Well we now have seven (actually 7 ½) games to evaluate the Pitt Panthers and I think this is a team that has a chance to pretty good.

How good is still to be determined but I do think they are definitely better than last year.

This latest game against Central Arkansas notwithstanding (the Bears weren’t very good), the Panthers do have some good size on the wing and at guard, they shoot it well and they do have more depth than last year.

And I think Jamie and his players are slowly but surely getting on the same page in this regard: He is starting to trust them more on offense and they are starting to try and buy in more on defense.

That was one of the issues last year – along with some injuries and other issues – Jamie wanted the Panthers to play like his old teams and just didn’t have the personnel or enough players with that defensive mindset and the players never really bought into the idea that they needed to play better on the defensive end.

This season some of that frustration showed up early but each games it seems like they are working a little more to get on the same page.

The Panthers won’t ever be great defensively this season but they can and will improve. And I think they can get a lot better offensively as well – and Dixon seems more comfortable with his players letting it fly a little bit as long as they aren’t forcing bad shots and are sharing the ball.

So it has been a give and take and the result is a team that looks like it could morph into something pretty good by the end of the season.

Here are some other notes:

** Jonathan Milligan will redshirt this year. He has some personal family issues and he went home to take care of them so he missed a couple of practices and he also has been a little banged up. Dixon thinks this is the best thing for him and it makes a lot of sense as he is going through some stuff at home. If a kid has a redshirt season available, especially with James Robinson a senior and thus he won’t be back next year, there is no reason not to use Milligan until he is really ready to contribute and it doesn’t sound like he is. So save a year of eligibility and give him a year to get used to playing at this level on his own terms. He will join Rozelle Nix in the redshirt department as Nix is still walking around in a boot on his foot.

** Damon Wilson really looked good in this game and he played 20 minutes. Now, again Central Arkansas is not good and is a long way from being good – so let’s not lose our minds and try to keep perspective on this. But Wilson did a lot of really good things in this game and showed some flashes of what he could bring to the Panthers: He had a couple of nice drives, he had a few really nice passes, he hit some 3’s – he scored 20 points. He has to get much, much better defensively and that is some of the stuff that Dixon has talked about but the more he plays, the more he will settle in and improve. Dixon said this game against the Bears was good because it gave him a chance to see guys like Wilson play – and their mistakes didn’t really matter. Last week against Purdue, the mistakes these guys made did matter and that’s why Wilson barely played in that game. He needs to get as much time as possible so that he can become an important player off the bench in February and beyond.

** The trio of James Robinson, Jamel Artis and Mike Young have now started 40 games in a row and have clearly been the heart and soul of this team. And today they showed why they are leaders of this team as they happily took a back seat to all the younger guys for almost the entire second half (none of those three played more than 20 minutes) and they just cheered for the other guys and encouraged them. That doesn’t sound like a big deal but the reality is some guys want to get their stats before taking a seat. These guys did a good job of making sure they were team leaders.

** Rafael Maia has now started the last two games over Alonzo Nelson-Ododa and I expect it to be the case now for a few games because he has played well. I think the two will just battle each other all season and Dixon will go with the hot hand so it won’t shock me if Nelson-Ododa starts some going forward as well. The two are different – Maia is more physical and tougher to move out of the middle and back down in the post and Nelson-Ododa is more of a shot blocker. Maia played well against Duquesne in his first start. I think both of them work really hard and play hard enough that they can at least give the Panthers someone in the middle to battle the big guys on other teams. Now, they both need to get much better to play the bigger and better centers out there – as we saw against Purdue – but for now Dixon has found a comfort level with both of them and will figure out how to split time with them based on who is playing well.

** One last thing – the best of the new guys has been Sterling Smith and he just keeps getting better and better. He is a good defender, which is what earned him the start, but he is starting to hit his shots now (3-of-5 from the 3-point line today) and he is also a very good rebounder. He has a chance to be a really important player for this team if he is able to hit shots the way he has been the last few games. Those 3s – even the threat of them – take a lot of pressure off the other guys on offense. And his ability to rebound helps when they play bigger teams because they don’t have one dominant rebounder so it has to be a team effort.

** The next four games are all a part of the Gotham Classic – even though only the Davidson game will be played actually in New York City. Eastern Washington, Morehead State and Western Carolina are all part of that exempt event so that’s why those games are on the schedule. This Central Arkansas game was scheduled because the Bears were about the only team that could play Pitt on this day. Dixon wanted a game Monday but it is finals week for a lot of schools and couldn’t find a taker. So it is what it is, Dixon admitted the Bears weren’t very good and they wanted a little better opponent but sometimes the schedule doesn’t dictate that.

First Published: December 15, 2015, 7:26 p.m.