Pittsburgh Recruiting, Ray Mernagh

BRANDIN KNIGHT TALKS ABOUT RECRUITING THE ‘PITT WAY’

*********Follow NBE Sports on Twitter: http://twitter.com/NBESports*****

by RAY MERNAGH

Brandin Knight is in the perfect place as an assistant coach. As a point guard he engineered the return of on-court success for the Pittsburgh program while watching his current boss Jamie Dixon (along with UCLA’s Ben Howland) build a system that the program is now admired for.

That system gives anyone deemed good enough to enter it an excellent opportunity at success — both in the Big East and beyond. So it makes sense that Knight, along with associate head coach Tom Herrion, now goes out on the road looking for players that are the proverbial “good fit” at Pitt.

Honestly, when it comes to kids being able to handle the Pittsburgh way, who would know better than Knight? Pitt has the reputation of bringing in underrated players and developing them into impact guys. But certainly there’s more to it than that, what with the number of guys that have come into the program and excelled — all while the fans worry about the lack of “elite recruits” the Panthers have gotten.

I mean, don’t you think more than a few coaches, in retrospect, would jump on players like Chevy Troutman, Carl Krauser, Knight, not to mention those three guys now in the NBA (Aaron Gray, DeJuan Blair and Sam Young).

Of course they would.

“I think where we do a good job in recruiting is we recruit guys who we like and not necessarily guys that someone else told us to like,” says Knight. “What I’ve found now is even guys that might not be as highly touted is that when we start recruiting them, a lot of other big schools start recruiting them because they’ve probably seen what we’ve done with guys like Sam and DeJuan and Chevy and how they became impact players here.” Knight’s points are spot on, particularly with Blair and other schools jumping on kids that Pitt shows interest in.

I had one D-1 head coach tell me that if Blair didn’t lose weight he’d be an average MAC-level player, never mind the Big East. But Blair didn’t really lose that much weight while at Pitt, yet he was a dominant force (a consensus First Team All American and Co- Big East Player of the Year). To be fair, Blair was also pursued hard — mainly because his spring performance before his senior year in high school was eye-opening — by Bruce Pearl at Tennessee and Kelvin Sampson at Indiana.

Cameron Wright is a member of the 2010 Pitt recruiting class and was once a part of Ohio State’s plans until an injury, and the assistant recruiting him leaving OSU for a head job, caused the Buckeyes to pretty much ignore him until he got the picture. Pitt jumped on Wright quickly, and the athletic combo guard soon had offers from Michigan State and Indiana, as well as Wisconsin.

Wright is now considered a “riser” on the national scene after his performance in the summer left little doubt about his health or talent. Look for Wright to skyrocket this season, paticularly if he gets off the way I think he will against some very highly-rated talent on his high school schedule. Jeff Borzello just wrote recently that 2011 Pitt verbal John Johnson was outstanding in the Eddie Griffin Challenge event that features the top Philly kids versus the top Jersey kids.

Dixon and the staff have a formula for recruiting and they don’t deviate from it — the talent has steadily improved but the mold they work from has stayed the same. “You’ve gotta recruit guys that fit your style and your program,” says Knight, “we want guys that are gonna work hard, defense is the other half of the game so you have to play it!”

Jamie Dixon believes this freshmen class will turn out to be the best he’s ever had. Think about that for a second because that’s a bold statement. The class includes three big men and a wing — including that elusive 5-star recruit and Mickey D’s All American Dante Taylor. A class that might answer the how do we get past this heartache that Pitt suffered at the hands of Scottie Reynolds last season.

Meaning, you get past it by absorbing that loss and learning from it so the next time you breakthrough to another level. Knight has some interesting things to say about the newcomers that Pittsburgh hopes can help them do just that.

“They’re all unique,” says Knight, “Dante’s (Taylor) very good running the floor and finishing out on the break. JJ Richardson is very physical, loves to bang but he can step out and knock down a jumpshot. Talib Zanna is the more skilled of the three big guys, he can shoot the three, he can put the ball on the floor, he’s got some sneaky stuff in his game. Lamar Patterson is very cerebral and understands the game, it comes easy to him when they play 5-on-5. I think they all bring their own flavor to the game and I just hope it all comes together again like it has the last several years.” Allow me to be the first to dub the new group the “Flavor Unit” in honor of Knight’s Jersey roots.

“We’re not looking for a one year hit,” says Jamie Dixon, “but just to continue to build and make people proud of our program and proud of our players and keep the seats filled. When you start replacing players that’s the sign of a program and I think we’ve obviously gotten to that point.”

They’ve done it the Pitt way — a way that works, rankings be damned!
————————

Attention Big East and college basketball fans! Please follow the link below and vote in the Capital One Mascot Challenge! You can vote once a day, every day. Do not forget to write-in for your school’s mascot as well! Your participation will help support NBE Sports!

THANK YOU!