Men’s Basketball: Dixon receives contract extension

Despite another offseason of swirling rumors, Pitt men’s basketball Head Coach Jamie… Despite another offseason of swirling rumors, Pitt men’s basketball Head Coach Jamie Dixon isn’t going anywhere.

In fact, he’s staying at Pitt even longer as Athletic Director Steve Pederson announced yesterday that Dixon agreed to a two-year contract extension, keeping Dixon a Panther through the 2017-2018 season. Pederson declined to give out the monetary terms of the deal and wouldn’t say whether or not it included a raise from Dixon’s estimated $1.5 million deal that was to end after the 2015-2016 season.

“This is where I want to be, and this is where I always hope to be,” Dixon said yesterday.

Dixon has been on Pitt’s coaching staff for 11 years, including the last seven as the Panthers’ head coach. As head coach he’s led the panthers to a 188-54 record and seven consecutive NCAA Tournament appearances. He won Big East Coach of the Year in 2004 and Naismith Coach of the Year in 2009, when he led Pitt to a school-best 31-5 record and a trip to the Elite Eight.

This offseason, Dixon’s name was floated around as a possible candidate for job openings at DePaul and Oregon. In past years, Arizona, Arizona State and Southern California were just some of the other schools reportedly looking to pry Dixon away from Pitt.

“I’ve told Jamie I’d like to never have to hire another basketball coach,” Pederson said.

The rumors had nothing to do with announcing the extension, Pederson said.

“This is unrelated on anything except performance and our desire for him to be the coach here a long time,” he said.

Making sure people, whether fans or recruits, know Dixon will be at Pitt for a long time was a big reason for working on the extension, which Dixon said was first brought up during the middle of the season.

“The stability we’ve had in basketball here is part of the reason we are where we are,” Pederson said. “It’s key to continuing the accelerated climb of our program.”

Stability has been an issue for numerous men’s basketball programs, and continues to be as numerous coaches have already been fired. Just in the Big East, Seton Hall fired Bobby Gonzalez, St. John’s fired Norm Roberts and DePaul fired Jerry Wainwright in January and is still looking for a full-time replacement. Other coaches to get the axe after this season included Boston College’s Al Skinner, Iowa’s Todd Lickliter, Hawaii’s Bob Nash and Oregon’s Ernie Kent.

“In an age where there seems to be instability so much in coaching, it’s easy for young people to start to distrust what’s going to happen next,” Pederson said. “You can look at the University of Pittsburgh and say, ‘I’ve got pretty good assurances of what’s going to happen next.””

And next for Dixon and the Panthers is trying to improve on a year in which many feel they overachieved, tying for second in the Big East and reaching the second round of the NCAA Tournament. That seems like a good possibility for the Panthers — they only lose starter Jermaine Dixon and Chase Adams to graduation — no matter how many different schools are rumored to be interested in Jamie Dixon.

“I’ve been here 11 years, and I don’t know these [rumors] will ever stop,” he said. “It’s either one way or the other: They’re either getting rid of you or talking about going somewhere else.”