Analysis: Losing streaks suggest Pitt will need more NIL money to improve basketball program

Perhaps the problems connected to Pitt basketball — football, too, as a matter of fact — are as clear as Jeff Capel’s answer to a question in October on the day Chancellor Joan Gabel first introduced athletic director Allen Greene to the public.

Always insightful on matters of college basketball, Capel was asked what he would ask of Greene, if given the opportunity. (For the record, it would be a shock if those conversations haven’t already taken place.)

Capel gave a simple, to-the-point answer: “NIL money. NIL. We need money.”

Let’s be clear. Capel was not making a comment on his current roster. It was more of a hopeful look into the future. He was pleased Jaland Lowe, Ishmael Leggett, Zack Austin and others were staying with the program. Luring Damian Dunn from Houston and Cam Corhen from Florida State were smart, necessary moves, too. Capel believed he had enough good players to compete with the best teams in the ACC.

Was he wrong? Did he need more NIL money to stock the roster to its greatest potential?

Does a 16-13 record (7-11 in the ACC) and three losing streaks of four (twice) and three games (currently) answer that question? Does a three-way tie for 10th place in the 18-team ACC — after finishing third and fourth the past two seasons — give an accurate response?

Does the football team’s six-game losing streak to end the 2024 season raise any flags? (Forget football for the moment. Pat Narduzzi attacked the transfer portal with vigor this offseason, and he has a chance — with the return of Eli Holstein, Kyle Louis and others — to reverse that program’s fortunes.)

Basketball is the matter at hand, and Pitt has fallen far short of expectations in Capel’s seventh season. The Panthers are 3-7 in games decided by six points or fewer. You can toss into that mix larger margins of defeat against Florida State on Jan. 15 and Louisville on Saturday night. Pitt was within six points of the lead in the last two minutes of both games before losing, 82-70 and 79-68.

There have been blowout losses, too, to ranked and unranked teams — Mississippi State and Duke, Virginia and SMU.

Pitt’s inability to make decisive plays in clutch moments has been the story of this season. There have been a variety of mishaps late in games, including defensive lapses, failure to grab a rebound or loose ball, poor shooting from beyond the 3-point arc and unexpected misses from the free throw line by a team shooting 78.2% (18th in the nation, No. 2 in the ACC).

Another good example: Pitt missed its final 11 3-point attempts in the last six minutes Saturday night at Louisville.

Depth also is an issue. Capel used only six players extensively at Louisville, bumping the average per-game minutes of Lowe and Leggett to more than 35. They can handle the workload. That’s not the point.

But Brandin Cummings deserves more than his 14.2 minutes per conference game while Capel might have expected to use Amsal Delalic (9.0), Jorge Diaz Graham (7.8) and Papa Kante (6.0) more than he has this season.

To be fair, Dunn was expected to play a big role at guard to complement Lowe and Leggett, but injuries ended his season a month ago and he has played in only nine ACC games.

There will be no NCAA Tournament for Pitt, and that has become a troubling trend since Jamie Dixon’s departure in 2016 — one invitation in nine seasons, a failure Capel shares with former coach Kevin Stallings. You need to leaf back through the archives to the early 1990s to find a similar postseason deficiency. This is a program that went to 13 NCAA Tournaments from 2002 to 2016.

The good news is Pitt still has a chance to reach 20 victories for the third consecutive season.

If the Panthers can find a way to win at N.C. State (11-18, 4-14) on Wednesday and at home Saturday against Boston College (12-17, 4-14), they will not meet one of the top four seeds in the ACC Tournament until the quarterfinals.

A four-game winning streak at this juncture seems unlikely, but it would give Capel a selling point when he hopes to dive into the transfer portal with a fat checkbook.