Kevin Stallings already leading Pitt down a dangerous road

Kevin Stallings quickly turned the Pittsburgh Panthers into one the worst power conference programs in the entire country. What’s next? Nothing good.

Maybe Pitt fans appreciate Jamie Dixon more today than they did when taking him for granted towards the end of his tenure. After all, in the current TCU head coach’s place is a man as filled with irredeemable qualities as he is with an iffy track record of success under his belt.

The Panthers scheduled three cupcakes to start the 2017-18 college basketball season. They are currently operating within the realm of amateur shooty hoops with a 1-2 record. That’s less than ideal.

To be somewhat fair, who could have seen this awfulness coming?

Oh, that’s right. Everyone.

This isn’t hindsight providing us with 20/20 vision. Few people projected the marriage between the Panthers and Stallings to be anything other than a disaster. That being said, it is hard to imagine Stallings so quickly turning the Panthers into one of the worst power conference programs in the country.

Yet, here we are. A place in space and time where the Pitt basketball program is sprinting to be closer to a DePaul than it is to being just a competent entity.

Stallings, who is as notable for his love of screaming at the unpaid laborer as he is for his bad coaching, did his best to sabotage a good situation from day one. There was no hesitation in making sure this would be a debacle well before a nation got to know him better.

Last season, returning a core group from a Pittsburgh team that went to the NCAA Tournament under Dixon the campaign prior, you would think that would be enough for new Panthers coach Kevin Stallings to overcome the change in scenery.

You would be wrong.

Instead, Stallings led a talented roster to a woeful 16-17 overall record, lending credence to the idea that the coach is very good at doing less with more, an aspect of his coaching acumen long questioned during his time with Vanderbilt.

It was also Pitt’s first losing season since the 1999-2000 voyage (Ben Howland’s first with the program). It is important to note that the reason people began to turn on Dixon was due to the belief he ran his course at the program. That, sure, he was great, as was Howland, but there was a higher ceiling awaiting if a new coach was brought in.

Obviously, we have quickly learned how wrong that line of thinking is. It could be argued that Pitt is a fine basketball program, but one that benefited greatly from talented coaches like Howland and Dixon. Meaning, in a roundabout way, Panthers basketball success was more about the coaches than the university.

In fact, 13 of the university’s 26 trips to the NCAA Tournament came underneath the guidance of the two aforementioned coaches. Furthermore, in 92 years of existence before Howland came to town, Pitt won 20 or more games only three times.

Alas, that’s a slightly different discussion and one that doesn’t entirely matter here. Just note the obvious. If people who root for Pitt were growing tired of steady success Dixon brought just because it wasn’t of the other-worldly variety, nothing bodes well for Stallings.

Why? Because it is only going to get worse from here on out.

Stallings’ first “true” recruiting class was his 2017 bunch. What did he manage to do with more than a full year under his belt while operating in Western Pennsylvania? He lured seven 3-star players to campus. That’s a lot of players, just not a ton of stars attached to their names.

247Sports had it ranked as only the 10th best recruiting class in the ACC. Not really a thing to brag home about, as Stallings can bring in 80 3-star prospects on a recruiting trip and it would do nothing but sink the Panthers to the bottom of the brutal league.

As for the 2018 class so far, it is more of the same, but somehow worse. While still early, with enough time to theoretically turn it around, Stallings has the 12th ranked ACC recruiting class (Louisville’s class is “N/A” for what it is worth), and has yet again only managed to grab the attention of 3-star prospects.

3-star prospects are fine … for the Manhattan Jaspers or Stony Brook Seawolves. For a program attempting to operate in the Atlantic Coast Conference? Stallings may as well be grabbing teenagers out of the back of a Burger King to see if they’d be willing to run some two-guard for the Panthers.

This is the opposite of success begetting success. Stallings is on a collision course to have failures beget failures until he’s shown the door like he’s DJ Jazzy Jeff to Pitt’s Uncle Phil.

It isn’t even the time of year when a white-bearded fat man sneaks down our chimneys to give us toys, yet the university has to already be feeling the heat of Stallings’ awfulness.

The Pittsburgh Panthers need to concern itself with what Kevin Stallings is doing to the beloved basketball program. There are growing pains in plenty of new tenures within the realm of college basketball when a new head coach joins the fold, but rarely is the new coach the one stabbing the already in pain entity.

There’s very little evidence Stallings will get better over time. He’s not wine. He’s already spoiled milk resting on a stoop under the hot August sun.

While he did manage to lure some future NBA players to Vanderbilt, he wildly underachieved when he had them. Moreover, as being proven with each passing day on the recruiting trail, he isn’t even bringing that positive attribute with him to Pitt.

This is a weird conversation to be had at this point in the season, let’s admit that. Still, it is one people within the Panthers bubble are likely having. Hiring Kevin Stallings was probably a massive mistake. If it wasn’t obvious to them then, it sure as heck should be now.

Here is a man who has historically done poorly with good players, already failing with another coach’s talent in his first season at his new home, now parlaying it into only grabbing worse players to do even worse things.

Pitt can’t — and should not — fire Stallings now. It does zero people, including the players currently on the roster, any favors by making such a drastic move so early.

Even with that being the case, we are close to witnessing a rare feat be accomplished in college basketball.

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A coach, with only two seasons under his belt, being fired. Sure, it is only the middle of November, but with Pitt off to a 1-2 start, with no signs of this ship being turned around, Stallings might as well start looking for a new place to hang his whistle.

He is already fired, if we are being honest, even if he has to finish out the season before it officially happens.