Ben Howland is at UCLA and doing that well, he too would return if fired by UCLA as much talk is happeing.

Pitt has been a Top 25 Basketball Program the last 10 years and is 14th in money making, it is now a plum job.

People seriously think Brad Stevens is a great coach? Outcoached in games by Horizon league coaches. And he took over a very good roster. Sorry, good guy who ran with a great opportunity. Says the right things to the media. But great? sorry I disagree.

how sour are those grapes over there

Well, this got LSU to the Final Four in 2006. It certainly wasn’t astute coaching.

fucking John Brady

But great? sorry I disagree.

Might be too early to say great definitively, but his star is on the rise. You point out losses in Horizon league on one hand, but he took Butler to back-to-back title games. Butler…..not some goliath team with insane talent….Butler.

i guess i’d rather be a great recruiter, bc you have a better chance with good talent

Well, this got LSU to the Final Four in 2006. It certainly wasn’t astute coaching.

and we could be ruled by pandas

The “top coach” in CBB is fluid and depends on if you’re talking historically or recently. Historically Izzo is probably behind K, Pitino, and Roy Williams at least. You could make an argument for Calipari, Self, Boeheim, and Billy Donovan in that mix as well. Brad Stevens has a ways to go but he’s off to a great start.

All of those coaches have had early round exits in the tourney. Look at Duke last year. I measure a good coach by consistency. Can you consistently recruit good players, and turn that into on-court success, and are you in the conversation to reach a FF consistently. A couple of bounces one way or the other and Boheim has multiple NCs, Dixon has a FF, and Stevens only makes one NC game.

got under lots of folks’ internet skin, but not exactly sure why

Because he was a full-fledged idiot.

Also, Jamie Dixon will not go to Southern Cal. This is not happening. Everything credible source I’ve heard has said the job is Mike Hopkins or Robert Pack. Pack makes sense.

Jaime Dixon sucks. Why don’t they go after Shaka Smart?

uh cause dixon is a way better coach?

Pitt has been recruiting majorly out of the DC area for years now which is prime ACC country. That only gives those kids more of a reason to come to Pitt. Pitt has never recruited well in Philly so the Nova reference is pointless. NYC is the only area that matters and that isn’t going to change it much because the Big East is dead so those kids have to go somewhere.

All of this is pointless because every year we hear this about Dixon and he just won’t acknowledge it because he is tired of it after 10 years. Unless they throw $4M a year at him, he is staying put. If they offer him slightly more money, Pitt will up his salary a bit.

i guess i’d rather be a great recruiter, bc you have a better chance with good talent, than coaching up a mediocre crew annually. half of recruiting pitch is the history of winning/chance for exposure, so at some point it is circular

well what is the standard of greatness, cleet?

we have to point at results as some point. izzo is 17 years, one NC, six FFs. generally regarded as in the top five-10 of today’s coaches. but brad stevens has been to more NC games in a lot less time. so he’s missing longevity but also doesn;t have B10 cache

there are a lot of coaches who are good coaches but not great recruiters, so they don’t get noticed for their coaching. there are great recruiters who are not good game coaches, and they usually do better

i’m just spitballing and don’t know that much about sports, so would like a good discussion

I think it’s interesting the differences between CBB and CFB. Izzo’s CFB equivalent would be Bob Stoops – won a title in 2000 (like Izzo), has gone back to many title games and BCS bowls since then but hasnt won since and has taken a lot of heat for it. Izzo hasnt gotten that kind of heat, partially b/c just “getting to the F4″ is enough in CBB, and also b/c MSU is not considered a blueblood on the level of Indiana, Kentucky, Duke, etc. Also Izzo’s teams often outperform their seed, although he does have 4 first round losses since his last title.

The “top coach” in CBB is fluid and depends on if you’re talking historically or recently. Historically Izzo is probably behind K, Pitino, and Roy Williams at least. You could make an argument for Calipari, Self, Boeheim, and Billy Donovan in that mix as well. Brad Stevens has a ways to go but he’s off to a great start.

Take Pittsburgh’s hatred of basketball and multiply it by 1000 and you get Buffalo’s hatred of basketball.

Except when Syracuse plays Canisius at the Sabres’ arena.

we have to point at results as some point. izzo is 17 years, one NC, six FFs. generally regarded as in the top five-10 of today’s coaches. but brad stevens has been to more NC games in a lot less time. so he’s missing longevity but also doesn;t have B10 cache

there are a lot of coaches who are good coaches but not great recruiters, so they don’t get noticed for their coaching. there are great recruiters who are not good game coaches, and they usually do better

i’m just spitballing and don’t know that much about sports, so would like a good discussion