Guards garner more attention
Pitt’s Johnson, McGowens adjust to trusting others
More than seven weeks after it happened, Jeff Capel thinks of the play often.
With his Pitt team tied with Florida State with fewer than three minutes remaining Nov. 6 in its seasonopening game, point guard Xavier Johnson did what he so often does and drove to the basket. A defender was prepared to converge on him, but if he were to do so, he would leave Panthers freshman Justin Champagnie, who had made two 3-pointers earlier in the half, open from deep. It was a risk he was unwilling to take. The Seminoles defender, retreated back in Champagnie’s direction, leaving Johnson with an open lane to the basket.
It was an important moment in the context of that game — Pitt went on to win, 63-61, meaning Johnson’s layup could be framed as the difference in the game — but to Capel, the symbolism of the sequence is much more meaningful. After coming into the season as the two unquestioned stars of the program, Johnson and guard Trey McGowens have some more help.
The 2019-20 season, through its first 12 games, has been an adjustment for the Panthers sophomore backcourt. After a decorated run as freshmen a season ago — one in which they were two of the three leading scorers for a team that improved its win total by six games — Johnson and McGowens have had to acclimate to a new reality. Not so gradually, opponents have built their game plans around the two players, both of whom are no longer able to fly under the radar in the same way they might have last season.
It’s a process they’re still working through, but with the addition of Capel’s second recruiting class as Pitt’s coach, there’s an influx of new talent to ease their burden. They just have to be willing to accept the help.
“One of the things we’ve talked to he and Trey especially about is that you need these other guys,” Capel said Friday. “There’s a lot of attention on them because of what they did last year and their reputations as players and that reputation was earned by how they played last year. If you look at our first 12 games, every game we played, there’s a lot of attention on those guys. A lot of time when they drive, the court just shrinks. People are running at them.
“That’s where a lot of our turnovers have come from in the first 12 games. We need everybody to step up and be able to make a play, make a shot, drive it, not turn it over.”
New additions to a roster always will be a source of intrigue and excitement for fans, but there has been a noticeable boost provided by some of Pitt’s five scholarship newcomers.
Junior guard Ryan Murphy and Champagnie each are averaging double figures in scoring, the former at 10.6 points per game and the latter at 10.1, giving the Panthers four players averaging 10 or more points per game after finishing last season with three. They have had an active role in the offense beyond those numbers, as they’re tied for the team lead with 120 shots attempted. Because of that, four Pitt players have attempted at least 100 shots this season after just two had at the same point last season.
It goes well beyond scoring and shooting. Champagnie’s 6.3 rebounds per game lead the team. Graduate transfer Eric Hamilton has posted team highs in offensive rebounding percentage (getting 0.131 of Pitt’s missed shots while he’s on the court, ranking him among the top 75 Division I players) and defensive rebounding percentage (.174). Four of Pitt’s top eight players in minutes per game were not with the program last season.
Though the impact of those new players hasn’t been all that pronounced statistically for McGowens, it has for Johnson. He has been playing a higher percentage of possible minutes, but he is using 25.3% of the team’s possessions while on the court (down from 30.3% last season), has accounted for 18% of Pitt’s points (down from 22.2%) and has taken 17.8% of its shots (down from 20.8%).
The advice from coaches like Capel to Johnson and McGowens over the past several months — back to when the team’s first-year players first arrived — has been relatively straightforward.
“Talk to them,” Capel said. “Show them tape. Watch a lot of tape with them. Talk to them about working with guys. You guys are in the gym; get another guy in the gym with you. You need them taking extra shots because if they’re making them, that helps you. That helps you be able to get to the basket.”
The adjustment to the second year of college basketball hasn’t just been limited to Johnson and McGowens.
Both players are on pace to shoot far fewer free throws than they did last season, when it was a sizable part of their offensive game. Johnson is on pace to attempt 108 free throws in 33 games this season while McGowens is on pace for 130, down from 209 and 165, respectively, last season. Some of the small maneuvers to exaggerate or create contact — be it Johnson craning his head back if touched, even slightly, while dribbling or McGowens kicking his leg out on shots to have a defender hit it — haven’t been drawing whistles at quite the same rate.
The Panthers have been able to adapt, as well, with their past two games, victories against Northern Illinois and Binghamton, standing as examples. Against Northern Illinois, they ended the game on a 15-0 run in the final 6:11 despite Johnson being on the bench for the entirety of it. In their rout of Binghamton, Johnson scored just nine points, but his team rattled off a season-high 79 points. Last season, such feats, even against lower quality competition, would have been borderline unimaginable.
Things haven’t always been easy for Johnson and McGowens this season, but in this new life they now inhabit, they are starting to find their way — as is their team.
“At times, they’ve been frustrated, but they understand how much they need their teammates and they need these guys to step up and make plays,” Capel said. “They have to trust them to do that. That’s what I’ve seen over the past couple of games.”