanticizing the past
On to happier thoughts…

It’s never good to live in the past, but sometimes it’s okay to dwell on it. Or at least remember it. And I certainly think it’s okay to romanticize it, at least as a course of appreciation. There were things about the past that were pretty good; not all of them, of course, but quite a few.

And so this week I found myself thinking about the past for a rather predictable reason:

Old Ron Cook columns.

Click those tweets and read those columns. Go ahead. Take a few minutes and go through them. You might have expand or zoom or something like that to read them, but it’s worth the effort.

I hope you actually did it. Not just to be reminded that there have been some good columnists in this city. And not just to remember when Pittsburgh newspapers had the resources - and the interest - to devote such column space to Pitt sports.

No, I don’t link those tweets to romanticize any of those things. I do so because reading those columns reminded me just how much fun it was to watch Pitt basketball 10-15 years ago.

This wasn’t the first time I’ve thought about that. In the “40 things” segment of last week’s 3-2-1 Column, one of the things I mentioned was that no player in my time covering Pitt has been more fun to watch that DeJuan Blair. I typed that sentiment into a Word document last week and then completely reinforced it by spending 15 minutes on YouTube watching highlights of Blair’s time at Pitt.

Those highlights confirmed exactly what I thought about Blair and made me think that I might not have appreciated him enough in retrospect.

I don’t know about you, but it’s been a long time since the Pitt hoops program had that mix of utter joy and utter brutality, often in the same moment. And it wasn’t just Blair. He was a great example of it straight out of Schenley and for me, he’ll always be the most entertaining Pitt player of that era, but he was just a bright-and-shining 6’7”-but-really-6’5” epitome of the culture Pitt hoops had at that time.

They were tough. They didn’t back down. They were just talented enough to beat teams who had lottery picks. And they were fun to watch. I’m not generally in the camp of “defense is fun to watch,” but those teams made it fun because of how they played.

They were the guys who didn’t pick fights but would push you until you picked the fight, and once you did, they hit you back harder than you planned for. It was who they were. And they weren’t just brawlers; they were smart, too, like that Cook column says about Jaron Brown (another candidate for the favorite player of that era).

Jim Calhoun was right: they weren’t the most talented team, and that was true of just about every team in that era other than the 2008-09 roster. But they knew there was a talent deficit so they had to make up for it but rebounding, passing, taking good shots, playing defense and being tough.

It worked to great success, and that was probably part of the reason it was fun to watch: they won a lot of games playing that way. It never went as far as the fans would have liked, but reading those Cook columns reminds me that a lot of the fans probably never appreciated just what those teams accomplished.

Doing it again
Million-dollar question here:

All that success from the early part of the 21st century - can Pitt achieve it again?

It feels like the recipe for the Howland/Dixon success isn’t one that can be replicated. I always resisted the claims that Pitt’s move to the ACC was a bad one due to style of play, largely because I always felt that style of play was less important than good basketball, and Pitt at its best would have competed in the ACC because it was playing good basketball, style be damned.

I still think that, to a certain extent. I think Jeff Capel is going to have to recruit and coach his way to a team that wins in the conference much in the same way that Virginia does. Capel himself even made a Calhoun-esque comment about the Cavaliers and how Tony Bennett’s squad is successful despite not being the most talented group in the league.

But I wonder if Capel can build a team like Ben Howland and Jamie Dixon built with guys like Brandin Knight and Jaron Brown and DeJuan Blair (I know they didn’t all play together, but you get my point). Capel has emphasized getting playmaking guards, which obviously looks promising on the early returns from Xavier Johnson and Trey McGowens. That’s a solid approach and one that will allow Pitt to be competitive in the league.

I’m also curious to see what kind of progress Capel can make on getting a big-time center. With the additions he has already made to the roster, bringing in a good-to-great player under the basket could be the piece that puts the program over the top.

So I do think Capel can build Pitt into a viable ACC contender? I do. Do I think he can build a team that has that extra edge that made the Howland and Dixon teams so endearing for the city? I don’t know. The current group definitely has toughness; I was thinking about that on Wednesday night when I watched Jared Wilson-Frame and Au’Diese Toney on consecutive possessions fearlessly crash into the lane looking to not just draw contact but to invite it, to welcome it.

