Perhaps it was a sign of growth and maturity that Xavier Johnson willingly admitted Wednesday — on his 21st birthday and the first day Pitt officially opened basketball practice — his head might have been somewhere else last season.

“I learned last year I was really stuck on myself a lot,” Pitt’s junior guard said. “I was thinking about going to the next level (NBA). This year, I’m going to keep my head down and stay grounded.”

He said he wants to become “a better teammate” while Pitt shoots for its first winning season since 2016.

“I realized last year I wasn’t the best teammate,” said Johnson, whose scoring average dipped from 15.5 points per game as a freshman to 11.7. “I was an OK teammate. I want to change my attitude and help my teammates on and off the court.”

Thanks to the covid-19 pandemic, games won’t start until Nov. 25, and coach Jeff Capel said his schedule isn’t finalized. He added it won’t include a bubble.

But when the cover first comes off the team, presumably on the night before Thanksgiving, the belief is there will be more:

• Players with length, which could be the key to a stronger defense.

• Size in the paint, which should help Pitt become a better team on the boards than the one that averaged only 22.2 defensive rebounds per game last season (345th of 350 schools nationwide).

• Shooting ability to improve on a 40.4 shooting percentage (326th in the nation).

Johnson plans to be a big part of that improvement, and not just as a point guard who will be expected to facilitate others and score himself. He also doesn’t want to see sophomore Justin Champagnie, the team’s leading scorer at 12.7 per game, to fall victim to high expectations. The two players talk regularly.

Johnson, who was nicknamed “Hollywood” by his coaches last season, said he has told Champagnie to “never get too big of a head.”

“That’s one thing I’m going to stay on him constantly about. I don’t want him to do the same thing I did and be stuck in the same spot, which isn’t a bad thing. But I just don’t want him to be me. Honestly, I want him to do better.”

Capel said Champagnie can learn from Johnson’s sophomore experience.

“It’s very different when you’re playing with expectations,” Capel said. “Sometimes, that can get the best of you Sometimes, you’re getting patted on the back and everyone‘s telling you how good you are, and that can make you a little bit soft.

“That can make you feel yourself a little bit, and you don’t do things as hard as you normally did.”

Capel’s roster has several ingredients he believes are important to a winning team.

For the first time in three seasons under Capel, there is a full complement of 13 scholarship players, including Johnson, Au’Diese Toney and Terrell Brown. Capel said they pass along to the others “a little bit better understanding of what it is we do and how we do things.”

Sophomores Champagnie, Karim Coulibaly and Gerald Drumgoole Jr. are a year older after getting a sense last season of what college basketball demands.

The freshman class of John Hugley, William Jeffress, Max Amadasun, Noah Coller and Femi Odukale increases depth off the bench, giving Capel options he didn’t have in his first two seasons, especially in the paint with Amadasun, 6-foot-10, and Hugley, 6-9.

Johnson said he was impressed by the freshmen’s athleticism, noting the 6-8 Collier “can really jump out of the gym.”

Odukale’s early contributions might be limited while he recovers from a broken arm suffered in a moped accident in August. Capel said Odukale is participating only in noncontact drills.

Guard Ithiel Horton, a 6-3 transfer from Delaware who sat out last season, should help replace Trey McGowens, who left for Nebraska. Horton shot 40.3% from 3-point range as a freshman in 2018-19.

Meanwhile, Capel hopes to add 6-4 senior guard Nike Sibande, a transfer from Miami (Ohio) where he scored 20 or more points in 26 career games.

Johnson compares Sibande’s talent to the Memphis Grizzlies’ Ja Morant, the second overall pick in the 2019 NBA Draft. Capel is bit more reserved in his assessment, but he’s hoping Sibande wins his appeal after the NCAA denied a waiver request for immediate eligibility.

“He gives us a guy who’s had experience on the college level in the backcourt,” Capel said. “He gives us another guy who can help create offense for us.”

If it all comes together, Johnson said he has only one stated goal:

“I want to put a banner up on the rafters (of the Petersen Events Center),” he said. “That’s my job right now. That’s the only goal I have on my mind.”

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