Ranking the 13 teams of the Jamie Dixon era
I’m not going to attempt to sugarcoat or justify this – it’s early August, we’re still three months from basketball season and with training camp not starting until next week for Pitt football, I’m a little bored.
Jamie Dixon’s departure to TCU in March provided a quick and clear demarcation for the end of the most successful era in the history of Pitt basketball. The apex of that success was achieved years ago and hasn’t been reached since, but without Dixon’s presence, we’re clearly on to a new chapter in the program’s history.
With that move, and with some precious downtime at work, I decided to rank Dixon’s 13 teams. It’s an inherently arbitrary exercise, but I based it off a combination of a few different variables – mostly the team’s record, how far it advanced in the NCAA tournament, its offensive and defensive efficiency numbers, as well as, to a lesser extent, the amount of professional (namely NBA) talent it had.
I would have tried to do a slide show, but I figured an early August ranking of past Pitt teams was click-baity enough. After reading, feel free to use Twitter and/or the comments section to call me an idiot. And here we go…
13. 2011-12
Record, postseason result: 22-17 (5-13), won the CBI
Final KenPom rank: 68
Offensive/defensive efficiency rank: 31/149
The team that blessed everyone with the ecstasy of #CBIncredible is the same one that earns this ignominious, totally meaningless distinction. What made this season so difficult to stomach for Pitt fans stems from the way this team was viewed heading into it. The Panthers returned seven of their 10 leading scorers from a 2010-11 team that earned a No. 1 seed and were adding a top-15 recruit in Khem Birch, two things that helped make them into a preseason top-10 team.
From there, it all fell apart. Birch was gone by mid-December, leaving the program under strange circumstances. Second-leading scorer Tray Woodall missed 11 games with a groin/abdominal injury. Non-conference losses to Wagner and Long Beach State shattered any illusion that this team, despite its 11-2 record, was anything formidable. The Wagner setback marked the start of an eight-game losing streak and a brief four-game rebound was followed by a five-game losing streak. Only two wins against 13-19 St. John’s prevented Pitt from finishing the regular season under .500.
To their credit, it mustered up enough of…something…to win the CBI, beating Washington State in a best-of-three championship series, 2-1. This team, unlike ones listed just above it, didn’t struggle because of inherent mediocrity or some kind of incompetency; due to a confluence of factors, it was just kind of a mess. At the very least, though, it led to the most somber, and therefore excellent, championship picture ever taken.
CBIncredible
At least Malcolm Gilbert was enjoying the moment.
12. 2014-15
Record, postseason result: 19-15 (8-10), lost in NIT first round
Final KenPom rank: 78
Offensive/defensive efficiency rank: 30/202
Statistically speaking, this team makes the strongest case for being the worst of Dixon’s tenure. By most any meaningful measurement, this group was even worse than the aforementioned CBI champions. The only reason they avoided the bottom spot is because a) they won more than five conference games b) they made a better tournament and c) I’m an arbitrary person who’s easily swayed by those two earlier-stated facts.
Defensively, this was, by far, the weakest team of Dixon’s career, a title that may live forever even after he tries to rebuild the charred remains of a program Trent Johnson left him at TCU. The Panthers gave up 104 points per 100 possessions, meaning the only thing that kept them from allowing some really gaudy point totals was their slow-as-fingernails-growing tempo (among the 30 slowest in Division I). The NIT loss to George Washington also remains one of the worst games I’ve ever forced myself to watch.
11. 2015-16
Record, postseason result: 21-12 (9-9), lost in NCAA first round
Final KenPom rank: 43
Offensive/defensive efficiency rank: 41/56
Dixon’s final Pitt team was one in a handful that made his eventual exit much easier to comprehend. This was, by far, his worst NCAA tournament representative, one that was probably the only one that could be considered a legitimate bubble team.
