It has been anything short of a secret that Pitt is heavily reliant on its starters.
But, as the calendar is set to flip over to February and the final month of the regular season approaches, Jeff Capel has taken liberty in adjusting his practices to help combat some of the wear-and-tear. This is a standard process which generally takes place within every program, but for a Pitt team which has aspirations of making the NCAA Tournament, it will be paramount now, more than ever.
"I think as you go on throughout a season you have to adjust what you do in a practice, how much you do," Capel said on Monday in the ACC coaches' weekly teleconference. "How much contact you have in practice, the physicality of it. Normally when you get towards the middle and end of January you're starting to back off. You're not doing as much contact in practice. Some guys may, especially after a game -- normally, our games are on Wednesdays -- so normally Thursday is really a non-contact day. We'll do stuff with guys that didn't play heavy minutes, we'll do some stuff with them. But the other guys, it's more of a mental day."
According to KenPom's advanced analytics, Pitt is the 18th-most experienced team in Division I college basketball, with Panthers players averaging 3.00 years of experience.
(The national average is 1.90 years of experience. The "oldest" team is Penn State, with an average of 4.00 years of experience.)
But, this hardly can coincide with how much Capel uses his bench. Per KenPom, the 25.6% of minutes played by Pitt's bench ranks at a tie for 302nd (out of 363 teams) in college basketball. The national average of bench minutes played is 31.0%.
Two factors contribute to this: One, Pitt's lack of an available bench at all, with John Hugley IV (personal) and Will Jeffress (foot) out for the season and with Dior Johnson redshirting. Two, Pitt having three of its four primary bench players in Nate Santos and Guillermo and Jorge Diaz Graham still developing as a sophomore (Santos) and true freshmen. Nike Sibande is, really, the only experienced player Pitt has to deploy off of its bench, outside of junior walk-on KJ Marshall or senior walk-on Aidan Fisch. Pitt is intent on redshirting true freshman Vason Stevenson by this point.
Pitt's bench is the 10th-most used among ACC teams. Clemson's bench makes up 34.6% of its minutes to pace ACC teams, which is 88th in college basketball. Only Virginia Tech, Miami, Florida State, North Carolina, and Notre Dame utilize their respective benches less than Pitt does, among ACC teams.
North Carolina is sixth-to-last in college basketball in using its bench at 19.8%, while Notre Dame is dead last in college basketball at 15.4%.
Jamarius Burton averages 33.5 minutes per game for the Panthers. Nelly Cummings is at 32.0, Blake Hinson at 31.7, and Greg Elliott 30.0 before the evened-out distribution begins. Federiko Federiko averages 23.6 minutes to round out the starters, while Sibande is the top reserve at 21.0, followed by Jorge Diaz Graham's 10.4 as players to post 10 or more minutes per game.
Guillermo Diaz Graham, who has played in the same number of games as his brother, has logged 8.5 minutes per game. Santos is at 8.3.
"For me I just try and pay closer attention to the things that I can control," Burton said of maintaining his body this late in the season. "That's fueling, that's sleeping, and for me I'm just trying to capitalize on those few things."
This correlates, again, with age. By KenPom's metrics, Pitt is the third-oldest team in the ACC, behind Notre Dame (3.63 years of experience) and Virginia (3.55).
Ahead is a showdown in Chapel Hill, N.C. against North Carolina Wednesday evening, followed by a much-needed bye week before the Panthers' next game a week from Tuesday at home against Louisville. Capel is, of course, 100% focused on preparing for North Carolina, but that upcoming bye will surely help within his team's recovery process.
"We're just focused on North Carolina. That's it," Capel added. "We'll get to the bye week after that, and we'll figure out what we're going to do, but we need every ounce of our attention and everything that we have focused on going down to Chapel Hill. We're playing a really, really good team on their home court."
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• North Carolina coach Hubert Davis took note of Pitt's veteran makeup and how its offense can attack from multiple angles. The Panthers got a career-best 31 points from Burton in their 76-74 win over the Tar Heels on Dec. 30, but the Panthers shot 46% from the field and made 63.2% of shots from within the 3-point arc in that game.
"They're more than just Burton," Davis said. "They're a really good basketball team. They just are. They've got a number of playmakers that not only can make plays for others, but they can make plays for themselves. They have a number of guys that can create a shot at any given time throughout their offensive possession that can create a shot for themselves and create a shot for their teammates. They're very disciplined offensively from the standpoint of they're in the right spots when guys are driving and penetrating. They can really shoot the basketball, and what makes them so dangerous is they can hit contested shots. It's not just open shots. They can hit with guys in their face, and they're just really tough.
"They're an older, more experienced team, and they've been through it individually, and they're a hardened, tough team that doesn't get shaken, and that's one of the many reasons why they're having such a good year this season."
• Burton sees Pitt taking those smart shots, and that comes with the comfortability and camaraderie grown throughout the season.
"I feel like the big part about this team that makes us so successful is the fact that everybody knows their strengths and weaknesses," Burton said. "For us if I'm taking a shot that's within my strength, realm, then it's a good shot for us. The same thing for everybody else. Greg is a 3-point specialist, so if he pulls the 3, we're not worried about it because that's exactly what he does. I think that plays a tremendous role in why we're able to play how we play.
"As the season as gone on we've definitely gotten better (at shot selection). Players understand each other's tendencies, and we're just able to play off each other better."
• Davis said he "fully expects" guard RJ Davis to play Wednesday "if things continue to progress like they have."
RJ Davis left Tuesday's game against Syracuse when he took a Judah Mintz elbow to the face late in the game. The coach said RJ Davis' eye was swollen after the game, and that he could not see out of it. RJ Davis also sustained a dislocated finger in the game.
Coach Davis added that RJ Davis has done "a lot of work" over the weekend and practiced on Monday.
"He's in a really good spot right now," the coach said.
• Moon Township native Puff Johnson is likely to be a different story. Johnson has been dealing with a knee injury and was limited at Monday's practice, and coach Davis said "I'd be surprised if he was available for Wednesday."
"He's getting better and progressing, but it's been slower than anticipated," coach Davis said. "I'm not ruling (Johnson) out, but I'd be surprised if he would be ready to go on Wednesday versus Pitt."
