Pitt’s rise is easily defined, measured
Statistics uncover jump in key areas
Seventeen games into the 2018-19 season, the Pitt men’s basketball team is at a point few thought it would be, even for all the excitement surrounding first-year coach Jeff Capel.
The Panthers are 12-5, with two wins in four tries in ACC play after getting none in 19 tries last season. One of those two conference victories came against a program it hadn’t beaten since 2010, the other came against a top15 team. As early and whimsical as it is, CBS Sports even has Pitt pegged as an NCAA tournament team right now.
The Panthers’ rapid improvement can be tied to larger topics like recruiting and program-building philosophies, but it can also be told through statistics that show where the team has made its biggest strides. Here are 10 such numbers that help tell the story of a surprise contender.
• 18.6: The difference in the points per 100 possessions Pitt has allowed from last season (109.4) to this season (90.8). The Panthers currently rank ninth out of 353 Division I teams in raw defensive efficiency after finishing last season 289th. Capel’s coaching history isn’t that of a defensive mastermind, but the work he has been able to do this quickly with this team has been remarkable. The team has better defenders and more athletic players, but some of it also comes down to a group that’s not only capable of defending better, but works harder at doing so.
• 68.2: The percentage of Pitt’s total points scored this season that have come from players who either weren’t on the team last season or weren’t eligible to play — a group that includes Xavier Johnson, Trey McGowens, Au’Diese Toney, Sidy N’Dir
and Malik Ellison. This is a much-improved team due in large part to being a new squad at the top of its roster.
• 2,772: The number of games Pitt played in program history without a freshman scoring 30 points or more. McGowens has done so twice in the past three games. It’s a stat that deserves proper context — freshmen weren’t eligible to play varsity college basketball until 1972, and some of Pitt’s best teams under Jamie Dixon and Ben Howland didn’t rely heavily, if much at all, on freshmen, to say nothing of the slow pace at which they played — but it’s a sign that the Panthers have the type of explosive scorers they haven’t had for some time.
• 4.7: McGowens’ steal percentage, which is the percentage of opponents’ possessions on which a player records a steal. It’s the 18thbest mark among Division I players. His 2.4 steals per game rank him 21st among all Division I players.
• 22.9: The Panthers’ turnover percentage, which is the percentage of opponents’ possessions that end with a turnover, meaning Pitt is forcing a turnover on nearly one out of every four trips down the court. That mark ranks them 21st among Division I teams and is a significant upgrade from the turnover percentage of 15.5 (332nd in Division I) it posted last season. The importance of this number can’t be overstated. Getting points in transition is an incredibly effective way to score for a team that sometimes struggles offensively in the half court.
• 26: The number of blocks sophomore Terrell Brown has over the past five games, which is more than double the number any of his teammates have over the course of the season. Because of that recent spurt, he is only four blocks shy of matching his total from last season (46). After not having an effective rim protector for each of the past five seasons and the first 12 games this season, it appears as if the Panthers might have found one.
• 43.7: Pitt’s effective fieldgoal percentage allowed, which factors in the fact that 3-pointers are worth more points. That’s the ninth-best mark among Division I teams and, if the season were to end today, it would be the Panthers’ second-best mark in the KenPom era (dating to the 2001-02 season). Only the school’s 200304 team, Dixon’s first as a head coach, was better, at 43.1 percent.
• 47.3: Pitt’s free-throw rate, which is the number of free throws a team attempts divided by the number of field goals it attempts. That’s the fifth-highest percentage among Division I teams and the highest such mark among ACC teams. For a team shooting 72.5 percent from the line, that’s not a bad place to be.
• 48.1: The percentage of Pitt’s shots this season that have come at the rim, the third most in Division I and the most in the ACC, 3.7 percentage points ahead of the next-closest team (Duke). Only 33.8 percent of the Panthers’ field-goal attempts last season came at the rim. It’s a sign of the aggressiveness and penetration ability of Pitt’s young guards, but it’s also an indication that this team values the highest-percentage shots (those closest to the basket) and those worth the most points (3s). Overall, 82.3 percent of its shots this season have come at the rim or beyond the arc.
• 346: The difficulty ranking of Pitt’s non-conference schedule, putting it ahead of only seven other Division I teams, according to KenPom. It was a prudent strategy by Capel and the previous staff to schedule winnable games for an inexperienced team to build up some level of confidence, but it also has undeniably played a role in the Panthers’ win total. In those 13 games, it played only one team ranked in the KenPom top 75 (Iowa) and lost to the 306th-ranked team in the country (Niagara). This isn’t to discredit Pitt’s early successes, but that weak schedule will undoubtedly come into play should the premature NCAA tournament discussion materialize into something greater over the next seven weeks.