Lyke says basketball program on track
largely of freshmen and firstyear Division I players. That fall from grace, both in Stallings’ first season and toward the end of former coach Jamie Dixon’s decorated 13year tenure, has raised concerns about where the program is headed and has prompted questions about what Lyke can do to remedy those problems.
What started as a pointed question in their lengthy meeting together has developed into what Lyke believes will be a healthy and productive partnership with her basketball coach that will, if all goes right, lead to a future brighter than the unappealing present.
“My biggest question to him was does he want to be here? Because if he wants to be here, we’re going to help him be successful,” Lyke said Tuesday in a meeting with the media at Petersen Events Center. “There was nothing uncertain about his response and his commitment level to being here at Pitt and wanting to build our basketball program back up.”
The story surrounding the Panthers roster is wellunderstood. Four seniors from a 2016-17 team that finished 16-17 graduated. Five others transferred, four of whom ended up at lowerlevel Division I schools or junior colleges. One other was dismissed. Another — Class of 2017 point guard Aaron Thompson — left the program before setting foot on campus. It was a high level of turnover on the heels of an underwhelming first season for an unpopular coaching hire.
Stallings’ second Pitt team will include at least seven freshmen, a group that will be tasked with competing in the unforgiving ACC. While Lyke oversees the situation, she’ll be patient — but, as she noted, there’s realistic concern to go along with her realistic confidence.
“If you look at the team, it’s a complete rebuild,” she said. “He’s going to need a little time to develop it. But we’ve got to be headed in the right direction. There are some things that have got to get better. I’ve already seen those things start to happen.”
Such widespread changes create a level of uncertainty, but they also provide something of a silver lining for Stallings. The players he now has are unquestionably his own, ones tailored to his scheme and his coaching style.
With his 10-player recruiting class has come a level of enthusiasm from Stallings that wasn’t always evident last season, something Lyke noticed when Stallings spoke about incoming freshman guard Parker Stewart, who signed with the program earlier this month.
“When he describes him, he’s like ‘Heather, I love this kid. I cannot wait to coach him. I’m so glad he’s a part of our program,’” she recalled. “Coaches don’t say that if they don’t genuinely mean that. I think he’s really excited about the program he’s building.”
In an attempt to humanize the Panthers’ secondyear coach, the athletic department has had a number of donor events to get Stallings involved and engaged with some of the university’s boosters. He is scheduled to throw the first pitch before a Pirates game in August at PNC Park. About a month ago, Stallings and five of his freshmen met with the athletic department’s fan committee, a meeting in which he had his players introduce themselves and talk at length about themselves and why they chose Pitt.
“There are ways we’re intentionally getting him in front of audiences that he just didn’t have the chance to get in front of maybe before,” she said.
Even if the public image of Stallings doesn’t improve based on in-person encounters, it will if he starts winning big and doing it consistently, a fact not lost on Stallings or Lyke.
The answer to that question will be determined, in large part, by the players he has ushered into the program, and the road back to relevancy will be a longer and trying one. Lyke, who said she isn’t fond of what’s generally required for quick fixes, prefers that route. Right now, she believes that chore can be carried out by Stallings, whose car she said she almost always sees parked at Petersen Events Center when she arrives in the morning and after she leaves at night, sometimes as late as 11 p.m.
It’s the level of commitment she hoped for when she asked him that question several months ago.
“I think we both walked out of the room thinking we could work effectively together,” Stallings said in an interview in May. “I know I felt that way. In subsequent meetings and seeing things she has said publicly, I’m confident she felt that way.”