New Pitt coach wanted challenge
PITTSBURGH — Kevin Stallings spent 17 years at Vanderbilt, making the Commodores consistently competitive at a place where success had only been sporadic.
Yet the itch for a new challenge kept at bay for the better part of a decade kept nagging at him. When Pittsburgh athletic director Scott Barnes reached out looking for someone to replace Jamie Dixon, Stallings could no longer resist the urge to finally scratch it.
“There comes a point in your life if you don’t change, you’re never going to change,” Stallings said. “I kind of determined I wanted one more opportunity.”
And the Panthers wanted someone with a proven track record to improve its standing in the nation’s best basketball conference. Barnes introduced Stallings as Dixon’s successor on Monday, pointing to Stallings’ ability to navigate the unique landscape at Vanderbilt while becoming the school’s all-time winningest coach. It’s that track record — seven NCAA appearances and a 332-220 record — that Barnes will rely on after the Panthers hired the 55-year-old Stallings rather than a younger and lesser known commodity.
“I’m not going to hire a flash in the pan because it wins the press conference,” Barnes said. “I’m going to hire somebody who had less tools to work with and did a really good job in terms of the quality of student athletes he recruited there with the small pool to recruit from because of the academic standards and other limitations. The ceiling is much higher here.”
A ceiling the Panthers watched slip out of arm’s length during the final years of Dixon’s 13-year run. Pitt is just 28-26 in conference play since leaving the Big East for the Atlantic Coast Conference at the start of the 2013 season and has just one NCAA victory since 2010. Dixon left last week for TCU, and Barnes decided to hand the reins of the program over to another experienced coach, one that could potentially land recruits that were out of his reach at Vanderbilt.
Wearing a blue pinstripe suit with a white shirt and a blue-and-gold tie, Stallings joked he was “extremely upset” with Dixon for the high standard Dixon set while leading the Panthers to three Sweet 16s and an Elite Eight.
“I’m certainly not going to apologize for my record,” Stallings said. “Jamie obviously had great success and as I said before, our goal is to try to match and improve on it.”
Stallings was coming off a 19-14 season with the Commodores that ended with a 20-point loss to Wichita State in the opening round of the NCAAs, his fourth first-round exit in Vanderbilt’s last five trips to the tournament.
Stallings said he was scheduled to meet with Vanderbilt athletic director David Williams to discuss the future of the program.
