Each week during the 2018-19 season, Craig Meyer, the Post-Gazette’s Pitt basketball writer, will answer fan and reader questions about the Panthers. And some other stuff, too.
If you want to submit a question, you can email Craig at cmeyer@post-gazette.com or hit him up on Twitter @CraigMeyerPG.
Chad: Pitt's big men are, to me, sort of a nondescript crop. Kind of hard to tell one from the other and/or to pinpoint what they do better than each other. Can you provide any comps for Pitt's current bigs so fans have a frame of reference for them? And what their relative strengths & weaknesses and ceilings are? Like...Terrell Brown is kind of like...[Mark McCarroll?..but even that isn't right...]
Craig: I’m pretty spotty with player comparisons unless there’s one that really stands out. For Pitt’s current group of big men, I can’t say there’s any one player from the past any of them remind me of, especially since we’re in an age where traditional low-post players have been devalued a bit.
Part of that is on me and my lack of comparative creativity, but it’s also because, as you mentioned, it is a bit of a non-descript crop. If the best attributes from each of them were extracted and pieced together like a basketball Voltron, you’d have a nice player. Apart, though, it’s a scattered, uneven collection. Terrell Brown is the best player offensively, but he lacks a steady motor and looks slow and uncoordinated at times. Kene Chukwuka has that motor, but, for all the muscle he has added, he still gets too easily nudged aside and still isn’t the outside shooter in games he purportedly is in practice. Peace Ilegomah is the most physically imposing, but he’s still incredibly raw and fouls too frequently to play extended minutes.
Through nine games, the three big men have combined to average just 11.5 points, 10.9 rebounds and 1.6 blocks in 41.1 minutes per game. Both offensively and defensively, we saw those limitations on display against Niagara, with the trio combining for nine points, five rebounds and a block in 37 minutes. Jeff Capel even had his team play a handful of minutes with 6-foot-6 Au’Diese Toney as the tallest Pitt player on the court. The big men, for now and likely for the rest of the season, stand as this team’s most glaring weakness, even if they turn in strong performances like they did against Iowa. For the Panthers, it’s a matter of making sure they can get enough from them and play a system that can disguise them well enough rather than ever truly relying on them.
Is Chukwuka going to continue playing the bulk of the minutes at the 5 spot
— Jeremy Ryan (@AngryJeremy) November 28, 2018
Craig: I think so. He’s averaging almost 10 more minutes than the next-closest big (Brown) and thus far, he has shown himself to be a more capable player than he was last season. He has improved as a rebounder and doesn’t seem to force up as many shots, plus he’s a tenacious worker, which isn’t the worst example to provide for younger players. If someone does usurp him, though, it would be Brown. He’s more offensively productive and is a better shot-blocker given his length.
Should there be more of a focus on getting at least 1 guard for next year? Bigs are a concern, but Brown held his own against veteran talent and we saw they'll be running pretty thin at the 1/2 without JWF and N'dir.
— Matty (@CommOverStairs) November 28, 2018
The zone appeared to really give us trouble. Any recruiting possibilities relative to outside shooting? They seem to be concentrating on bigs.
— MikeK (@kocis112) November 28, 2018
Pitt needs to land a big man for 2019. Who do you see them landing and do you see any possible reclassification targets?
— Pitt.MBB (@PittHoopsMBB) December 5, 2018
Any chance at getting Kofi? Probably wahab right
— Alex Neuman (@AlexNeuman10) December 5, 2018
Losing JWF and N’Dir next year opens up spots for shooters on the bench, are there any 2019 or grad transfer 3 point shooters that you see as likely Pitt targets?
— Cristiano Ranaldo (@LudaChristian25) December 5, 2018
Craig: It’s always ‘crootin season and when you have a coach that’s as accomplished in that area as Capel, it’s always worth monitoring.
Pitt will have at least three scholarships for next season, with Jared Wilson-Frame and Sidy N’Dir exhausting their eligibility, and with one open scholarship right now. I would venture to say they’ll have more openings than that with transfers, though it’s not fair to anyone at this point to speculate whom those might be.
Bigs, as we’ve touched on earlier, are clearly the Panthers’ biggest need (no pun intended). Kofi Cockburn is the highest-rated one they’re pursuing, at No. 33 in the class, though the prevailing wisdom seems to think UConn’s the favorite. That makes Qudus Wahab, a 6-foot-10 center ranked 129th in the class, the most likely target, as Pitt coaches have kept a strong focus on him, especially after Tyrese Samuel and Akok Akok recently committed elsewhere.
