The first fan to arrive Wednesday night at the Petersen Events Center, or at least the first fan I noticed, walked in about an hour before the 9 p.m. tipoff.
He took his seat near the top of the building, a few rows under the giant American flag on the score-table side, and promptly fell asleep.
I nudged him awake with a simple question: “Why are you here?”
“Free ticket,” he said.
Fair enough. It was my first time in the building this season, too, and I’m frankly not sure I can find the words to convey the sorrow of the scene, as Pitt extended the longest losing streak in its 111-year basketball history to 16 games.
Wasn’t it like 20 minutes ago that Pitt basketball was as hot as any ticket in town? Listen hard enough and you can still hear the echoes of this joint jumping when the likes of UConn would visit.
“It was like a rock concert in here,” said Rick Drescak, 61, of White Oak, who sat with his buddy Ron Moran, 65, of Green Tree in Section 123.
Now it’s more like a Peter, Paul & Mary show circa 1965, although the loyalists heated up when Pitt threatened to beat a bad Wake Forest team before dropping a 63-57 decision. Drescak and Moran had a row to themselves. Just about everybody did.
Drescak has been a season-ticket holder since 1995. He’s not in the mood for a rebuild. Neither is Moran.
“We keep telling everybody we don’t have too many five-year plans left,” he said.
I guess I’ll start here with the on-court scene: They aren’t even announcing Kevin Stallings’ name independently anymore. Pitt used to introduce the coach — be it Ben Howland, Jamie Dixon or Stallings — after the players. Now it happens before the player intros in quick conjunction with “Pitt Panthers!” in an obvious effort to spare Stallings as many boos as possible.
The “Oakland Zoo” student section has been reduced to a miniature exhibit. It used to stretch across eight sections of Pete real estate. It no longer fills two on most nights.
The 15 smallest crowds in Pete history have come under Stallings’ watch. This was one of them — and at 2,420 the lowest of any conference game in the arena’s history.
On the opposite side of our sleeping friend sat one Doug Martin, a 59-year-old Plum resident and literally the only person in a three-section corner area of about 200 seats.
“I got my (season tickets) at the tail end of Jamie Dixon’s career here … and … oh well,” Martin said. “You gotta give (Stallings) a little time I guess.”
That’s a nice thought, but I’m guessing time is the one thing Stallings doesn’t have. He cannot possibly survive two years of this degree of disaster. Can he?
I asked Stallings if he's confident he’ll be asked to return.
“My confidence in that really is irrelevant,” he said. “It doesn’t matter what I think. It doesn’t matter. Those questions need to be asked to the athletic director.”
I would love to have queried Heather Lyke, but she wasn’t here to witness Pitt’s likely last best chance at a conference win. She was tweeting about what a wonderful time she was having at the Dapper Dan dinner and sports auction downtown.
Stallings, continuing on the question of job security, admitted “I’m not doing a good enough job” and added “I’m just not the right person to ask. … So we’ll keep coachin’ em, and I’ll keep doing what I’m supposed to do … until I’m told time’s up or whatever.”
Call me crazy, but he doesn’t exactly sound reassured.
And that makes sense. He was not Lyke’s choice but rather that of her predecessor, “West Coast Basketball Guy” Scott Barnes, who promised Stallings would “move the needle” with his (still-unseen) brand of exciting, uptempo basketball.
Stallings figured recruiting pipelines that were closed to him at Vanderbilt would burst open at Pitt. He may never get the chance to find out. The buyout on his six-year deal, if it’s not negotiated down, would be exorbitant — close to $10 million — but Lyke might consider it to be money well spent.
She has to be asking herself whether she can afford to keep Stallings as the fan base dwindles toward zero, not whether Pitt can afford to let him go.
I’m guessing Stallings is gone.
That might not be fair. I almost always believe a new coach deserves one natural recruiting cycle — four years — to make a case. But this has been far more horrifying than any reasonable person could have imagined.
One could argue this is Pitt’s worst team since its very first team in 1905-06, the one that lost a 106-13 squeaker to Westminster.
If they don’t win one of their final two games — against No.1 Virginia on Saturday or at Notre Dame next week — the Panthers will go winless in-conference for the first time. Which means 49 years of conference play.
Stallings’ conference record is 4-30. That is Hue Jackson territory.
I asked loyal Pitt fan Matthew Klocek of Mt. Pleasant, who sat with his mother, Carole, if he would renew his season-tickets, which he has held since the Pete opened.
He paused for a good five seconds.
“It’s debatable,” he said. “Depends on what the price is.”
If things keep going like this, free might be too expensive.
Joe Starkey: jstarkey@post-gazette.com and Twitter @joestarkey1. Joe Starkey can be heard on the “Starkey and Mueller” show weekdays from 2-6 p.m. on 93.7 The Fan.
First Published: February 22, 2018, 4:32 a.m.