A promising 14-1 start, albeit one achieved primarily by beating up on the 20th-easiest non-conference schedule in Division I, was undone rather quickly and precipitously. The Panthers lost nine of their final 15 games, six of which were decided by at least two possessions. They weren’t without talent – Mike Young, Jamel Artis, Sheldon Jeter and James Robinson are all good players – but while they weren’t particularly bad at anything, except outside shooting, they weren’t especially strong in any area besides offensive rebounding and, if we’re in search of silver linings, free-throw shooting. And, as it was in many of their worst seasons, their run ended with an unsightly loss.
10. 2004-05
Record, postseason result: 20-9 (10-6), lost in NCAA first round
Final KenPom rank: 21
Offensive/defensive efficiency rank: 12/58
This moment deserves a statue. (Brian Batko/Post-Gazette)
The season that blessed us with “Booty Patrol”, a topic that I won’t delve into in depth since I already did so with the summer league roster post (but I included the picture for good measure). It was somewhat of a disappointing record for a team that started the season at 17 in the preseason poll and climbed into the top 10 in December before coming apart late and falling out of the poll entirely, a drop that ended with a 79-71 loss to Pacific in the NCAA tournament.
Carl Krauser improved on his already-strong sophomore year numbers with a line of 16 points, 5.9 assists and 4.9 rebounds per game while our man Chevy Troutman played to the standard of a man who would sport such an awesome shirt to an NCAA watch party. With Aaron Gray, Levon Kendall and Antonio Graves all sophomores on this squad, and with Krauser coming back for his senior year, it’s interesting (and, for Pitt fans, hard) to think about what the 2005-06 Panthers could have done had Chris Taft not entered the NBA draft after this season. What could have been.
9. 2013-14
Record, postseason result: 26-10 (11-7), lost in NCAA second round
Final KenPom rank: 19
Offensive/defensive efficiency rank: 19/29
A sneakily decent team, the 2013-14 Panthers finishing in the bottom five of this list is proof that Dixon’s time at Pitt was undeniably and sometimes wildly successful. Pitt experienced its share of struggles in its first ACC season, losing four of its final seven regular-season games after a 20-4 start. That subpar finish relegated it to a No. 9 seed and created a scenario in which it had to play No. 1 overall seed Florida in the second round, a game in which it lost by 16.
During this campaign, Lamar Patterson turned in one of the better seasons in recent Pitt history, averaging 17.1 points, 4.9 rebounds and 4.3 assists per game on his way to earning second-team all-ACC honors and being selected in the second round of the NBA draft.
8. 2007-08
Record, postseason result: 22-9 (10-8), lost in NCAA second round
Final KenPom rank: 24
Offensive/defensive efficiency rank: 12/64
This was a team that, when I first started doing this, I planned on ranking higher. On paper, it’s a pretty impressive group, one that, most notably, won the Big East tournament.
When you dig a little deeper, though, what you find is a pretty thin resume. This was the worst defensive team of Dixon’s first eight seasons, giving up 99.3 points per 100 possessions. In contrast to teams ranked higher on this list, this Panthers’ season featured a handful of puzzling losses like double-digit loss at 11-20 Rutgers, a loss at rebuilding Cincinnati and a 25-point stomping at the feet of Dayton.
Pitt’s season remains one of unfulfilled promise due to Mike Cook’s torn ACL in a thrilling 65-64 overtime victory against Duke that ended his season and, ultimately, college career. To that point, Cook had been averaging 10.4 points per game, the fourth-most on the team, so it stands to reason he would have been an important piece the rest of the way for what was then an undefeated team. Instead, this team’s legacy may be as a group that took its lumps and gained another year of experience before coalescing into an absolute force the following season.
7. 2009-10
Record, postseason result: 25-9 (13-5), lost in NCAA second round
Final KenPom rank: 25
Offensive/defensive efficiency rank: 45/28
Perhaps no team in Dixon’s tenure surprised more than his 2009-10 squad. The Panthers had to replace four of the top five scorers from their loaded 2008-09 Elite Eight team, prompting some to believe the following year would represent something of a rebuild. What they uncovered in that process was a collection of strong, dependable and developing contributors.