There are a number of guards Pitt has offers out to in the 2019 class and, as has been mentioned, there’s always the transfer market and the reclassification route to explore, though we’re still months away from having a solid idea of who specific options in those pools will be.
Wilson-Frame’s comments indicate a lack of focus and energy for Niagara...do you buy that or think it’s just a convenient excuse?
— John Enright (@johnenright46) December 5, 2018
Craig: Jared’s as authentic of a guy as I’ve covered, so I absolutely believe it. There were cop-outs and clichés available for him to turn to – we just didn’t have it tonight, it’s a make-miss game, all credit to Niagara – but the fact he used that public of a forum to say what he did, I think there was a genuine problem he feels can be corrected not only by the loss, but by issuing what was a effectively a public challenge to be better.
Do you think opposing teams are going to sit in a zone and make pitt hit some outsideshots?
— Barry J (@BarryJ23) December 5, 2018
Craig: There’s something to be said for sticking with what you do well – and for some teams, that’s playing man – but I’m surprised by the number of opposing teams that haven’t sat back in a zone against Pitt. The Panthers’ best and most effective offense is having one of its fast young guards, usually Xavier Johnson, penetrate and either finish at the rim or kick it out to an open teammate. In a zone, a defense would theoretically be more susceptible to giving up 3-pointers, but without the ability to simply blow past a defender, Pitt has more often than not been relegated to passing around the perimeter. I think they have the pieces, namely with a bigger player like Au’Diese Toney who could work from the top of the key, who can effectively pick apart a zone, though.
How dumb am I going to look trying to talk myself into "WVU looks vulnerable Pitt has a chance this weekend"
— First Place Fan (@AWMueller) December 5, 2018
What are the keys for a win in the City of Burning Couches this Saturday?
— John Welch (@johnbrianwelch) December 5, 2018
Craig: I think they’ve actually got a semi-reasonable chance of pulling off the win. West Virginia hasn’t lost to bad teams this year – Buffalo’s ranked, Florida and Western Kentucky are both talented – but it has its most losses through eight games since 2012, a season in which it finished 19-14. I don’t think this is the top-15 squad a lot of us, namely my fellow AP voters and I, foresaw back in October.
Whenever discussing the Eers, breaking the press is going to be the biggest key and I think with Johnson at point, Pitt has a player, young as he may be, that will be effective in spearheading that effort. Making 3s, at least to me, will be the other big key. Sagaba Konate, for all of his team’s early struggles, is still one of the best shot-blockers in the country, so I have a hard time, between their inexperienced guards and underwhelming big men, seeing them getting a lot of points at the rim.
Based on what you’ve seen saw far, paint the picture of the dream, everything goes right scenario for the rest of the season. Asked a different way, please convince me there is a chance we only lose to Duke by 6, not 36.
— mark (@markmacdona1d) November 29, 2018
Craig: For Duke, the scenario I envision is the Blue Devils being 16-1 or 15-2 heading into the Pitt game, effectively already having a one-seed locked up given their record and hype. Coach K, as a favor to his former player and assistant, tells his guys not to go quite as hard that night, not to the point where they’ll lose, but to where it will be a close win and Capel can get a high-profile boost to his rebuilding effort. Then, K could turn that underwhelming performance into a motivational ploy for his team that he takes to the media after the game. That man is always playing some sort of mind trick.
For the season, the best case I can see is finishing the non-conference slate 11-2 and winning maybe seven ACC games. That should put the Panthers firmly in the NIT conversation. But I think something along the lines of four ACC wins is much more likely.
Did you see A Star Is Born? What are your favorite movie musicals of all-time?
— Corey Cohen (@CoreyECohen) December 5, 2018
Craig: I hate musicals, mostly because I don’t really understand the point of them. Why sing to advance the plot when regular dialogue suffices? I did see A Star Is Born, though, and I enjoyed it. It’s emblematic of a larger, troubling pattern, but Bradley Cooper’s character sipping tequila straight from the bottle in the back of a limo is a pretty boss move. And even a hardened soul like me can have his heart warmed by watching two people fall in love (spoiler alert: the main characters fall in love).
Craig Meyer: cmeyer@post-gazette.com and Twitter @CraigMeyerPG
First Published: December 6, 2018, 3:04 p.m.
