Hello fellow Blather-addicts, welcome back to another edition of Pitt by Numbers; the tempo-free statistical post that gets by on blue-collar toughness and physicality.
Throughout the pre-conference slate we were told that this is Jamie Dixon’s deepest team yet. The early repetition of this proclamation has led a few of the regulars on this blog to go the other way and call our bench overrated. Now, in the wake of Pitt’s 3-0 performance in Ashton Gibbs’ absence we’re back to lauding what guys like Trevon Woodall and Talib Zanna bring to the table.
We can spend all day throwing out qualitative statements about Pitt’s depth, but just how deep are the Panthers? More importantly, how much does depth matter?
I wanted to see if there was some kind of trait that teams who make deep runs into March have in common when it comes to how they rely on their bench. I took the last four years worth of Final Four teams and compared the percentage of minutes, points, rebounds and assists that came from their benches. Here is how they compare to this year’s Pitt team. (You may have to maximize your browser to view the graph)
