Pitt men’s basketball will get a heavy dosage of two freshman four-star guards Jeff Capel brought to the program in Jaland Lowe and Carlton Carrington III. Both were stars in their upbringings in youth and high school basketball, but are quickly learning the difference in competition now that they’re practicing for a Division I ACC program.
After a Wednesday practice, Lowe, Carrington and transfer junior guard Ishmael Leggett, talked about how their fall practices have helped the team coalesce. Part of that, has been Lowe and Carrington being shown the ropes by Pitt’s more experienced players.
“It was the first couple days I came to campus,” Lowe said about his welcome to college basketball moment. “Me and Bub [Carrington’s nickname] were with a couple of the guys playing one on one. We weren’t doing the best. We saw guys jumping high and stuff wasn’t that easy. It’s a different level now. Guys are stronger, they jump higher, they’re longer. It was a welcome to college moment.”
“Mine was around the first or second week of practice,” Carrington added. “One play, I got the ball on the wing and [Leggett] was guarding me, and then he just took it from me. It’s different. These guys are a lot stronger, they’re physical, and you can’t get away with a lot of the lazy things you could’ve done in high school.”
That experience could be exactly what Capel needs for his young guards. The last time two freshman guards came to Pitt basketball with realistic expectations to get a lot of playing time was Capel’s first season in 2018-2019, when Xavier Johnson and Trey McGowens both took serious roles on Pitt’s team.
But back then, as Capel had only started to rebuild the program, the Panthers didn’t have the veterans to challenge the new talented freshmen, and they had to learn much of their lessons during the season, rather than before. Now, after Pitt won multiple games in the NCAA tournament last year for the first time since 2014, Capel has those veterans ready, like senior forward Blake Hinson, who’s seen as the undisputed leader of the team.
“He’s a vocal and very energetic leader,” Carrington said of Hinson. “He’s always bringing the energy and making sure we bring energy. He understands that we’re a younger group of guys and we’ll fall out of line a lot. But he makes sure to be vocal and to keep us on top of things. We don’t take it personal, he’s just trying to win and we try to listen.”
Even Leggett, who transferred from Rhode Island, has been part of the young guards’ maturation process. He got to play with them and most of the team during their August trip to Spain, and learned more about them.
“I learned a lot about them on and off the court,” Leggett said about Lowe and Carrington. “In our second game in Spain, it was a little rough. But it was how they responded to adversity [that caught his eye]. Every game this year won’t be what we want. But I was glad to see how they responded to adversity in a great manner and they were very oriented on the next play.”
In addition, Pitt’s newest players have gotten the chance to learn from last year’s leaders, like Jamarius Burton and Nelly Cummings, who both spent time over the summer working with Pitt’s young team.
“Those guys were around for a bit,” Lowe said of Pitt’s leaving seniors like Burton and Cummings. “They taught us a lot. They did anything they could do to help us. They’re great to be around. Those are our big brothers for sure.”
For Carrington, a 6-5 combo guard from St. Frances Academy in Baltimore, he saw last year’s Pitt team as a fun team that played free, fast and the style of ball he wants to be part of with the Panthers.
“It’s their free-er style of basketball,” Carrington said of Pitt’s 2022-2023 team. “College [basketball], for a lot of people seems very structured. But I feel like watching them last year, it was actually fun. They played free and you could tell they really liked each other. There was a whole lot of extra passes. We definitely feel like that.”
For Lowe, he learned more about the standard within Capel’s structure which he seeks to uphold after close study of the team’s run last year.
“Those guys really set the blueprint,” Lowe said of Pitt’s team last year. “We know how coach Capel coached them last year. It seems free, but there is structure. It’s just the way that coach Capel structures it, it makes it seem like we’re at a free pace. We’ve watched film about them and we’ve learned how to attack.”
Carrington also noted that Pitt’s younger players made a point to steal some of the drills they saw Burton, Cummings and Pitt’s past seniors working on when they got to know each other during the summer, even calling them mentors to the current team.
While the team has gotten to know each other, they’ve also learned nicknames, like why everyone calls Carrington, “Bub.”
“It was actually my dad’s nickname,” Carrington said of his Bub nickname. “We have the same name, I’m the third, so growing up everybody called me ‘lil’ Bub. But not anymore. Just Bub.”
While Carrington nickname fits a family inheritance, Pitt’s players look to fit in with the roles the coaching staff teaches them throughout their practices. So far, they feel like everyone has fit those roles well.
“I felt like we’ve been coached perfectly,” Carrington said. “Every drill in practice, we’ve worked on doing what we’d do in any game, who’s doing it and when they’ll do it. The coaches have definitely set a standard for us, and we’ve been repeating it during practice.”
“They’re definitely instilling to everyone on the team how to help get everybody on the same page,” Lowe added. “Everybody knows what to do, each of our good traits and bad traits. We also know what to work on so that we can trust everyone around us to carry each other during the season.”
“The coaches have done an amazing job,” Leggett continued. “Especially on the film side of things when it comes to showing what you need to do in certain situations. That’s molded us into the players we want to be. It’s up to us to do the rest.”
Christopher Carter: ccarter@post-gazette.com and on Twitter @CarterCritiques
First Published: October 12, 2023, 11:30 a.m.
Updated: October 12, 2023, 6:31 p.m.
