Sheldon Jeter knows his role on the Pitt basketball team.

Over his two seasons at Pitt, the senior forward has been a high-flying spark plug who takes his shots when they’re there, as well as a useful rebounder and defender.

So while most players are focused on scoring in the PBC Pro-Am, Jeter isn’t, as he’s still cognizant of what his role is.

“Everybody comes here to get up shots, I come here to work on other stuff, because I don’t have time to fight with everybody for shots,” Jeter said.

With that in mind, Jeter is most focused on his defense this offseason, with shooting and ball handling as secondary focuses.

“I always want to be the best defensive player on the team,” Jeter said.

But Jeter’s role is changing in some ways, too. With his status as a senior, he’s expected to be leader. That expectation is heightened, as he has experience playing for new head coach Kevin Stallings at Vanderbilt, having played there one season before transferring.

“Everybody is looking to me to kind of guide them into the Kevin Stallings’ system,” Jeter said.

Jeter isn’t used to being a team leader, as he said the last time he was a leader was on his Beaver Falls high school basketball team. And with Jeter’s naturally joking personality, it does come off as a bit odd to his teammates when he’s the one barking orders.

“It’s a process, because they’re not exactly used to hearing me be the one to criticize everyone or hold people accountable. But we’re getting through it,” Jeter said.

Over his two seasons, Jeter has shifted between bench player and starter. As it stands right now, the Pitt staff is seriously considering a lineup of five forward types, with Jamel Artis as the point guard, and Jeter as the power forward.

“The lineup that they’re thinking about having would be like a hybrid lineup. We’re all tall so we would just switch everything,” Jeter said. “There’s no set positions. Anybody can bring the ball up, anybody can shoot.”

Certainly, Jeter said he prefers this lineup, as it allows him to showcase his skills offensively and defensively more than in a traditional lineup.

“I personally like it. It gives me a chance to guard smaller guards. Usually I would just hedge and go back to battling big dudes,” Jeter said.

But for Jeter to get the point of being considered a leader and probable starter, he had to get past the initial surprise and commotion of Stallings being hired. From an outsider’s view, Jeter seemed to be on bad terms with the coach, as when Jeter decided to transfer, Stallings blocked him from transferring from Pitt, which forced him to spend a year at Polk State Junior College before committing to Pitt.

Jeter insists that that wasn’t the case, and he was mostly just surprised that he would be reunited with a familiar name, as opposed to a new one.

“My emotions were never down like that,” Jeter said. “The only thing I really was, was shocked. That was it. But that wore off in like an hour and a half.”

At first, Jeter said he was at a loss for words, pacing around his apartment when he found out that Stallings was hired. But helping him get past that initial surprise was his younger brother, Donovan, who texted him shortly after that it could be a good thing, due to their familiarity with each other.

But without an immediate public statement, speculation was rampant that Jeter was unhappy with the decision. The speculation started on the day before Stallings was hired, when Jeter tweeted out a picture with a quote from The Dark Knight, which read “Introduce a little anarchy, upset the established order and everything become chaos.”

The Dark Knight is one of Jeter’s favorite movies, and that quote, said by the Joker, is Jeter’s favorite quote from the movie. So as Jeter was watching the movie, and when the Joker said the line, it was only natural for him that he put it on social media.

“We were watching it, and I saw it, and I was like, ‘man, I need to put that on twitter.’ So I throw it on there and set my phone down,” Jeter said. “Next thing I know my phone keeps vibrating, vibrating, vibrating and I look on it, and I’m like ‘what is everybody talking about?’ Like, ‘please Sheldon don’t go.’ And I’m like, ‘Am I missing something here?’”

At the time, Jeter was unaware of the Stallings rumors, so he didn’t put two and two together. But after the tweet got so much attention, Pitt basketball SID Matt Plizga called Jeter.

“Matt called and was like, ‘did you do something?’ And I said no. He was like, ‘did you tweet something?’ I said ‘yeah, a Joker picture. And he was like, ‘oh, what did it say?’ And I told him the quote, didn’t even have to look at my phone,” Jeter said.

“Then he said ‘did you hear about Kevin Stallings?’ And I was like, ‘what about him,’” Jeter said. “And he was like, ‘he might be getting hired.’ And then I was like, ‘oh, that explains a lot.’ But in my mind, I’m still like, ‘there’s no way they’re going to hire him.’”

A day later, Stallings was hired. And four months later, Jeter and Stallings’ relationship is strong.

“Right now everything's good between us,” Jeter said. “I can’t tell if we’re still in the honeymoon phase or where we’re at, but everything right now is going great.”

As Jeter sees it now, there are only positives in him playing his last college season with Stallings. So while some might have questioned the hire, Jeter knows exactly why the decision was made.

“Think about it,” Jeter joked. “He left Nashville to come coach me again. That’s how much he liked me.”

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