By admin 
At the turn of this century, Pitt basketball players patrolled the floors of the Petersen Events Center and Fitzgerald Field House with intensity and physicality. If a little blood appears on someone’s jersey during practice, continue playing. Worry about it later in the locker room.
No wonder Pitt made 10 consecutive NCAA Tournament berths and averaged 27.3 wins per season from the 2001-2002 through the 2010-2011 seasons.
No one is comparing this season’s Panthers to those teams, but there was an encouraging sign at practice Friday. Some blood appeared on the jersey of freshman Papa Kante.
Sophomore guard Jaland Lowe spoke to reporters about it, likening Kante’s blood-stained jersey to a badge of honor. Nothing unusual, Lowe said. “It gets pretty intense,” he said of a typical practice.
“Daddy was daddy. Be loud, be ready, be physical, do all the dirty stuff.
“It’s all love,” he said of the team’s camaraderie, “but when we step between those lines, it’s war.”
Coach Jeff Capel’s seventh season at Pitt kicks off Monday in the Pete when the Panthers meet Radford of the Big South Conference in the first of 11 non-conference games. Tipoff is 7 p.m
The team has been together since early summer, but Lowe said a 71-62 win in a recent game against Cincinnati reminded everyone to always play physical.
“I’ll throw the first punch,” he said. “That’s part of what we are. We are proud of that.”
Capel liked what he saw during the Cincinnati scrimmage, especially how his players handled the opponent’s physicality.
“For me and for us it was an opportunity to play against a real physical team,” he said. “We cannot simulate that in practice. We handled it well. Then we didn’t handle it properly. And we handled it well again.”
Senior guard Ishmael Leggett said the toughness he has seen among his teammates is “on another level.”
“Pittsburgh tough is something I think about.”
One problem though. “As a team,” Capel said, “collectively we have to rebound the basketball better.”
Pitt will look different this season, with top scorers Blake Hinson and Bub Carrington pursuing NBA careers. But Pitt still has a strong backcourt, a staple of the past two seasons, but with a welcome twist. This time, the backcourt starts with experience.
“The only thing that’s different right away is we have some returning guards,” Capel said.
Two years ago he completely revamped the backcourt with newcomers Nelly Cummings and Greg Elliott joining returning veteran Jamarius Burton. Nike Sibande was struggling with an injury from last season.
Last year there was a new backcourt with freshman guards Carrington and Lowe and transfers Leggett and Zack Austin. All four players were new to the ACC.
Lowe, Leggett and Austin bring experience. Graduate guard Damian Dunn, a 6-5 transfer from Houston, has been playing college basketball since 2019.
Dunn is from Kinston, N.C., and Capel, a native North Carolinian, knows players from that part of the country.
“The one thing you have to take away from that is hard if you’re a basketball player,” he said. “Last year he got better (in Houston, after transferring from Temple) without even realizing it because it didn’t translate the way he thought it would translate as far as points.”
Dunn went from averaging 15.3 points per game at Temple in 2022-23 to 6.4 for Houston, a team that had four other players score between 9.5 and 15.5.
Capel likes that Dunn brings with him Houston’s culture, which he believes is one of the best in college basketball.
“That will make him a better basketball player for us this year.”
Also included in the mix is freshman guard Brandin Cummings (Lincoln Park).
“He has some older guys that can really help him get through this,” Capel said.
Hinson and Carrington are gone, but Capel still has the same confidence in his players to make — and make — good shots. Four of the top six scorers from a year ago return, including junior forward Guillermo Diaz Graham.
“I don’t think we’ll have someone who can make 110 (3-pointers) like Blake did,” he said, “but we can make as many or more than last year (when Pitt led the ACC with 317).
“We have guys all over the field who can make them. Not just shoot them, but be able to make them too. I don’t think we have a scholarship guy on the roster that I don’t trust to make good three-point shots. As long as we generate them, I want our guys to have the confidence to take them.
Led by Lowe’s three 3-pointers, seven players hit from beyond the arc in the scrimmage against Cincinnati.
Capel is hoping for more offensive firepower in the paint department, with Florida State transfer Cam Corhen replacing Federiko Federiko, who transferred to Texas Tech. Corhen averaged 9.4 points per game for the Seminoles last season, while scoring 25 against Pitt. He scored 14 in Cincinnati’s scrimmage.
“It might not be your traditional way (low post score) where you throw it to someone and they play with their back to the basket,” he said. He expects paint area points to come in a variety of ways, including rebounds off the offensive glass and drop-off passes from guards. Additionally, Dunn, Leggett and Lowe have shown their ability to score at the basket.
Meanwhile, players say they will be motivated this season by the perceived criticism of not being invited to the 2023 NCAA Tournament. Lowe called it “the gasoline we’re throwing on the fire, and the fire is getting bigger.”
“We don’t want to leave any doubt.”
Jerry DiPaola is a TribLive reporter who has been covering Pitt athletics since 2011. A Pittsburgh native, he joined the Trib in 1993, first as an editor and page designer in the sports department and later as a Pittsburgh Steelers reporter from 1994-2004. He can be reached at [email protected].