Analysis: On the brink of Selection Sunday, is Pitt starting to wear down?

A fair and accurate appraisal of Pitt’s first 33 games — and where it might land next week when the postseason takes shape — needs to include the team’s roster issues.

After losing three scholarship players, did Pitt get worn down? The Panthers were 8-1 from mid-January to mid-February, but they lost four of their next seven games.

Coach Jeff Capel recently called for better defense, and the numbers reflect his concern. In the first 26 games, Pitt allowed 67.5 points per game; the average jumped to 81.7 over the past seven.

Capel’s recent rotation largely has included eight players, including two freshmen who need to get stronger, given the physical requirements of the college game.

Nike Sibande is the ACC’s best sixth man, by perception and reality. He won the conference’s award by that name, and he often gave the lineup a major boost of energy and athleticism when he came off the bench.

Guillermo and Jorge Diaz Graham offered more as freshmen than anyone could expect. Guillermo scored 14 points and grabbed eight rebounds in 28 minutes in Thursday’s loss to Duke. He and his twin have a strong basketball IQ and one day could be two of the cornerstones of the program.

Pitt’s bench, in fact, outscored the starters, 41-28, in the ACC Tournament game against Duke. But the Blue Devils prevailed 96-69.

Jorge Diaz Graham and Nate Santos, a sophomore shooting guard, played fewer minutes in the 20-game ACC season than they did in the 13 nonconference and tournament games. Jamarius Burton played nearly 35 minutes per game during the ACC regular season.

Leaning heavily on starters makes sense. Of Pitt’s 22 games against conference opponents, 16 were decided by single-digit margins.

The question with no answer is this: Would the season have evolved differently if John Hugley, William Jeffress and freshman Dior Johnson provided crucial minutes?

Injuries and personal problems got in the way, and Capel said those players’ absences changed some planning at the outset of the season.

“It took us a little bit of time to figure out who we were and who we had to become with three guys that you thought would have a significant role in the rotation,” he said.

The plan was to build the team around Hugley and to include Johnson in the guard rotation. Jeffress would have helped, too.

“Coming into the season, I thought Will would be our best defender and our most versatile defender. He was playing really well this summer,” Capel said.

To be clear, Pitt still might have lost to Duke, but with Hugley’s muscle, it might have been a fair fight.

Now, the Panthers’ paint presence is further compromised by an injury of unknown severity to Federiko Federiko’s knee. He played only 12 minutes against Duke.

“He did tweak his knee in (Wednesday’s) game,” Capel said. “I didn’t like the way he was moving (Thursday), and we just decided to sit him.”

Despite a spectacular improvement over past seasons, there will be some nervous people inside Petersen Events Center on Sunday when the NCAA Tournament committee reveals its bracket. After the 27-point loss to Duke, Pitt (22-11) fell from No. 56 to No. 67 in the NCAA Net rankings and sat at No. 77 in KenPom on Friday morning.

Pitt fans don’t need to be reminded of the math: The committee takes only 68 schools.

Would the committee place Pitt in the First Four in Dayton against suddenly resurgent Penn State? Joe Lunardi’s ESPN bracketology is leaning that way, but he projects Pitt to play another Big Ten team, Rutgers, in a Dayton matchup of No. 11 seeds.

Less than a week ago, Pitt was one victory from winning the ACC regular-season championship and would have done so if Blake Hinson’s barely short 3-pointer against Miami had found net.

Dayton is a consolation prize, but it would be a better outcome than the NIT.