Jump Start
Can Pitt's On-Court Success Recharge Local Hoops?
By Ray Mernagh

Every year college coaches cast their lines into the Pittsburgh and western Pennsylvania recruiting pond for both Division 1 football players as well as Division 1 basketball players--Division 1 girls' basketball players, that is. Trying to figure out why this hotbed exists for football and girls' basketball, but doesn't translate to boys' basketball, has been the biggest mystery since Walter Mosley's "Devil in a Blue Dress." Most experts trace the fall off in D-1 prospects to the mid-to-late 80's--a time when residents of the area experienced the economic downturn that came with the steel mills' shutdown.

Hang around the Pittsburgh sports scene long enough and it's pretty much a guarantee that you'll eventually hear, "Pittsburgh isn't a basketball town."

Mike DeCourcy of the Sporting News agrees with the sentiment, but isn't happy about it. DeCourcy is both a native of Pittsburgh and a national expert on college basketball, who thinks the culture of western PA is the first place to look in trying to figure out the lack of basketball talent coming out of the Steel City.

"It's been a gradual decline since I covered high school basketball there in the mid-80's," says DeCourcy, "and it's gotten continually worse. It starts with the emphasis on football and how the athletes in that area turn to football first. Football was imbedded in the culture with the success of the Steelers and the quarterbacks that have come out of the area."

DeCourcy isn't alone in targeting the culture that exists here as a prominent reason why more basketball players aren't being produced.

John Miller is the longtime successful basketball coach at Blackhawk High School in Beaver County. Miller thinks a lot of the problems begin with the lack of organization within the basketball community in general, but especially within the city of Pittsburgh.

"The city of Pittsburgh is not producing the quality players like it used to," says Miller. "I'm not saying it's coaching, but I would say it's probably more organization. We should be putting 10-to-15 guys in D-1 out of the city of Pittsburgh per year."

Wanted: Crazy Hoops Guy

Miller points to the lack of that one "crazy hoops guy" that every city seems to have organizing its best players. "If you try to get something like that started here," says Miller, "you're gonna be looked at like you're infringing on some other sports, like why would you be doing this (basketball) at this time of year? This isn't what you're supposed to be doing."

To illustrate his point, Miller compares the Pittsburgh hoops scene with the one in Annapolis, Maryland, where his nephew plays AAU ball.

"My brother lives down there and his son is playing games constantly, like 700 a year, with three or four games on Saturdays and doubleheaders on Sundays," says Miller. "It's just wide open. My eighth-grade nephew has all these games under his belt before he ever gets to high school."

Then there's the Pittsburgh and western Pennsylvania development model.

"Here in western PA, you play 12-to-15 games with the middle school and, bing, you're done," says Miller. "Pack up the gear and throw it in the cage and we're done until tryouts next year."

In other words, time to get ready for baseball or football season.

DeCourcy reinforces Miller's view with a story from Memphis--a city that loves its basketball more than it loves Elvis. "In other cities the AAU club structure is very strong below the elite level," says DeCourcy. "I took my wife to an AAU event when we were living in Memphis and during halftime of one particular game they had little kids, like five-to-six years old, come out and play--and they were playing the game!" says DeCourcy, laughing. "I mean they were running an offense, rotating on defense, screening, it was obvious they were brought up in a basketball culture."

Cultivating A Culture

Can Pittsburgh and its surrounding areas transform into a basketball "culture"? Joe Butler is a local scout for both basketball and football who runs the Metro Index scouting service. He doesn't see the talent level coming back up to the level it was at 15-20 years ago anytime soon.

"A big problem in my opinion is loss of population," says Butler. "In 1970 Pittsburgh City Schools had 100,000 kids, but over the last 30 years that number has fallen to something like 33,000. Pittsburgh hasn't had a new school open in about 20 years, while the area around and east of Harrisburg has added multiple schools. There's growth there and no growth here."

Tellingly, Butler stopped all his basketball related camps--after 27 years--back in 1996. But as bleak as it seems, it's important to point out that the area isn't bone dry when it comes to major prospects.

Aliquippa's Herb Pope and Schenley's DeJaun Blair lead a group of promising local sophomores with the potential to be top national recruits. Whether they represent a changing landscape, though, is too early to tell. Each hopes to follow in the footsteps of Yough's Ben McCauley, who will attend N.C. State after a national recruiting battle that included the likes of Xavier and Pitt. National recruiting analyst Dave Telep of Scout.com thinks the perceived lack of area hoop talent is exaggerated.

"Obviously, the talent hasn't been pouring out of Pittsburgh, but these things are cyclical," says Telep. "Pope is a big time prospect. Blair is probably going to be one too. Combine those two with McCauley and you can see the area has made strides. But there's really no logical explanation when it comes to areas, except that maybe sometimes we become what we think we are."

The "culture" theory again.

Can Pitt Help?

Telep uses football-mad Texas as an example of how this can work the other way. "Right now basketball has taken off in Texas and talent is coming out of there at a prolific rate simply because it's become chic to play hoops in Houston," says Telep.

Which raises the question: could a sustained run of the success Pitt's program is now enjoying change the talent landscape of area hoops for the better? Could it spark a "crazy hoops guy" to organize and cultivate the talent that's going untapped in the city?

DeCourcy is skeptical. He points out that the greatest part of the decline in talent took place in the late 80's. "Charles Smith, Jerome Lane, Brian Shorter and Sean Miller did some great things at Pitt right around that time," says DeCourcy, "but that did not translate into more kids from the area playing basketball and playing it well."

John Miller is more optimistic. "What Pittsburgh needs is for the best talent to come together on one elite AAU team," says Miller, "that way we can go out nationally and compete in tournaments where kids will be seen."

McCauley started attracting big time attention after putting up 20 points on some North Carolina and Duke recruits at different national AAU events. If McCauley's success with the Pittsburgh JOTS AAU team is to be replicated more frequently, there needs to be a massive undertaking at the youth level.

The youth programs could serve as a feeder system into the elite AAU team Miller talks about, as well as the high school programs. Then, and only then, will you see a basketball culture emerge that can co-exist with the football culture that's already in place, along with the requisite talent base.

Anyone know a crazy hoops guy?

Ray Mernagh is the publisher of Hoopfactor.com and is authoring a book on the Mid-American Conference.