There’s a reason Pitt has attempted more free throws than anyone else in the conference; it’s that fearlessness, that willingness to take contact and play through it. Play like that on both ends and this city will warm up to you, provided the end result is a W.

TWO QUESTIONS

Is there an art to attrition?
Everybody knows that attrition is inevitable. Pretty much every program experiences it during pretty much every offseason. And with the way Jeff Capel and Pat Narduzzi are currently approaching things, it’s clear they are both expecting more this offseason.

Narduzzi’s 2019 roster is set right now with 85 scholarship players. But he’s still pursuing graduate transfer options and probably has a walk-on or two who will go on scholarship in the summer, so he’s got an idea or two about spaces opening up.

And Capel has a lot of spots available; there are three right now after getting two commitments last week, but the first-year Pitt coach doesn’t seem to want to settle with that number. He’s got at least that many targets lined up for the 2019 recruiting class plus some likely options in the transfer and graduate transfer market that he will pursue. So, like his football counterpart, he’s thinking another couple spots will come open.

So both coaches have those expectations; the next question is, where will the attrition come from?

I think it’s important to note that coaches don’t tend to fly blind in these - or most - situations. When a football coach is finishing his class heading into Signing Day, he knows pretty clearly how many spots he’s got available. The number may shift throughout the recruiting process, but the coaches almost always have a specific idea of what they have to work with.

As such, Narduzzi and Capel know what to expect here. In a moment of complete candor, Capel could probably tell you who will and who won’t be back next season, and he’ll recruit on those numbers and expectations. Narduzzi could do the same for his team.

But how do you get from Point A to Point B? How do you get from attrition expected to attrition experienced?

We often toss around the phrase “run them off,” but I don’t think it goes like that very often, if at all. There are conversations, of course, and they might even include sentiments like, “Look, the reality is, you might have a better opportunity elsewhere.” But if a coach has that conversation with a kid and the kid still wants to stay, I think the coach will let him.

If there are off-field issues like academics or legal matters, then the coach would be more forceful. Otherwise, I think the kid still will still almost always have the option to stay if he is so inclined.

What I think happens most of the time, though, is a little less direct. These student-athletes aren’t dumb. Shamiel Stevenson and Peace Illegomah saw the writing on the wall; they knew where they stood with this staff and how they were likely to fit in - or not fit in - with the future plans.

Some of Stevenson and Illegomah’s former teammates will have the same realizations this offseason. They probably already have. It doesn’t take much to understand the situation if you find yourself watching from the sidelines for 40 minutes each night.

The players get it, and they’ll make the best decision for them. The coaches get it, too, and if a player wants to stay, then they’ll be welcomed to stay; if not, then the coaches will keep rebuilding the roster.

When is a dream school not a dream school?
This was a popular topic on the board this week after Pitt offered Central Catholic defensive end Aaron Beatty.

A local kid, Beatty is more than familiar with Pitt, and when he got an offer from the Panthers, he was pretty excited.

“I mean it’s crazy, I grew up watching them. It’s a dream come true obviously. From the day I was born I’ve been wearing blue and gold watching Pitt and the Steelers, so yea it’s a dream come true for sure.”

Those are strong words and seem pretty honest, too. And when a recruit says something like that, it’s not hard to ask the inevitable question:

When is he committing?

Well, according to Beatty, “I honestly have no clue where I want to go yet.” These seemingly contradictory statements set the message board partially on fire.

How can he go from calling Pitt ‘a dream come true’ and then say he doesn’t know where he wants to go?

This conversation came up a week or two ago when Pitt offered Woodland Hills tight end Josh Rawlings. Like Beatty, he was excited to have an offer from the hometown team. In fact, last summer when he was still trying to get the Pitt offer, Rawlings said this:

“I love Pitt. I was born and raised in Pittsburgh and Pitt is all I’ve known growing up. When you’re watching Pitt football at three years old, that sticks with you, and Pitt was always my dream school. I hope they offer.”

