Pat Skerry, who this year served as an assistant to head coach Jamie Dixon on Pitt's basketball team, has accepted the head coaching job at Towson University, the Post-Gazette reports. Skerry was only with Pitt for one year, and is hardly the first Pitt assistant coach to find a head coaching job elsewhere:
↵↵↵↵↵Skerry was hired at Pitt to replace Tom Herrion, who became the head coach at Marshall University last spring. Skerry is the fifth assistant coach under Dixon to move on to a head coaching position. Barry Rohrssen, Joe Lombardi and Mike Rice also were hired as head coaches after working for Dixon.
↵
↵↵A lot of thinking to do. Very upset. When the going gets tough the tough get going. Will see whats in store.
↵
It would be a terrible blow to Pitt if Birch decided to go elsewhere. (Thanks to Pitt Script for finding the tweet.)
↵As for Skerry, a job at Towson, even a head coaching job, doesn't exactly seem like a prize. Towson is in the Colonial Athletic Association (a conference with which Skerry will be familiar, having been an assistant at William & Mary), and the Tigers finished 4-26 last year, including 0-18 in conference.
↵UPDATE: Apparently Pitt assistant Brandin Knight is helping smooth things over with Birch:
↵↵Great talk with coach knight today really great coach.
↵