FRESH FACES OF SUPER BOWL 54

Center had to play due to foul trouble

What was already a precarious position for Pitt — playing on the road Tuesday against a top-10 Duke team in one of the most raucous and cramped atmospheres college basketball has to offer — became that much more delicate not even nine minutes into its game.

With 11:11 remaining in the first half, and with the Panthers down by just one, forward Eric Hamilton was whistled for a foul, his second of the game. He and Terrell Brown, who are combining to average about 36 minutes per game at the center position, each had picked up two fouls in a stretch of only 1:49.

In its moment of need, Pitt turned to freshman Abdoul Karim Coulibaly. What, at the time, easily could have been classified as an emergency option was, by the end of the 7967 loss, one of the biggest reasons the game had even been that close.

Coulibaly played 22 of the remaining 31 minutes, staying not on the court because his coaches had no other choice — Hamilton and Brown finished the night with two and three fouls, respectively — but because he was the best one. The 6-foot-8 native of Mali ended the game with eight points, one short of a career high, and matched a career high with four rebounds. How he fared on the box score didn’t paint a whole picture of how he looked on the court, which was to say he looked composed in a moment in which he could have easily been buried and fluid in a way in which few first-year big men are.

That he managed to do so for more than half the game

against a top-tier opponent with a projected first-round NBA draft pick as a big man is notable enough. But how Coulibaly’s performance is most important for Pitt rests with the question of how replicable such an outing is and whether Coulibaly is capable of doing what he did Tuesday on a consistent basis.

It requires some understanding of how he reached this point. While growing up in Mali, Coulibaly didn’t start playing basketball until he was a teenager, making him raw as a prospect, but his background as a soccer player gave him unusually good footwork for a player his size.

Though he lived and played in the United States for several years before arriving at Pitt, the college game nonetheless presented another period of adjustment for him.

“He handled it better than we thought he would,” forward Au’Diese Toney said.

Part of that transition came with learning a new position. Given Pitt’s personnel and its success with smaller lineups featuring the 6-6 Toney or the 6-6 Justin Champagnie as the second-tallest player on the court, Coulibaly, who played power forward much of his career, had to learn to be a center.

He found some help from teammates. Brown, a junior who experienced the same acclimation two years ago, helped school him on some of the lessons he had learned coming into college, namely, a focus on what he described as “the little things.”

“He adjusted from not doing that to being how we want our fives — screen-and-roll, rim run, rebound — and be OK with touching the ball once or twice a possession or maybe not touching it at all,” Brown said. “He adjusted really well for a freshman. When he came in at Duke, I supported him all the way. I was happy for him that he was playing well. I was also upset that I didn’t play well, but at the same time, I knew my teammate picked up me and Eric.”

On the season, Coulibaly is averaging just 9.6 minutes per game, averaging 2 points, 1.4 rebounds and 0.1 blocks per contest while shooting 37.5% from the field and 33.3% from the free-throw line. Those low numbers aren’t merely a product of limited minutes. Though he’s getting 8.4% of available offensive rebounds while on the court, ranking him behind only a couple of

players on his team, he’s getting just 8.4% of defensive rebounds, a mark that’s lower than that of 6-3 Xavier Johnson and 6-4 Trey McGowens, as well as Toney and Champagnie. They’re not the figures of someone who can be counted on for significant playing time at a position of need, at least not right now.

What he may lack in quantitative pizzazz he makes up for from a qualitative standpoint, showcasing what he can already do at a young age.

Look no further than the Duke game. In the second half, with 4:30 remaining and his team down five, he hesitated for a bit near the top of the key, throwing off his defender, Vernon Carey Jr., and giving him a crucial step on a drive to the basket, where he got a goal-tending call and the two points that came with it.

Barely one minute later, he drove again, this time spinning, stopping himself midway, going up and under Carey and drawing the foul, though he was unable to convert on a makeable shot.

For a player as young as he is, and as relatively inexperienced with the sport as he is, it was a dazzling combination of moves. It required a certain composure, as well, one he has been displaying in glimpses this season, even against other top-10 teams (as he did here against West Virginia in mid-November).

With those highlights are obvious areas of improvement. He needs to become a more aggressive rebounder, particularly for a player his size. He was strong at times defensively — Carey scored just eight of his 26 points in the 22 minutes Coulibaly was in the game — but there are still glaring lapses, such as when he left Carey wide open underneath the basket while making a failed attempt at a trap along the baseline.

Those shortcomings and strengths displaying themselves within minutes of each other are simply a product of the learning process.