Under former head coach Jamie Dixon, Pitt freshmen rarely made big impacts. The Panthers’ system was built as such that the team was generally led by upperclassmen who improved during the course of their career. That made for a somewhat sustainable system and allowed the program to give their freshmen time to adjust to college basketball.
The system worked well for the most part but with recruiting issues over the last few years under Dixon as well as some transfers, Pitt finds itself in a unique situation. Pitt graduated its best players last year and lost almost the rest of the team to transfers meaning that freshman are needing to play bigger roles than usual.