It is Robert Morris, after all.
That means player puff pieces in the context of Pitt basketball.
Senior John DeGroat gets the “I’m just trying to help the team,” story.
Playing time didn’t come easy to DeGroat in the opener. He played only 13 minutes, scoring three points and grabbing four rebounds.
“Same thing as last year,” he said. “If I’m on the court, I’m on the court. If I’m not, I’m not. I’m still part of the team. I’ve got to support my teammates, no matter what. Everybody wants to be on the court, but I do take my (senior) role as a lead role.”
DeGroat was a scorer in high school at Monticello (N.Y.), where he averaged 24.3 points to go with 13.5 rebounds and 3.0 steals per game as a senior. He went on to play two seasons at Northeastern Colorado Junior College.
As a sophomore, he averaged 11.7 points and 6.9 rebounds, and shot 49.4 percent (128 for 259), including 44.4 (32 for 72) from 3-point range.
Now, in his second season at Pitt, DeGroat is hoping he can contribute.
“Everybody can keep improving. I’m improving every day,” he said. “One part of my game I can improve is I can rebound and defend more, but I’m getting better every day.”
DeGroat was not seen very often until nearly the end of the season when he got into a couple games during the random bench rotation time. This, despite expectations that he was going to be an immediate contributor at forward. It still remains to be seen what happens this year.
The other story is for Center Aaron Gray.
Gray is a double threat at center. He can score when called upon, but he also is among the best passers on the team. When St. Peter’s played zone against the Panthers, Gray found the open man and forced the Peacocks to play more man-to-man defense. And when they played man-to-man, Gray exercised his size advantage and went to the basket.
“We got them out of their zone because I got the ball in the high post and was making good passes,” Gray said. “It was opening up our offense. When they went man-to-man the guys were looking for me. I was trying to get to the hoop. I worked on my moves really hard during the offseason.”
Gray is looking to be more assertive this season. Because he is one of the team’s better passers, Gray sometimes fell into the habit of passing out of the low post last season instead of going to the basket.
In the offseason, Dixon and the coaching staff talked with him about taking more of the offense on his broad shoulders.
“One of the things I do in practice is pass too much out of the post,” Gray said. “The coaches said I need to be a big offensive contributor to this team because we have so many young guys who are working their way in.”
How Gray develops and progresses this season will be part of how well Pitt does. It’s the trend for the whole team. Development and progress.
There is no doubt that this will be an up and down season for Pitt. There just is no other way with the number of new, talented players plus the ones from last year who are getting a shot.
I think most fans understand that. What I, and most, want to see is some reasonably steady improvement over the course of the season. Last year the team didn’t change from start to finish. No improvements, no growth, nothing.
Final note, Carl Krauser is once more a candidate for the Naismith Award to go with his candidacy for the Wooden Award. Long-shots, I know, but who knows.
