As we continue the long conversation over what went wrong this season and how Pitt fell well short of its goals and expectations, I wanted to get the board's take:
What three (or two or one or four) things would you have changed to get a more positive outcome?
You can save the "Fire the head coach" replies because that's not really very useful or relevant to the question. Given the personnel on the team and how it was used, what would you change?
A few answers I would offer - and I suspect we'll see in this thread - as well as a few potential retorts to those:
1. The center position
I'm guessing this one will come up a lot, and not undeservedly so. I've been on board with a more even split of minutes at the 5 between Guillermo Diaz Graham and Cam Corhen. I think that would be a net positive. But I also question the ceiling on how much improvement that would offer. Even if Guillermo offers an upgrade in defense and rebounding, I'm not sure it's a big enough difference to change too many single-game outcomes. And while a lot of people questioned Guillermo's projected usage in the offseason, most of those questions centered on Guillermo's shortcomings - that he couldn't defend the 4 - rather than him being a clearly superior option at the 5.
Either way, I think he can defend and rebound a little better than Corhen, but not all that much. I know the numbers favor him, but I also know he still gets pushed around quite a bit. Corhen isn't exactly a physical presence in the post either, so I guess I'm saying that I don't think either is a great option for the issues that have emerged this season.
2. The bench
It was simply never developed. Brandin Cummings averaged 19 mpg in the 7 games when Damian Dunn was out and then almost immediately went back down to single digits. Amsal Delalic averaged 17 mpg without Dunn and has only played in 6 games since Dunn's return. Papa Amadou Kante has played in 20 games and logged double-digit minutes in just 5 of those. Jorge Diaz Graham has played 5 minutes or fewer in nearly half of Pitt's games (13 of 27).
Would Cummings or Delalic or Kante or Jorge have been the difference yesterday against Notre Dame? Maybe, maybe not. Pitt's biggest issue - defensive breakdowns - wasn't going to be cured by those guys, at least in their current stages of development. But that last phrase - "current stages of development" - is the important one.
Maybe if those guys were getting more minutes over the course of the season, they would be better-prepared by now. Coaches always say that freshmen stop being freshmen around January or so, but that only works if they're actually playing. For whatever reason, Jeff Capel has had no faith in his bench; that's either an indictment on how the roster was assembled on how it has been used this season. And it's probably both.
3. Develop a second ball-handler
This ties into No. 2 and developing the bench, but I think Pitt needed another point guard this season - either to move Jaland Lowe off the ball from time to time or simply to get him rest. I suppose Damian Dunn was supposed to be that, but when Dunn got hurt Brandin Cummings was only averaging less than 20 mpg while Lowe was still clocking in the high 30's every game. I understand that Capel didn't want to take his best players off the court, but there has to be a balance where the best players are leading the team but the bench is being grown and developed at the same time.
Here again, I don't know if Cummings' emergence as a legitimate 1 helps the defense, but Lowe's inefficiency has been a pretty big issue this season (right behind defense and rebounding, but not all that far behind and possibly in between those two). Getting someone else who can take more minutes there could have gone a long way, I think.
So this is part of bench development but it's also specific to the need at point guard, which wasn't the strength it was supposed to be.
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I think this team's biggest issue is defense, followed closely by too-long spans of inefficient offense and poor rebounding. Some of this falls on roster construction and some of it falls on roster deployment. But ultimately, it's all disappointment for a team that should have been much better than it is.
So what would you change? What could have been done better?
What three (or two or one or four) things would you have changed to get a more positive outcome?
You can save the "Fire the head coach" replies because that's not really very useful or relevant to the question. Given the personnel on the team and how it was used, what would you change?
A few answers I would offer - and I suspect we'll see in this thread - as well as a few potential retorts to those:
1. The center position
I'm guessing this one will come up a lot, and not undeservedly so. I've been on board with a more even split of minutes at the 5 between Guillermo Diaz Graham and Cam Corhen. I think that would be a net positive. But I also question the ceiling on how much improvement that would offer. Even if Guillermo offers an upgrade in defense and rebounding, I'm not sure it's a big enough difference to change too many single-game outcomes. And while a lot of people questioned Guillermo's projected usage in the offseason, most of those questions centered on Guillermo's shortcomings - that he couldn't defend the 4 - rather than him being a clearly superior option at the 5.
Either way, I think he can defend and rebound a little better than Corhen, but not all that much. I know the numbers favor him, but I also know he still gets pushed around quite a bit. Corhen isn't exactly a physical presence in the post either, so I guess I'm saying that I don't think either is a great option for the issues that have emerged this season.
2. The bench
It was simply never developed. Brandin Cummings averaged 19 mpg in the 7 games when Damian Dunn was out and then almost immediately went back down to single digits. Amsal Delalic averaged 17 mpg without Dunn and has only played in 6 games since Dunn's return. Papa Amadou Kante has played in 20 games and logged double-digit minutes in just 5 of those. Jorge Diaz Graham has played 5 minutes or fewer in nearly half of Pitt's games (13 of 27).
Would Cummings or Delalic or Kante or Jorge have been the difference yesterday against Notre Dame? Maybe, maybe not. Pitt's biggest issue - defensive breakdowns - wasn't going to be cured by those guys, at least in their current stages of development. But that last phrase - "current stages of development" - is the important one.
Maybe if those guys were getting more minutes over the course of the season, they would be better-prepared by now. Coaches always say that freshmen stop being freshmen around January or so, but that only works if they're actually playing. For whatever reason, Jeff Capel has had no faith in his bench; that's either an indictment on how the roster was assembled on how it has been used this season. And it's probably both.
3. Develop a second ball-handler
This ties into No. 2 and developing the bench, but I think Pitt needed another point guard this season - either to move Jaland Lowe off the ball from time to time or simply to get him rest. I suppose Damian Dunn was supposed to be that, but when Dunn got hurt Brandin Cummings was only averaging less than 20 mpg while Lowe was still clocking in the high 30's every game. I understand that Capel didn't want to take his best players off the court, but there has to be a balance where the best players are leading the team but the bench is being grown and developed at the same time.
Here again, I don't know if Cummings' emergence as a legitimate 1 helps the defense, but Lowe's inefficiency has been a pretty big issue this season (right behind defense and rebounding, but not all that far behind and possibly in between those two). Getting someone else who can take more minutes there could have gone a long way, I think.
So this is part of bench development but it's also specific to the need at point guard, which wasn't the strength it was supposed to be.
-----
I think this team's biggest issue is defense, followed closely by too-long spans of inefficient offense and poor rebounding. Some of this falls on roster construction and some of it falls on roster deployment. But ultimately, it's all disappointment for a team that should have been much better than it is.
So what would you change? What could have been done better?
