Pitt's Stallings Disappointed In 'Irresponsible Reporting' On Barnes
PITTSBURGH (93-7 The Fan)- University of Pittsburgh athletics department has been making quite a lot of local sports headlines lately.
First, Pitt football offensive coordinator Matt Canada left the school to take the same position at LSU.
Then, reports surfaced that Pitt Athletic Director Scott Barnes was on his way out the door to go to Oregon State, a school closer to where Barnes grew up in Spokane, Washington.
So far, Barnes is still at Pitt and the reports have proven not to be true. Pitt head basketball coach Kevin Stallings joined "The Fan Morning Show" Thursday and addressed the Barnes story right off the bat.
"It's disappointing when you read things and people are being irresponsible saying that something's happened because they're trying to jump the gun and I have personally been involved in such journalistic reporting and it's just not any good for anyone," said Stallings. "I was asked last night if I knew anything about it and my only thought was Scott Barnes is a complete professional and I feel like I would personally have known beforehand if he were to do anything like that and I had not heard anything, so I wasn't surprised to see this morning that he issued a statement saying that it was not true."
Pitt basketball does have a travel soft spot in its schedule coming up where the team will have five home games in a row, including two ACC games in Notre Dame and Virginia from Dec. 17th to Jan. 4.
"If we can take care of business at home, it would be really awesome," said Stallings. "But, we have some very, very tough games in that stretch and 26 days sounds like a long time, but it's a little watered down by the fact that we have Christmas break in there and finals week this week and some things like that, but we do have a few games in a row here at 'The Pete' which is awesome and I think as we roll into the schedule, they just continue to get a little more interesting."
Stallings would like to see a few things addressed in this next stretch of games.
"I think two things [need to improve], I think one is our ability to guard the ball and again, I think we have some limitations in that department, and then continued togetherness and team play on the offensive end," said Stallings. "I think we are getting closer with that. But, I think what happens is we tend to start games in a very free-flowing way offensively and even it seems like we play first halves that way very well to where the ball is moving, it's being sprayed around to different hands. And then in the second half, we tend to stand more, we tend to get more individualistic and so I think continued team play on the offensive end will help our team going forward and will be necessary against the better teams in our schedule."
You can hear the entire interview with Kevin Stallings on "The Fan Morning Show" below.