Pitt basketball ready to open season with a dose of physicality

At the outset of this century, Pitt basketball players patrolled the Petersen Events Center and Fitzgerald Field House floors with intensity and physicality. If a bit of blood appeared on someone’s jersey at practice, play on. Worry about it later in the locker room.

No wonder Pitt earned 10 consecutive NCAA Tournament berths and averaged 27.3 victories from the 2001-02 through the 2010-11 seasons.

No one is comparing this season’s Panthers to those teams, but there was an encouraging sign Friday at practice. Some blood appeared on redshirt freshman forward Papa Kante’s jersey.

Sophomore guard Jaland Lowe talked about it with reporters, likening Kante’s blood-stained jersey to a badge of honor. Nothing unusual, Lowe said. “It gets pretty intense,” he said of a typical practice.

“Papa was being Papa. Being loud, being ready, being physical, doing all the dirty things.

“It’s all love,” he said of the team’s camaraderie, “but when we step in between those lines, it’s war.”

Coach Jeff Capel’s seventh season at Pitt gets underway Monday at the Pete when the Panthers meet Radford of the Big South Conference in the first of 11 nonconference games. Tipoff is 7 p.m.

The team has been together since the early days of summer, but Lowe said a 71-62 victory in a recent scrimmage against Cincinnati reminded everyone to always play physical.

“Throwing the first punch,” he said. “That’s part of what we are. We take pride in that.”

Capel liked what he saw in the Cincinnati scrimmage, especially how his players handled opposing physicality.

“For me and for us, it was a chance to play against a really physical team,” he said. “That’s something we aren’t able to simulate in practice. We handled it well. Then, we didn’t handle well. And we handled it well again.”

Senior guard Ishmael Leggett said the toughness he’s seen among his teammates is “on another level.”

“Pittsburgh tough is something I think of.”

One issue, though. “Collectively, as a team,” Capel said, “we need to rebound the basketball better.”

Pitt will have a different look this season, with leading scorers Blake Hinson and Bub Carrington chasing NBA careers. But Pitt has another strong backcourt, a staple the past two seasons, but with a welcome twist. This time, the backcourt starts with experience.

“The one thing that’s different immediately is we have some returning guards,” Capel said.

Two years ago, he totally remade the backcourt with newcomers Nelly Cummings and Greg Elliott joining returning veteran Jamarius Burton. Nike Sibande was coming off an injury from the previous season.

Then, last year, there was another new backcourt with freshman guards Carrington and Lowe and transfers Leggett and Zack Austin. All four players were new to the ACC.

Lowe, Leggett and Austin bring experience. Graduate guard Damian Dunn, a 6-5 transfer from Houston, has been playing college basketball since 2019.

Dunn is a native of Kinston, N.C., and Capel, a native North Carolinian, knows about players from that part of the country.

“The one thing you have to be coming from there is tough if you’re a basketball player,” he said. “He got better last year (at Houston after transferring from Temple) without him even realizing it because it didn’t translate to the way he thought it would translate as far as points.”

Dunn went from averaging 15.3 points at Temple in 2022-2023 to 6.4 for Houston, a team that had four other players scoring between 9.5 and 15.5.

Capel likes the fact that Dunn will bring with him Houston’s culture that he said is one of the best in college basketball.

“That’s going to make him a better basketball player for us this year.”

Also included in the mix is freshman guard Brandin Cummings (Lincoln Park).

“He has some older guys who can really help him through this thing,” Capel said.

Hinson and Carrington are gone, but Capel still has the same trust in his players to take — and make — good shots. Four of the top six scorers from a year ago return, including junior forward Guillermo Diaz Graham.

“I don’t think we will have a guy who can make 110 (3-pointers) like Blake did,” he said, “but we can make as many or more than we did last year (when Pitt led the ACC with 317).

“All around the court, we have guys who can make them. Not just shoot them, but can make them. I don’t think we have a scholarship guy on the roster who I don’t trust shooting good 3-point shots. As long as we are generating them, I want our guys to have confidence taking them.”

Led by Lowe’s three 3-pointers, seven players hit from beyond the arc in the scrimmage against Cincinnati.

Capel is hoping to have more offensive punch in the paint, with Florida State transfer Cam Corhen replacing Federiko Federiko, who transferred to Texas Tech. Corhen averaged 9.4 points for the Seminoles last season and scored 25 against Pitt. He had 14 in the Cincinnati scrimmage.

“It may not be your traditional (low-post scoring) where you throw it to somebody, and they play with their back to the basket,” he said.

He will expect paint-area points coming in a variety of ways, including rebounds off the offensive glass and drop-off passes from guards. Plus, Dunn, Leggett and Lowe have shown an ability to score around the basket.

Meanwhile, players say they will be motivated this season by the perceived snub when they were not invited to the 2023 NCAA Tournament. Lowe called it “the gasoline we throw on the fire, and the fire’s getting bigger.

“We’re looking to leave no doubt.”