Pitt men’s basketball settled into deploying a mostly consistent starting lineup through 20 games played.
Seniors Damarco Minor and Cam Corhen have started all 20 games, as has true freshman Roman Siulepa.
After finding his stride over the first few weeks of the season, South Alabama transfer Barry Dunning Jr. has started 14 straight games with the aforementioned trio heading into Tuesday’s tipoff at home vs. Wake Forest.
But that continuity hasn’t been seen at the fifth and final spot of Pitt’s starting lineup.
“At that fifth spot, it’s kind of been rotating,” coach Jeff Capel said. “I’ve rotated that spot between Brandin (Cummings), between Nojus (Indrusaitis) and between Omari (Witherspoon). Who’s playing well? We haven’t had a game where all three of those guys have played well together and, so for me, it’s always kind of been searching.
“If one of them starts, but if one of the other ones gets in and he’s playing well, he’s going to play the most minutes.”
Most recently, it’s been Cummings who’s slotted back into the starting lineup, doing so the past two games as Pitt (8-12, 1-6 ACC) prepares for the Demon Deacons (11-9, 2-5).
Before Wednesday’s game at Boston College, Capel had used Cummings off the bench in seven straight contests.
The sophomore guard began the season in the starting lineup and, in total, has started eight games and come off the bench in nine.
Through 48 career games in a Pitt uniform, Cummings owns some of the best off-the-bench performances in program history.
On Dec. 7, he scored a career-high 34 points in relief vs. Hofstra, setting a new program record, previously held by Xavier Johnson, who dropped 32 off the bench against Virginia Tech in 2021.
Cummings also scored 29 points Jan. 10 vs. Syracuse and 23 four days later at Georgia Tech.
Strong bench performances by Cummings have not been exclusive to this season, either. Last year, as a true freshman, he scored 30 off the bench vs. Eastern Kentucky.
Cummings’ career-high points as a starter is 19, scored Nov. 2 against Longwood in Pitt’s second game of the season.
“The starting thing is interesting with certain players,” Capel said. “Some players are really into it. They can be different if they’re not starting. Some of them don’t care. Some of them, they want to hear their name called, especially at home and especially if they have family and friends that come to the game.”
Over his eight starts, Cummings is averaging 11 points per game. Witherspoon, who’s started 13, is averaging 7.0 in that role, compared to Indrusaitis’ 5.8 in five starts.
Cummings scored 11 points at Boston College on Wednesday and nine against N.C. State over the weekend, but shot only a combined 6 of 23 (26%) from the floor.
Whether Cummings starts Tuesday remains to be seen, but Capel doesn’t seem opposed to making more changes on the fly.
“I think he’s playing OK in the starter role the past couple of games,” Capel said of Cummings. “We may change it going forward for (Tuesday’s) game, but that’s kind of been my thought process.
“If you look at the numbers from the analytical standpoint — Brandin and Damarco, that’s a smaller backcourt — when we’ve been a little bit bigger the numbers are slightly better. We’ll figure it out. It may be a game-to-game thing as we go forward.”