Four players – in order, Ashton Gibbs, Brad Wanamaker, Gilbert Brown and Jermaine Dixon – averaged at least 10 points per game. Gibbs’ jump was particularly noticeable, going from 4.3 points in 10.7 minutes per game to 15.7 points in 34.6 points per game. The 2009-10 group wildly exceeded preseason expectations, cracking the top 10 in mid-January after beginning the season unranked. That run ended with two missed 3s in the final three seconds that would have sent their game against Xavier into overtime.
6. 2012-13
Record, postseason result: 24-9 (12-6), lost in NCAA first round
Final KenPom rank: 11
Offensive/defensive efficiency rank: 17/21
I didn’t think I would rank a team that bowed out in the first round of the tournament this high, but alas, here we are. This team, in some ways, is the opposite of the 2007-08 group, one whose resume is a lot stronger than many people (or at least I) remember. With Talib Zanna and Steven Adams, the Panthers were one of the best rebounding teams in the country, with Tray Woodall and Lamar Patterson leading the way offensively.
This group, like some others on the list, remains something of a ‘What if?’. What if Adams had been more developed or used more effectively, a question that gets posed with his each passing year in the NBA? What if a team with really strong credentials were rewarded with more than an eight seed? Once there, what if they didn’t have to face a Wichita State squad that came within four points of knocking off the eventual national champions in the Final Four?
Overall, this stands as a very balanced team that gets overlooked in the program’s recent history because it suffered first-round exits in its two postseason tournaments and had the misfortune of being paired against one of the best non-major conference teams of the past quarter-century.
Steven Adams in his lone City Game. (Matt Freed/Post-Gazette)
[Side note: One of the biggest tragedies in the history of Pittsburgh sports is Adams not being able to peacock his full and genuine personality while he was in Oakland. Whoever is responsible for depriving us of that wonderful character in his one year here – whether it was Dixon, Pitt media relations or the media itself – deserves some serious shaming.]
5. 2005-06
Record, postseason result: 25-8 (10-6), lost in NCAA second round
Final KenPom rank: 11
Offensive/defensive efficiency rank: 25/11
This team provided some wonderful memories, none of which conjure as much joy as the TV score icon from the Panthers’ second-round loss against Bradley.
Gray morphed from little-used, clumsy-looking white big into a legitimate star who averaged a double-double (13.9 points, 10.5 rebounds) and made first-team all-Big East. Sam Young, as a freshman, gave fans a sneak peek at a player who would eventually blossom into a star by his senior year. Krauser, in the final year of his lengthy run on campus, made a slew of 3s and threw up a whole bunch of Xs.
It was a group that surprised many, going from unranked at the beginning of the year (and into 2006) to No. 8 in the country by the end of February. They stumbled against Bradley in the second round, giving up 28 points to Patrick O’Bryant, who parlayed a strong tournament and a 7-foot frame into the No. 9 overall pick in the NBA draft. There was once a time when the Warriors didn’t always made great decisions.
4. 2006-07
Record, postseason result: 29-8 (12-4), lost in Sweet 16
Final KenPom rank: 11
Offensive/defensive efficiency rank: 14/30
If these rankings were divided into groups, the 2006-07 Panthers would find themselves at the top of a second tier muddled with teams that lost eight to 10 games and experienced varied levels of success in the NCAA tournament.
Pitt entered the season with high expectations, ranked No. 4 in the AP preseason poll after bringing back six of their seven leading scorers from the previous year. They shouldered those hopes fine, rebounding from two December losses to win 22 of their first 25 games. From there, though, they dropped five of their final 12 games, including a nine-point loss to UCLA and former coach Ben Howland in the Sweet 16.
Gray pieced together one of the more statistically well-rounded seasons in Dixon’s tenure, averaging 13.9 points and 9.5 rebounds per game as a senior. Given the lofty goals affixed to the team entering the season, though, it’s hard to think of this season without at least a small dash of disappointment.
