Basketball Preview: Pitt men’s offense to pick up pace in up-tempo conference

The Pitt men’s basketball program experienced more negative coverage following last year’s first-round eliminations in the Big East and NCAA tournaments than it has since Jamie Dixon was hired as head coach in 2003.

Seven of Dixon’s 12 active scholarship players from the fall of 2012 either had already transferred or would soon graduate and leave the program. On top of that, there were reports that Dixon himself could be leaving Pitt.

Since then, Dixon, for the most part, has rebuilt his program. After signing a 10-year contract extension, he added six new bodies to the roster and he re-hired former Pitt assistant Barry Rohrssen to tackle recruiting and player development.   

Nevertheless, it was an imperfect offseason, and Dixon knows it. His main challenge now is that there is only one natural center on the roster, Joseph Uchebo, who is out indefinitely with a knee injury.

So how does the team overcome such a problem? According to Dixon, Pitt’s fate lies in the hands of the “T-word.”

“I think we’re going to get more transition,” Dixon said.  

Typically, Dixon’s offensive coaching style depends on controlling the pace of every possession. In his flex-based motions, the point guard traditionally walks the ball up the floor, directing his forwards to set down screens that free his teammates, spreading the floor. He will then reverse the ball to those freed, who look to score. 

If those options fail, he will look for a ball screen, which frees him, and from there, he judges the defense’s reaction before penetrating to the lane.

Rarely do Dixon’s teams have the athleticism to get defensive rebounds and try to beat opposing teams down the floor at once. Because he has quicker men this year, Dixon’s half-court offense could end up taking a back seat to the transition game.

“When the opportunity is there to push, we’re definitely going to push,” sophomore point guard and returning starter James Robinson said. 

Robinson finished last season with a 2.9 assist-to-turnover ratio, tied for 18th in the NCAA. If the team is poised to run more, Robinson must match or exceed that stat, as he will be doing much of the work in the transition game. 

It will be a challenge for him, too, because running in transition might make him feel pressured to collect more assists.

“We may try to force the issue a couple of times, but if the clock gets low, then we’ll definitely get into our half-court sets,” Robinson said. “For the most part, we want to get out and run.”

Robinson has the starting point guard role locked up, but he will be relieved at times by freshman Josh Newkirk, a shifty, 6-foot-2, 175-pound point guard from Raleigh, N.C., who sees the team’s desire to speed up the tempo as an advantage of his.

“Me, being point guard, I like to run, stay out in transition — that’s how I play the best,” said Newkirk, who Robinson pegged as the team’s most electrifying dunker and someone who’s done “special things” in the transition game since arriving.

“Being in transition is what fits us best, so I think this will be the year to do that,” Newkirk said. “We have a lot of athletic guards. I think we have the tools to run this year.”

Newkirk’s speed, according to fifth-year guard/forward Lamar Patterson, is one thing Pitt has not had in recent years.

“Josh is super-quick. He’s like lightning out there,” Patterson said. “That’s something I haven’t seen while at Pitt from that position.”

Patterson may be new to the speed of Newkirk, but he certainly is not new to the concept of running in transition. He and fellow teammates told reporters in previous off-seasons that they planned to run then, as well. 

Looking back, though, those seasons are highlighted by Pitt getting the ball and going in its nonconference schedules. The transition game then flailed away once the team got into Big East action, with the Panthers controlling the paces of its remaining games via a disciplined half-court offense. 

This season, though, Dixon and his players are sure things will change. They gave a universal answer to how the team would stick to its preseason plans regarding the transition offense: 6-foot-9, 230-pound Talib Zanna. 

“We have a lot of great athletes on the team, a lot of guys who are interchangeable at times,” Robinson said. “Look at our big man, Talib Zanna, who is one of, if not the fastest player on the team.”

Dixon concurred.

“It oftentimes comes down to how fast your bigs can run,” Dixon said. “Talib is as fast as any big guy that we play against, so I think that’s going to lead to a lot more transition, as well. I think that’s going to be key.”

In recent years, Dixon and his players have all said they intended to run more in transition offense. His teams would push the ball during the nonconference schedule, but once Big East games rolled around, they began favoring half-court sets and a more relaxed pace.

Robinson knows his team’s persistence to push the ball last year died as the season went on.

“I definitely hope we continue our pace of the game,” Robinson said. “It just so happened that last year at some points in the game, we had to slow the pace down, as opposed to our nonconference last year, when we could get out and run a little bit more. This year, we’re going to do whatever it takes.”

The foundation to running teams out of the gym lies within defensive rebounding. Last season, Pitt racked up 35.3 combined rebounds per game, tied for 138th in the NCAA. 

To have hopes of a quick bucket, Pitt must put itself back in the upper echelon of rebounding teams.

“Our first goal as a team and my first goal as a guard is to make sure we come up with a rebound,” Robinson said. “In a couple games last year and especially those we lost, we lost the rebounding battle.”

Some of Dixon’s players who transferred last year complained of Dixon’s offense, claiming it was too systematic. The transition game could provide the creativity those players yearned for.

Robinson said that the only thing Dixon will direct is positioning after a shot goes up when Pitt is on defense. Once the ball is in Robinson or Newkirk’s hands, they are freelancing.  

“From there, we just pretty much react to what everybody else is doing, and because we’re interchangeable, we will be successful doing that — just making sure those spots are filled and going from there,” Robinson said.