When Pitt actually did offer him two weeks ago, Rawlings talked about how he’s going to take spring visits, both unofficial and official, and get “more informed” about the opportunities he has.

So what gives?

A couple things. For starters, when it comes to quotes, kids these days are pretty savvy. They’ve grown up watching athletes give interviews and play it right down the middle, not giving up too much and recycling the clichés that have become part of the sports lexicon. For recruits, talking about taking visits and exploring options is standard operating procedure. Almost every kid talks about that stuff, even if they know for sure where they want to go.

Even Will Gipson last fall talked about taking an official visit to Rutgers after he got an offer from Pitt; he committed to the Panthers three days later and never took that official visit, but his on-the-record comments still centered around working through the recruiting process.

The other thing is this: the idea of an “insta-commit” - where a kid jumps on an offer right away because it’s his “dream school” - doesn’t happen nearly as much as it gets talked about. During one of the message board discussions about this topic, I went and looked at Alabama’s current 2020 recruiting class, and only one of those commits pulled the trigger shortly after getting offered (and that was about a month later).

The rest took anywhere from 4-6 months. They still committed early in the process, but I’d hardly call that an “insta-commit.”

I know that the dream scenario is for a recruit to get an offer from Pitt and be so overjoyed at the prospect of being a Panther that he commits on the spot. He would never need to visit another school or see any other options because all he could ever want was right there on the South Side.

That would be the dream scenario for a lot of fans, but it’s just not reality. And not just at Pitt but at most schools. All schools. Very few recruits commit immediately upon getting an offer from a certain school, even if they are clearly going to that school.

More often than not, kids take a little time, visit some schools and see what’s out there in the great big world of college football.

Look at this tweet.

That’s a four-star defensive end from Texas, and as of Friday, 48 hours after getting an offer from his “childhood dream school,” he was still uncommitted. So it’s not just Pitt.

JUST ONE MORE THING

Scheduling Western Michigan
Some future football schedule news came out this week when FBSchedules.com reported that Pitt and Western Michigan will have a home-and-home series in 2021 and 2022 (Heinz Field in 2021, Kalamazoo in 2022, probably because it rhymes).

Some wondered why Pitt would agree to a home-and-home series with a Group of Five team? There are probably a few reasons.

For one thing, we’ve all commented this season that the Panthers need to be smarter in their scheduling. Overlapping a home-and-home with Oklahoma State in the same two years that you’re playing Penn State doesn’t make sense. There’s no need to have those two series at the same time, especially not when you’re potentially going to get a Notre Dame game in there.

That’s not to say you should be afraid of playing Power Five schools; rather, it’s to say that there’s no advantage to scheduling multiple P5 teams in the nonconference each year. Nobody other than Penn State, Notre Dame and West Virginia will fill Heinz Field, so you don’t make more money off hosting Power Five teams. And most of college football avoids having multiple P5’s in the nonconference, so you might as well follow the trend.

But you do need to fill the schedule. Pitt has four nonconference slots every year. One goes to an FCS team and ideally one would be taken by a Power Five squad. That leaves two openings that would typically be filled by G5 teams.

Sure, you’d love to have both of those games be at home every year to bump up the revenue from playing at Heinz Field, but the reality is, buying three home games every season is going to get real expensive. You’re already paying the FCS team and at least one of the G5 opponents, by insisting on not making a return trip to the other G5 team, you’re writing another paycheck.

The alternative is that you go on the road and agree to a home-and-home. Scott Barnes hated it and said on multiple occasions that he would avoid sending Pitt to G5 stadiums. But I think eventually he would have realized that it becomes cost-prohibitive to live like that.

Sometimes, you have to go on the road.

It’s not the worst thing in the world. Typically, those games will be early in the season and give the team a chance to run through the process of making a road trip. Everything’s different when you’re away from home - different bed, different shower, different locker room, different setup and a million other little things that are different - and getting a test run of sorts in what should be an easier game is not a bad thing.

Of course, there’s also a risk involved. Since the 2003 season, Pitt has played 12 road games against opponents outside the power conferences (not counting bowl games) and the Panthers have a 7-5 record in those games. So you do have to be careful.

But on the whole, that risk is just the price of doing business.