2023 was an eventful year in the world of Pitt athletics and today we will reflect on some of the best moments and biggest storylines over the past 12 months for the Panthers.

Before we get into the year-end talk, there are some more pressing matters at hand, like Pitt basketball (sort of) opening ACC play tomorrow with a big game against Syracuse in the Dome. Plus Pat Narduzzi has had a busy offseason to date and that does not seem to be slowing down much either with more roster movement to come.

Time to start the holiday weekend right with one last 3-2-1 Column for the year.

THREE THINGS WE KNOW

A Date in the Dome
Pitt basketball technically opened its ACC schedule already with a loss to Clemson a few weeks back, but tomorrow represents the real opening of conference play. The Panthers will travel to Syracuse to mark the beginning of 19-straight ACC games to close out the regular season. There is no more time to work out the kinks against non-conference competition and the games start to get real in a hurry for Jeff Capel’s team.

First up, a familiar foe in name, but of course it will be a team and program with a different look. Pitt and Syracuse have been tethered together for many years and will be getting together again for 125th time in history tomorrow, and while I don’t have the numbers to back this up, I’m pretty sure Jim Boeheim was Syracuse’s coach for the first 124 meetings.

The legendary Orange coach called it quits after last season and Pitt will get its first crack at first-year head coach Adrian Autry on Saturday. The man roaming the sideline may be different, but this still feels like what you kind of always expect a typical Syracuse basketball team to look like.

The Orange boasts star sophomore Judah Mintz, one of the highest-scoring players in the ACC, and a one-time Pitt commit to boot, which always adds spice to this game. Syracuse features length on the perimeter, ball dominant guards, and some size to clog the middle of the lane. Again, kind of what you would expect from a typical Syracuse team.

Autry, of course, played for Boeheim, so he knows the blueprint of how Syracuse basketball is supposed to look, even if there is less 2-3 zone in the game plans these days.

Since joining the ACC, the two teams have an even 10-10 record against one another. Jeff Capel himself is 5-6 versus the Orange. This is a series built on familiarity and close games and Saturday looks to be no different.

Pitt and Syracuse both own 9-3 records at the moment, each team has struggled against the better teams on its schedule to date, and if you’re looking for a common opponent factor, Pitt beat Canisius by 11, while Syracuse knocked off the Golden Griffins by 12.

There are some parallels in the results, but also the personnel. There is a reason why both teams went after Mintz hard on the recruiting trail, and truth be told guys like Blake Hinson and Bub Carrington, from a playing style standpoint, probably would have fit in pretty well on some vintage Syracuse teams.

The coaches on the sidelines have changed, but the names on the uniforms have not. It’s Pitt/Syracuse in the Dome and by now, we should know what to expect in this type of game.

Pitt’s lineup is still evolving
Pitt maintained the same starting five for the first nine games of the season, but prior to the team’s game with South Carolina State, Jeff Capel made a couple of moves. He inserted Guillermo Diaz Graham and William Jeffress into the starting five to replace Federiko Federiko and Zack Austin, two players who have struggled significantly out of the gate.

Capel stuck with that altered lineup for a second game a few days later. Will we continue to see this new look moving forward or were those just experiments?

I think both cases are unique and could be evolving. This Pitt team is certainly built around a ‘big three’ on offense. Blake Hinson is one of the ACC’s top scorers, Bub Carrington is one of the league’s best freshman, and maybe less quietly than the other two, Ishmael Leggett has been a fixture at scoring in double figures this season.

Pitt is going to live and die offensively most games with those three doing the bulk of the scoring and I think that is pretty well understood, but the two other spots on the floor and the bench still needs to be more productive and I think the lineup tinkering is pretty telling in that.

In the case at the center spot, I think the move to Guillermo Diaz Graham makes the most sense in the present, but also longterm. Diaz Graham has a better all around game than Federiko, particularly on offense. Federiko has finished with one or fewer made field goals in seven of the team’s 12 games to date.

It’s not that you would expect a ton of offense from Federiko, as he showed his strengths and weaknesses last year, but he has not even really been a threat to score this season and has regressed in that department from last year. Plus his rebounding, one of his supposed strengths, has been lacking as well.

