Stallings sees "a great start" at Pitt

Less than two months after he was hired to be Pitt’s basketball coach, Kevin Stallings hasn’t stopped moving much.

“It’s been fast, it’s been busy; just like it is whenever you take over a new job,” Stallings said Wednesday night at the Pitt script unveiling. “You just don’t have enough time. But it’s been exciting and exhilarating and there’s a great sense of energy around our program, around our players, around our staff, around the people that we come in contact with, the recruits.

“So it’s really gotten off to what I think is a great start, and hopefully we can just continue that and turn that into, first, a really good recruiting class this fall, and then obviously into a very good season.”

The tasks for Stallings to accomplish in his first eight weeks on the job are the ones facing every new head coach: hire a staff, assess the current program and hit the road recruiting. To that end, the coaching staff came together in about two weeks, the program assessment has been ongoing and the recruiting hit a high gear recently.

While Stallings extended a few offers shortly after arriving at Pitt, he and his assistants have been busy in the last few weeks, and the coaches have now sent out nearly 20 offers, mostly to recruits in the 2017 class.

That aggressive approach is key, Stallings said.

“I think you have to lay a foundation, whether you’re just trying to get started or you’ve been some place for a long time; you’re constantly trying to maintain contact and develop relationships. You want to get to know the area high school coaches, you want to get to know the area AAU programs and the other ones in the key places where you know you’re going to be recruiting a lot.

“So that part has gone well, even though we haven’t gotten to as many people yet as we want to get to, and that’s where the time thing comes in; you need some time to be able to have some coaches over and be able to host them and talk with them and get to know them and things like that. But the reception with the people that we have gotten in contact with has really been phenomenal.”

In fact, Stallings said he has been impressed with the reception he and his assistants have received on the road this spring.

“The brand has far exceeded what I expected and the reception has been really fantastic,” Stallings said. “You don’t know, especially when you have been some place for a very long time, you really stop paying attention to other people.

“The (Pitt) brand matters. Kids are aware of it and they know about it, so in the right places, we’re going to be able to be very effective with the right kids, I think. So we’re just trying our best to target which kids those are and which programs those are and that sort of thing. But we feel like we’re off to a good start with that.”

In terms of Pitt branding, the Athletic Department took a step toward unification Wednesday night when it rolled out new uniforms for all sports that will feature the script Pitt logo. Stallings is new to everything Pitt, logos included - “I didn’t really get used to the old ones so I’m all about the new ones,” he joked - but he sees the value in having an updated look.

“I think that when kids look at your whatever it is - your facilities, your gear, your uniforms, the place you play, where you practice, your locker rooms, any of that stuff, I think that all makes a difference. You’re trying to sell something that you want to appeal to a certain clientele. Now, is it going to be the reason they come here? No. But it’s a part of the product that you put forth so you hope that they like it.”

The revamping of the uniforms was a process that started well before Stallings was hired - or the job was even open. But like a lot of new coaches, Stallings is looking at making some updates of his own. Pitt renovated the basketball team’s locker rooms in the last two years, but with the support of Athletic Director Scott Barnes, Stallings hopes he can do something similar to what Pat Narduzzi has done with the football program’s facilities in the South Side.

“There are some things that we definitely want to do,” Stallings said Wednesday. “As a matter of fact, just today I went over to football, to Pat’s place, and he showed me all the way through it, everything they had done and what it looked like before and what it looks like now, and there are several things that we would like to do with some of our facilities that hopefully will duplicate in a lot of ways what they’ve done, because their stuff looks unbelievable.

“So we have some great ideas. We’re confined a little bit from an office standpoint, in terms of space. But we’ve got some ideas that, if we can get Scott and some of the key people to go for them, we’re going to do some renovating and make some changes.”

To get those changes done, Stallings needs support from Barnes and the upper levels of the University. He feels like he’s got that support, and that’s key as he moves forward in his first year as head coach. But he’s also enthusiastic about what he has seen on a micro level: the people around Barnes and the Athletic Department.

“One of the things that has stood out to me the most is, Scott has put together, in my opinion, a great team,” Stallings said. “I know that’s been mostly people that he kept that were here before and some additions, but he’s put together, in my opinion, a great team of people.

“That’s been the most exciting thing, really, for me, is to get to work with the caliber of people that he’s hired and that are here that really understand their roles and try to do them. Because we’re all here for the benefit of the student-athletes; everything that we do, we all have jobs because of the kids, not because of us. I get a great sense here that everybody here understands, our job is to help them be successful.

“That’s what everybody seems like they’re locked into doing, and like I said, that’s the part that has stood out to me the most.”