3. 2010-11
Record, postseason result: 28-6 (15-3), lost in NCAA second round
Final KenPom rank: 3
Offensive/defensive efficiency rank: 4/22
In retrospect, this was a team that simultaneously overachieved and underachieved, if that makes any sense. The sudden and incredibly bitter end of losing in the second round as a No. 1 seed to Butler – which ended up making it to its second-consecutive national title game – is unavoidable when discussing this team, but it’s pretty remarkable that they achieved what they did to even get to that point
Unlike the two teams ahead of it, the 2010-11 Panthers had no player among its top nine scorers eventually selected in the NBA draft. Granted, that’s far from an end-all-be-all measurement of a good college team. Countless college teams have exceled without much, if any, next-level talent; it is, however, a pretty good indication of how many true difference-makers there are on a team, the kind of players that can propel a program to Final Fours and championships.
Regardless, this was a team that won the Big East regular season championship in a year in which the conference sent a record 11 teams to the NCAA tournament, nine of whom made up the teams with the highest 24 seeds. When you take all of this into consideration, I don’t think it’s a stretch to say this was Dixon’s single best coaching job at Pitt.
2. 2003-04
Record, postseason result: 31-5 (13-3), lost in Sweet 16
Final KenPom rank: 4
Offensive/defensive efficiency rank: 25/1
Dixon’s first team at Pitt, the 2003-04 iteration of the Panthers was arguably his best in his time in Oakland. An already extremely stingy defense improved from where it was the prior season to become the best in the country, about one full point per 100 possessions better than second-place Louisville.
Led by a breakout sophomore season from Krauser, Pitt won its first 18 games and 22 of its first 23. This group didn’t ascend to the top of the AP poll like the 2008-09 team, but it did peak at No. 3, a laudable accomplishment for a program that was only five years removed from a string of mediocre coaching stints.
Holy hell, Jamie Dixon looked young at the beginning of his tenure.
There were a few odd results in there – a 79-74 win against Division II Georgetown College stands out – but this was a consistently excellent group that allowed opponents to break the 70-point barrier only three times in 36 games. Its season ended with a Sweet 16 loss against a really good Oklahoma State team, a game in which Pitt shot 36 percent and scored only 23 points in the second half. Sure, that subjected us to pre-Final Four coverage in which the Dickie Vs of the world puzzlingly labeled Eddie Sutton a “class act”, but it can’t take away from an otherwise stellar debut season.
1. 2008-09
Record, postseason result: 31-5 (15-3), lost in Elite Eight
Final KenPom rank: 4
Offensive/defensive efficiency rank: 2/24
An argument could be made for the 2003-04 team, or even the 2010-11 squad, but for me, there was no other feasible option at the top spot. This team basically had it all; it seemed that way at the time and it’s even more apparent seven years later. You had the burly center who rebounded at a rate unmatched in the KenPom era (going back to 2001-02), a prodigious talent who, quite literally, grew up and attended high school in Pitt’s backyard. There was the athletic specimen on the wing who was just as effective shooting from deep as he was flying for thunderous jams (and who had the most beautiful pump fake I’ve ever seen). And then there was the point guard, the burly maestro who put it all together and made one of the country’s best offenses hum.
If there were ever a year for Pitt to make the Final Four or even win a national championship in the Dixon era, this was it, a point that probably doesn’t need to be belabored too much for the sake of Pitt fans’ collective sanity. The Panthers were a juggernaut that season, recording all but one of their 31 wins by at least six points and never losing consecutive games.
(Getty)
It’s hard to say how Pitt would have fared against a star-studded North Carolina team in the Final Four had it knocked off Villanova. At the very least, we would have gotten an awesome DeJuan Blair-Tyler Hansbrough matchup in which Blair, for the betterment of western civilization, could have flung that pasty, bug-eyed oaf to the court, much like he did to Hasheem Thabeet earlier in the season. Alas, we’ll never know if that would have come to fruition, something that probably lingers as this team’s most painful shortcoming.
Craig Meyer: cmeyer@post-gazette.com and Twitter @CraigMeyerPG
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