Diaz Graham has flourished with his added minutes. In five games where he has played 20 or more minutes this season, the sophomore from Spain is averaging 13 points per game, 5.6 rebounds, 2.4 assists, 1.6 blocks, and one steal. It’s a small sample size and it remains to be seen how it translates to a full ACC season, but it’s hard not to be encouraged with the kind of stat sheet stuffing Guillermo has been doing.

Switching from Federiko to Diaz Graham feels like a simple case of the younger, higher-upside player breaking through for more minutes. I’m not sure if the same can be said about the other starting spot. It was pretty clear Capel was trying to send a message to Zack Austin over the past few weeks from an effort standpoint.

Will Jeffress played virtually the entire second half against West Virginia in favor of Austin, then against Canisius Austin saw his playing time reduced to six minutes before the official starting lineup change occurred for the past two games.

Jeffress does not bring a scoring punch to the starting lineup, but his defense, rebounding, effort, and toughness can’t be questioned. After a slow start to his career and maybe failing to live up to those four-star expectations, Jeffress has really accepted and embraced his role and is a big part of what this team has been doing this year.

However, in Austin's two games coming off the bench, though not against the greatest competition, he has averaged 12 points and 5.5 rebounds. Those are the type of stat lines we expected to see from the High Point transfer all along and perhaps the message is being received on his end and Pitt should hope he continues to bust out of his slump.

Austin is the team’s best athlete and the ACC schedule is going to feature a lot of athletic teams and it would not be ideal to have him fighting himself to get on the court, because Pitt needs everyone clicking as the schedule ramps up quickly beginning tomorrow.

The roster overhaul continues
The dust has finally settled on signing day for the Pitt football program. The Panthers announced a 19-man recruiting class for the 2024 cycle last week. As we know the staff has been rather active in the transfer portal as well. For now, we know Pitt has nine players committed out of the portal, though they were not officially announced like the high school recruits were last week. I don’t think there are any holdups there or anything, just how it worked out and I’m sure we’ll get a chance to talk to Pat Narduzzi about his transfer portal haul soon enough.

That accounts for the players set to enter the program, but as a recap Pitt lost 11 players to graduation after the 2023 season, ten players opted to hit the transfer portal, while three more will be making an attempt at the NFL. So if you are keeping up with the math here, that accounts for 28 players set to enter the program and only 24 players off the books.

College football teams have room for 85 scholarship players, so to state the obvious, Pitt has more work to do here to get a real working picture what the 2024 roster will look like. There are some more players that will need to leave to open up more space and that could be imminent or could be delayed until after spring ball.

The team will probably need more than four players to leave as well. Pitt has 28 new players committed to enter the program and I don’t think the staff is quite done adding to the roster either. There are still some obvious spots where they need an influx of talent and I expect the coaching staff to remain highly active in the transfer portal.

It’s not that the NCAA’s transfer portal is a never-ending void of players, OK maybe it is, but we see more talent entering every single day. Once one set of bowl games ends, a new wave of players enters. So just because Pitt has not publicly reached out to some players, there are obviously some things working behind the scenes as well.

Pitt has yet to address quarterback and I suspect new offensive coordinator Kade Bell is planning to bring someone in to compete with Christian Veilleux and Nate Yarnell. It would also not be a surprise, especially given the way they targeted the portal, to see Pitt look for another wide receiver or offensive linemen. It also may make sense to add another defensive tackle and cornerback, even with the commitments of Nick James and Tamon Lynum respectively.

I just kind of expect that this is how off seasons are going to look from now on for Pitt and most college programs. Nobody is immune to this. Georgia has lost a ton of players to the portal as well. That is just how this all works now.

There was a sense Pitt’s 3-9 record fueled some decisions to the portal, and maybe it did, but I think as the numbers show, some of this stuff needed to happen, especially if you want to flip the roster after a down season. Obviously you don’t want to lose good young players to the transfer portal like Samuel Okunlola, but you will always have the opportunity to add a replacement David Ojiegbe. It’s not quite like Jerry Seinfeld always breaking even, but the portal can giveth and taketh away is kind of the gist.

It’s been a lot to follow just tracking Pitt’s movements and there is still more roster shuffling to come. I’d love to say there will be some sense of organization to the transfer portal and NIL sometime in the near future, but we know it’s not happening anytime soon. For now, I guess just expect a full on free agency window every December.

