Unexpected twists
Milligan sticks around, plays role that no one could have predicted
Gracing the front cover of Pitt’s media guide for the 2017-18 season, with a teammate to his right and the university’s iconic Cathedral of Learning faded in the background, is an unlikely face.
A space that had customarily been reserved for the pillars of a program — allAmericans, some of the top career scorers in program history and future NBA draft picks — is occupied by a player with just one career start and 72 career points entering the season. On a team with 11 newcomers and two returning players, his heightened role seemed to come almost by default, simply because he stayed with the Panthers while so many others left.
Little about Jonathan Milligan’s season thus far, however, has followed a familiar script. Milligan has waited for much of his career for this kind of opportunity, and he has finally seen it arrive.
Through Pitt’s first six games of the season, the 6foot-2 senior has taken on a role far larger than many would have anticipated entering the season, even after the program experienced an almost unprecedented level of roster turnover. Entering the game Tuesday night against High Point, Milligan is fifth on the team in both scoring (8.2 points per game) and minutes per game (21.8).
Those figures represent a steep jump from what he had accumulated up to that point in his career at Pitt. Last season, as the second guard off the bench of an extraordinarily thin team, Milligan scored just 59 points (an average of 2.2 per game) while averaging a mere 8.4 minutes per game. In that time, he never scored more than 10 points in a game or played more than 24 minutes, the latter of which came only because star guard Jamel Artis was suspended for the team’s regular-season finale against Virginia after arriving late for a team breakfast that morning.
This season, Milligan is more than halfway to his minutes mark from last season — at 131 already, compared to 227 from 2016-17 — and has scored 49 points, putting him only 10 behind his total from last season. In a Nov. 15 victory against UCSanta Barbara, he tallied a career-high 14 points, only the second time in his career he had scored more than nine. That record lasted for all of 10 days, as he poured in 16 points in an 80-68 win against Lehigh.
Not only has he been scoring more, but he has been efficient in the process of doing so, as well. While his 3point percentage is down slightly — to 30 percent, below his 32 percent clip from last season — his field-goal percentage has jumped exactly 20 percentage points to 48.6 percent, meaning a player who almost exclusively hoisted 3s last season has become a more effective all-around offensive player. Milligan has made 14 of his 25 shots (56 percent) from inside the arc, a drastic improvement after going two of 13 (15.4 percent) on those same shots last season and an impressive feat for a small guard who is a spindly 170 pounds.
“He’s just more solid. He’s more aggressive, he’s more certain and he’s more sure,” coach Kevin Stallings said. “He’s really good about not trying to do things he’s not good at, he’s not capable of. He really stays within himself.”
A point guard many expected to be unseated by freshman Marcus Carr actually has worked best alongside him as the pair has become almost a fixture in the lineup the past two games. They have been featured in 11 of Stallings’ 17 most recent new lineups, combinations that collectively have a point differential of nine.
How he got to this point is a story in and of itself.
A junior-college transfer, Milligan’s lack of playing time last season made him a prime candidate to transfer in an offseason in which 10 Pitt plays graduated, transferred or were dismissed. Each of the three players directly behind Milligan in minutes per game last season — Damon Wilson, Rozelle Nix (a fellow juniorcollege transfer) and Corey Manigault — all transferred in search of better or more fruitful opportunities.
To Milligan, it’s a thought that never registered with him, even as there was little guarantee he would see a significant increase in playing time on such a young team.
“Nothing was promised to me,” Milligan said. “Coach told me, just like everybody else, I would have to earn what I get. I didn’t just want to pack up and leave when things got hard. That’s not me.”
Alongside fellow senior Ryan Luther, Milligan has provided a value sense of stability and experience for a team in dire need of both. Even away from the court, his easy-going personality has been helpful for a team still developing its chemistry and internal dynamics. There has been a steadiness and patience to him, as well, a willingness to help younger players work out their problems, just as he helped do with guard Parker Stewart, who he continued to feed passes to even as the freshman struggled hitting shots.
With all of those factors combined, Milligan is enjoying the sort of senior season few would have foreseen. His coaches and teammates couldn’t be happier he has gotten to this point.
“Milly is the ultimate team guy,” Stallings said. “You never know the difference from him if plays 30 minutes or if he plays five minutes. He’s a great team guy, he’s got a great attitude and he’s a great leader.
“I call him a positive life force. He’s just very positive to be around and he brings energy to everything we do.”