For all Jamie Dixon accomplished in his 13 seasons at Pitt — from the conference championships to the handful of deep NCAA tournament runs — his unprecedented tenure at the school was often beleaguered by criticisms of his offensive system.
If a game of word association between Pitt fans ensued and the term “Jamie Dixon offense” were presented, the answers would, in many cases, be biting. Boring. Slow. Unimaginative. Rigid.
Just once in those 13 years did his teams average more than 75 points per game (for context, Pitt averaged 75 points per game last season, which didn’t rank it among the top 100 Division I teams). While the Panthers were winning big and reaching the kind of heights the program hadn’t seen since before World War II, that relative lack of points was tolerated, especially as they were regularly touted as one of the stingiest defensive teams in college basketball. Once those win totals began to dwindle, as they did in Dixon’s final few years, the justification for those perceived offensive shortcomings waned and restlessness about the program’s decline grew.
At best, it was a dull style that did little to wow fans beyond its ability to help build a winning program. At worst, it was basketball played in quicksand, a grim scene of offensive incompetence that would, to some, be best broadcast on trains on a one-way route to a flaming inferno.
Perceptions exist for any number of reasons, but they’re not always correct or earned. Look no further than Dixon for proof of how a reputation, however unjustified it may be, can develop, how a coach labeled by some as offensively inept is anything but. Jamie Dixon, for any warts he may have, is statistically one of the top offensive coaches in college basketball.
In each of Dixon’s 13 seasons at Pitt, his teams were ranked in the top 50 in offensive efficiency in Division I by the end of the season and, outside of the 2009-10 team, they were never in any real danger of falling out of that group. In fact, Dixon’s only one of two coaches presently in one of the six major conferences — the ACC, Big Ten, Big East, Big 12, Pac-12 and SEC — that has had his teams finish in the top 50 in offensive efficiency every season since KenPom.com began keeping track of it in the 2001-02 season. The other? Mike Krzyzewski.
“If you look at his consistency over the years, it’s matched by very few coaches,” said Ken Pomeroy, the creator of KenPom.com, a popular college basketball statistical website. “To me, he was always vastly underrated.”
So how do we get to this point, where such a misconception exists and has existed for some time?
Much of it ties back to pace. In eight of Dixon’s 13 seasons, the Panthers ranked 300th or worse in Division I (which presently has 351 teams) in tempo. Their average ranking in those other five seasons, all of which came in Dixon’s first six seasons at the school, was 218, with Pitt never finishing higher than 160. Given that, the reason for the low scoring totals is pretty easy to understand — the fewer possessions that a team has, the fewer opportunities it has to score. It’s the reason why points per game is becoming a less reliable barometer and why metrics like points per possession and offensive efficiency are more prominent now than they were even five years ago.
There were shortcomings to the way Dixon’s offenses operated, sure, perhaps none more damning than the fact it made it harder to recruit a certain caliber of player that wanted more offense freedom. The perception of Dixon as an offensive coach, however, has less to do with his shortcomings than with the faulty way some still measure an offense’s effectiveness.
Dixon’s high standing in Pomeroy’s measurement isn’t due to any kind of glitch in the system, which basically just computes a team’s points scored and its possessions played, with an adjustment for how difficult its schedule is. While the trying schedules Pitt frequently faced in the Big East and later the ACC aided him a bit, 14 teams from outside the major conferences finished in the top 50 in offensive efficiency last season (and three such teams finished in the bottom 50). He didn’t arrive there every year simply by coaching in a strong league.
A couple of factors, though, did help buoy his teams in the rankings. The first was a lack of turnovers offensively while the second, and more important, was offensive rebounding. In each of Dixon’s 13 seasons, the Panthers were in the top 70 nationally in offensive rebounding percentage and in nearly half of those years (six), it finished in the top 10 in the category. Offensive boards not only get teams second-chance scoring opportunities close to the basket, but they’re effectively an extra possession that, based on the way possessions are calculated, isn’t counted as one.
I bring all of this with Dixon up not as a cruel way to remind Pitt fans they had a really good coach for more than a decade, but to clear up misconceptions that surrounded his tenure at the school because it has a bearing on the present. In Dixon’s first year at TCU, and 13 games into the season, the Horned Frogs are 47th in offensive efficiency and 15th in offensive rebounding percentage, up from 228th and 185th, respectively, at the end of last season.
Back at Pitt, for better or worse, the way he ran his program has a lasting impact, albeit far less of one than there would be if he were still roaming the sidelines. As Pitt players underwent the transition from Dixon to Kevin Stallings, the difference in styles was palpable.
“Guys are more comfortable out there,” guard Jamel Artis said. “With Jamie Dixon, I think guys were a little scared to make a play. Coach Stallings put the trust in these guys that you can go out there and make a play and have more freedom.”
The freedom of movement and slightly increased pace was a major point of discussion this past offseason. Even mild-mannered, soft-spoken Cam Johnson pitched in when he said “You don’t have to worry about somebody breathing down your neck on every shot” in early November, referencing Dixon’s tendency to remove players from the game if they attempted what he deemed to be a bad shot.
However, as we reflect on Dixon’s tenure and how it presently affects the Pitt program, the offensive efficiency and production of his teams cannot be overlooked or downplayed.
“I don’t know if there’s a Jamie Dixon Fan Club out there necessarily,” Pomeroy said, “but people that follow it closely and who care about Pitt basketball understand he was a pretty reliable offensive force.”
Craig Meyer: cmeyer@post-gazette.com and Twitter @CraigMeyerPG
First Published: January 3, 2017, 6:41 p.m.