TWO QUESTIONS WE HAVE

What were the five best moments of 2023?
I think it’s time to step back a bit and look back at the past 12 months and reflect on what we just saw. The calendar year of 2023 brought on some great moments for Pitt and here are my five best memorable.

The Zoo made some noise

2023 represented a positive momentum change for Pitt basketball in many ways. The 2023 team did a lot to change the culture and get the program back on track by winning 20 games, contending for an ACC title, and making the NCAA Tournament. The team’s run in March was fun but the build up to it was also cool to see.

The Petersen Events Center opened in 2002 and it coincided with a great stretch of Pitt basketball. The building itself and the student section ringing the court, the Oakland Zoo, became synonymous with one of the best atmospheres in the sport. But after a few lean years, that home court advantage evaporated in many ways.

Pitt sprung some memorable home wins in 2023, but the first time The Pete sounded like The Pete again happened back on January 28th. The Panthers trailed Miami 68-60, but came roaring back and won the game on an 11-0 run. The building was shaky because the Zoo was jumping. It was refreshing to see the place how it used to look.

Nino wins the Natty

Pitt senior wrestler Nino Bonaccorsi finished his distinguished career on top as a national champion back in March. Bonaccorsi took home the 197-pound title with an exciting 5-3 decision as he overcame a 3-0 deficit. He became Pitt’s first national champion since 2008 and the 17th all-time in program history. Bonaccorsi became the first Pitt wrestler to win a national title under head coach Keith Gavin, who himself was the last national champion for the school.

Flying high in Dayton

Pitt did not get the NCAA Tournament seed it wanted and it resulted in the team playing in the First Four in Dayton against Mississippi State. The Panthers and Bulldogs played one of the more exciting games in the tournament. Outside of a brief mini-Pitt run in the second half, it was virtually a one possession game in either direction for 40 minutes. The nip and tuck nature of the game spilled into the final minutes and it brought out a pair of heroes for the Panthers.

Jamarius Burton’s jumper with :10 seconds left gave Pitt the lead and then Guillermo Diaz Graham’s huge block helped preserve the win moments later. The victory marked Pitt’s first NCAA Tournament win since 2014.

An Elite Season

Pitt has shown to be a more well-rounded athletic department in recent years and the emergence of the women’s soccer program only speaks to that. The Panthers had very little success prior to the arrival of coach Randy Waldrum, but he has slowly built the program into a threat in the best conference in the country.

After making the program’s first NCAA Tournament in 2022 and also a run to the Sweet 16, the Panthers took it a step further in 2023. Pitt made a run all the way to the Elite 8 this year with an impressive 4-3 upset win over Arkansas along the way. The year ended with a 3-0 defeat to eventual national champion Florida State, but for the upstart program the Panthers have really come a long way.

Handing two Ls to Louisville

Pitt volleyball has been the best program on campus for years now and the Panthers somehow found ways to reach new heights in several ways this year. Dan Fisher’s team has had a nemesis during this current run of success, and it always seems to be Louisville standing in their way.

It was no different this year and there was a reason why Pitt chose to play that regular season match at the Petersen Events Center rather than its usual home of Fitzgerald Field House. The move proved to be beneficial as Pitt sets its own attendance record with 8,865 on hand to witness the two heavyweights go at it. The crowd got a show, too. Pitt fell behind 2-0 and won three consecutive sets to outlast the Cardinals.

The win was exciting, but also pivotal, as Pitt got a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament and the Cardinals fell to a No. 2 seed, which ultimately set the stage for a rematch back in Pittsburgh. This match wasn’t at The Pete, but the Panthers used a similar flare for the dramatics. Like the previous match, Pitt fell behind 2-0, but persevered and came back to win which put the Panthers in the Final 4 for the third straight year, the only program in the country to achieve that.

The Panthers bowed out with a 3-0 defeat to Nebraska, but it was another year of unprecedented success and added fan support as well.

What were five things we learned in 2023?

NIL is here to stay

At the end of the 2023 season, it became clear that Pitt’s NIL collective Alliance 412 had some work to do. It was not so much about going out and landing new players, but part of it was making sure Pitt kept its best players. I think that is just how it is going to be from now on under the current landscape.

