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Updated 56 minutes ago
Change in the Pitt basketball program has taken many forms this season.
It has been subtle: Coach Kevin Stallings doesn't wander onto the playing surface during games as far as the controlling Jamie Dixon did. Though Stallings started to step out farther during a 66-63 loss to Virginia Tech on Tuesday.
Change also can be jarring: Stallings is unafraid to hold players accountable — in a public manner — when their efforts are short of expectations. “They did not play hard enough to get tired,” he said after the loss to the Hokies. Dixon kept most of his critical thoughts to himself.
Some change can be quantified.
• Pitt's home losses have doubled over the previous 14 years at Petersen Events Center (from an average of 2.5 per season to 5).
• Home attendance (an average of 8,023) is declining for a third consecutive season and is at its lowest point since the Pete opened in 2002.
• Pitt (14-12, 3-10) was 19-7, 8-6 at this time a year ago.
Some matters are unchanged.
Pitt's two leading scorers — Michael Young and Jamel Artis — are the same and scoring at a greater rate than last season.
Entering Pitt's penultimate home game Saturday at the Pete against No. 17 Florida State, Young leads the ACC with an average of 20.6 points — up 4.9. Artis is third in the conference (19.7, an increase of 5.3).
Stallings was praised by the man who hired him, former athletic director Scott Barnes, as a coach who “plays a fun, up-tempo style that players love and fans will enjoy.”
But one analytic doesn't support that thought. Pitt ranks 290th in adjusted tempo — possessions per 40 minutes — with an average of 66. That's down slightly from Dixon's final season at Pitt (66.1). Scoring is up from 75 per game to 76.2.
Stallings offered players more offensive freedom at the outset of the season but reined them in as a response to their current 2-9 slump.
“If I don't direct every possession, we have no flow,” he said.
Hired nine days after Pitt's last game of the 2015-2016 season, Stallings inherited a roster without quality depth. Then, he has done without top reserve Ryan Luther, who will miss his 10th consecutive game Saturday with a foot injury.
But it's largely the same starting lineup. Four of the five players who logged the most minutes last season — Young, Artis, Sheldon Jeter and Chris Jones — are among the top five this year.
The missing piece is former point guard James Robinson, who had 166 assists in 2015-16. Artis, playing out of position at point guard, leads the team with 88 assists.
Perhaps, Pitt's players were met with too much change too quickly. Virginia Tech coach Buzz Williams believes that's a possibility.
“Those guys have been here a long time and here comes coach (Stallings),” Williams said. “And Jamie had done a great job for a long, long time, had become an establishment in many respects, in my opinion.
“You have a team full of guys that their whole career have only heard one voice and only know one style of play. And have (played for), for the most part, that former point guard who was here, an assistant for Jamie (Brandin Knight), he was an assistant for all those guys.
“Everything's been the same. When you're as experienced as those guys are and now, all of sudden, everything that you've known relative to Pitt, other than where you live, changes, that's a lot.”
It's fair to note Williams and Stallings are friends.
“I mean this in the right way, and I know coaches are supposed to take up for coaches,” he said. “I said this when we played coach when he was at Vanderbilt: He's a top-five offensive coach in the country, period.”
Jerry DiPaola is a Tribune-Review staff writer. Reach him at jdipaola@tribweb.com or via Twitter @JDiPaola_Trib.
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