Kevin Stallings discusses Pitt's point guard, 2017 recruiting on CBS podcast

With practice beginning later this week, and with his first season as Pitt’s coach officially beginning in six weeks, Kevin Stallings joined CBS Sports’ Jon Rothstein on his “College Hoops Today” podcast to discuss a slew of topics, most notably the Panthers’ point guard situation.

After having few, if any, questions about the position for four years with James Robinson, Pitt now has a gaping hole at the spot on a veteran-laden team. It has three more traditional options at the spot, at least from a size and speed standpoint, in Justice Kithcart, Damon Wilson and Jonathan Milligan. Then, of course, there is the intriguing-but-unsettling possibility of Jamel Artis, who has been a small forward his three previous years in Oakland, manning the role.

As of now, Artis is what Stallings described to Rothstein as “the leader in the clubhouse” to be the team’s point guard. We’ve known for months that Artis is being seriously considered at the position, so I was a little surprised at, well, the surprise people exhibited yesterday when Rothstein tweeted that information out, especially given the Panthers’ inexperience beyond Artis. But with the season fewer than two months away, Artis remaining as not only a legitimate possibility at point guard but a favorite is news-worthy.

For context, Stallings’ full comment to Rothstein on the point guard situation is below…

“It could be something that’s done by committee. We’ve got I’d say three guys that have shown in practice, as point guards, they will help our team. Jamel Artis, who has been primarily a small forward here, would be the leader in the clubhouse at this point to be our starting point guard. Damon Wilson has certainly shown some signs of being able to be a very effective player, be it at the point or maybe in another guard spot. And Justice Kithcart, our freshman, is a guy who has a tremendous amount of tenacity and toughness to him for a freshman and could figure into the mix, as well. But right now, I would say Jamel is the guy who has the best chance. I’ve liked the look of him in practice at the point. He’s our team’s best passer. There’s a lot of upside to it, if he can establish himself as the guy. I think he’s doing that right now and hopefully he’ll continue to do that.”

As we get closer to the season, and perhaps even later this week, I’ll have a more in-depth breakdown of Pitt’s options at the position.

For now, here are some other highlights of Stallings’ appearance on the podcast. The full interview can be heard here.

** While Stallings inherits a talented and experienced team, what the program has beyond this year is a mystery largely dependent upon how successful he is in constructing his first recruiting class. Pitt has four seniors on its current roster and an open, unused scholarship that can be handed out to someone in the 2017 class, meaning it has at least five scholarships to fill for the 2017-18 season.

The importance of that task is not lost on Stallings.

“That may be the most important thing we’re doing right now,” he said. “As much time as we need to spend with these guys and getting ready for this season, we have an extremely heavy lift in front of us relative to turning our team over. We could very well be looking at signing five, six or maybe even seven guys depending on if you have a guy leave, which happens a lot in your first year. The good news to that is we’re going to turn the team over and maybe half of our team will be guys we have recruited. The downside of it, obviously, is your second year will feel like you’re going through year one again. It’s certainly a critical aspect of what we’re doing. We’re excited about it.”

** Sheldon Jeter and Chris Jones, according to Stallings, have shown as much progress as anyone on Pitt’s team since he arrived at the school in late March.

** Stallings was asked about how he was first contacted about the Pitt job and, in response, he provided the following timeline:

He was down at spring training in Florida in March watching his son, Jacob, play. He and his family were driving from Bradenton, the Pirates’ spring training home, to Fort Myers to watch Jacob play against the Red Sox. During that trip, his phone rang and he was asked if he’d have any interest in the Pitt job. He replied by saying he’d have to talk to his family about it, a convenient proposal seeing as they were all packed in the car with him.

His wife, Lisa, provided a quick response.

“You’ve turned down quite a few jobs in the last several years because of timing for our family,” Stallings recalled her saying. “Make this decision for you.”

After mulling it over for a few hours, he called back and expressed his interest. Two or three days later, by his estimation, he interviewed for the position and a day or two after that, he accepted the job. The Pirates and Red Sox played on March 25, three days before Stallings was introduced as coach, so the process may have been even quicker than Stallings remembered, unless of course they were driving to Fort Myers the day before (the two teams also played on March 14, but that was four days before Pitt’s season-ending loss to Wisconsin in the NCAA tournament and one week before Jamie Dixon left for TCU).

** Given the height and athleticism of his team, Stallings envisions Pitt being a matchup problem for teams they face.

“The flexibility we will have both offensively and defensively could make us difficult to play against if we can utilize those things in the right capacity,” he said. “It will be a little bit of a different team for me, but it’s one I’m really energized about and really excited to coach because of a different approach we can take with it and, in some ways, a different approach we have to take with it.”

** As opposed to Vanderbilt, where he was handcuffed by the school’s academic restrictions, Stallings said recruiting has been easier and more natural at Pitt.

“Very refreshing, quite frankly,” he said. “It’s nice to have a larger recruiting pool and it’s fun to be able to go into different kinds of environments and recruit different kinds of kids. As long as I was at Vanderbilt, it feels more natural to me this way.”

** Without going into details, he said he has regrets from his time at Vanderbilt.

“Certainly there are some incidents I would have changed and some other things like that, but I don’t reflect that much and say ‘I wish I would have done this or hadn’t done that,’” Stallings said. “Most of my time is spent looking forward.”

** And as for how he would have responded to people who told him last year he’d end up being the head coach at Pitt?

“I would have laughed heartily,” he said. “I did not see this coming, but I’m excited it did come. I’m excited I have this opportunity.”

Craig Meyer: cmeyer@post-gazette.com and Twitter @CraigMeyerPG