NIL is here to stay and while we probably knew that before 2023 started, this past year only reinforced it. Every offseason is going to be an adventure, not only for Pitt, but for every college football program. This is just how the sport is going to operate until someone steps in and regulates this a little better. Given that the NCAA has shown no backbone in all of this, I don’t think a change is on the horizon either.

The ACC’s place in the world is perilous at best

Florida State did not get left out of the College Football Playoff because it came from the ACC. If Jordan Travis was healthy, they’d be playing in a national semifinal this weekend, but I digress. Florida State used that as another bargaining chip in its loud and whining plea to get out of the conference. It’s not a matter of if Florida State and Clemson, and perhaps a few schools will leave the ACC, but when.

In 2023 we saw the complete and total destruction of the Pac-12. The ‘power-five’ became the power-four and it may remain that way for a while, but I don’t think college football is ever really going to stop until Georgia and Ohio State are making more than the GDP of some small countries. So where does that leave Pitt and the ACC? I guess nobody really knows, and that’s the uneasy thing about this.

Jeff Capel can win at Pitt

2023 was the year that Jeff Capel absolutely had to show he could succeed at Pitt and in a put up or shut up year, he did it. He won ACC Coach of the Year. The Panthers were a game away from winning their first-ever ACC title and went on to win two NCAA Tournament games for the first time in a while. Capel blended together an impressive roster on short notice and won 24 games with them. He followed that season by signing three top-100 recruits as well. The energy and enthusiasm around the program is hardly recognizable now after a few empty years at the Petersen Events Center. I don’t know if 2023 was the absolutely turning point for the program overall, but it showed that Pitt can win with Jeff Capel running the program.

Women’s sports are making an impact

I think Pitt has made strides with its entire athletic program, but it’s hard to deny the impact specifically done by the women’s volleyball program. The Panthers have turned into one of the powers in the sport, and it’s a cool thing because it’s something that is taking off. This year was the most watched volleyball final four ever, and it’s a cool thing for Pitt to be one of the more recognizable programs in the sport.

Aside from the Pitt corner of the world, it was pretty apparent how big women’s basketball has been lifted in recent years. Caitlin Clark from Iowa and Angel Reese from LSU weren’t just big names for women’s college basketball, but college sports in general. Check the followers they have on social media. There is a market for this all to continue to grow and its a good thing.

Pat Narduzzi got a little too comfortable, but showed willingness to adapt

The 2023 Pitt football season is not anything we saw coming. After back to back top 25 finishes, it was hard to envision the record bottoming out to 3-9, but it was clear the hiring of Frank Cignetti Jr. was detrimental to the past two seasons and the direction of the program.

When Narduzzi ultimately fired Cigetti after the season, he went in a totally different direction with his next hire. Kade Bell, a 30 year old with no power-five experience will be operating Pitt’s offense. He comes with a reputation of playing fast and scoring a lot of points. It remains to be seen how he will translate to the ACC, but in terms of looking for a change and willingness to adapt, Narduzzi showed that in his most recent hire.

ONE PREDICTION

Pitt squeezes the Orange on Saturday
I guess this is a quick spoiler alert for the usual Panther-Lair.com Staff Picks that we will run later today, but I’m taking Pitt to beat Syracuse tomorrow in the Dome. I do wonder about the lengthy layoff, but I think when it comes down to it, Pitt is the better team in my opinion.

Jeff Capel has also won three straight against the Orange and has had some success against the program in recent years. Obviously with Jim Boeheim gone and things can look a little different, but his fingerprints are still over the team and how it operates.

Syracuse definitely presents some challenges. Mintz is a terrific guard and will be priority one for Pitt to stop tomorrow. JJ Starling is a battle-tested ACC guard who transferred over from Notre Dame and Chris Bell is a dangerous shooter on the wing. Like I said, they have some similarities to Pitt.

What Syracuse does not have is a dangerous post player that can really attack Pitt inside, and I think that’s a bonus for the Panthers. In Pitt’s losses this year, teams have really dumped the ball inside and tried to be physical with the Panthers. While Naheem McLeod presents challenges with his 7-4 listed height, he is not going to be a focal point which should play into Pitt’s hands.

I look for Blake Hinson to have a strong afternoon. IN last year’s meeting in the Dome, Hinson was brilliant with 25 points and 13 rebounds. I look for Pitt’s star player to find a similar comfort level on Saturday and play like the ACC Player of the Year candidate that he is and lead his team to a win.