Jamie Dixon's Tournament Troubles
Jamie Dixon, you are a better coach than that. You really can't win in the NCAA Tournament? Virtually never.
Dixon has been at Pittsburgh since 2003 and has had a brilliant regular season career. He has been Big East Coach of the Year twice. He was national coach of the year in 2008-9. He is tied for the record of most wins by a coach in his first seven years and has won two regular season Big East Championships and one Big East Tournament Championship.
Dixon is an amazing recruiter, especially in New York City. But he can't win in the NCAA's. In 2009 he had his only Elite Eight run, but he was a no. 1 seed and fell to conference rival Villanova. Today his Panthers fell in the first round of the Tournament, badly to Wichita State, 73-55. It was never close. True, his team won the CBI last year, but that isn't exactly the NCAA Tournament. Dixon has had too much talent to have never made a Final Four.
There is talk that Dixon is in the mix for the USC job. There is also talk that Dixon's old boss at Pitt and current UCLA head coach, Ben Howland might want to return to Pitt. While at UCLA he took his team to three consecutive Final Fours and a National Championship game in 2006. Pitt fans might not be that unhappy.
