PITTSBURGH — The start of the 2020-21 college basketball season in about two weeks comes with a cascade of questions, many of which go well beyond the intricacies of what will unfold on the various courts across the country.

When it comes to Pitt, uncertainties about playing during a global pandemic exist, of course, but they don’t end with the coronavirus.

The Panthers enter the season, their third under Jeff Capel, picked to finish 13th in the 15-team ACC after a disappointing 16-17 finish last season. They do so with question marks, not all of which are foreboding. There’s simply a lot that’s not known about this team and how the next four months might transpire.

What are the biggest concerns? What variables will be the difference between a successful season and an underwhelming one? Let’s take a look.

Can Xavier Johnson return to form?

It’s perhaps unfair to label the 2020-21 season as a potential bounce-back campaign for the Pitt junior point guard because he wasn’t that bad in 2019-20. Nonetheless, a player who came into the season with expectations of being a program pillar and a potential NBA draft pick fell short of that billing.

His scoring dipped, which was partially a product of having the ball in his hands less, but his efficiency fell, as well, with his field goal and 3-point percentage falling below what it was during a stellar freshman season. That only tells so much of the story, though. It wasn’t just that he wasn’t quite what he was a freshman, when he made the ACC all-freshman team alongside three players who left college for the NBA that year; it was that he didn’t take the steps many expected him to and, partially because of that, his team didn’t, either.

Is there reason to believe things will be different this season? Absolutely. Johnson was handicapped in ways that went beyond some of his own shortcomings. He was a point guard on a team without a reliable outside shooter and a low-post scoring threat. More notably, he was part of a backcourt that, between him and Trey McGowens, featured players with redundant skill sets. They weren’t identical by any stretch, but both were athletic slashers and below-average shooters who struggled with bouts of recklessness.

Now, with McGowens at Nebraska, Ithiel Horton steps into the two-guard role and provides Pitt with a player that theoretically better complements its star. Johnson, much to his credit, has spoken at length since the end of last season about how he needs to be better, about how some of the hype surrounding his game and his future got to his head last season, ultimately interfering with his performance. When on-court changes and a mental maturation are taken into account, it’s quite possible that the 2019-20 season will stand as a sophomore slump, a momentary dip in an otherwise accomplished career.

How robust will the backcourt be?

How Johnson fares as a junior will depend in some part on the other guards around him. Right now, with the season quickly approaching, that picture is a slightly unclear one. While McGowens’ departure gives Pitt a more workable starting backcourt, it deprives it of precious depth at guard.

Horton will play the biggest role in that group and in determining what it can do. The Delaware transfer was lauded as he sat out last season and has been praised by teammates and coaches alike heading into this season. It stands to reason that he and Johnson will receive the large majority of minutes at guard.

Beyond him, things are slightly murkier. Freshman Femi Odukale, rated by Rivals as a top-150 recruit in 2020, figures to be a long and versatile addition who can handle ball-handling duties, if need be. He underwent surgery in August to repair a broken arm suffered during a moped accident, and while his absence was initially declared to be indefinite, he has been a full participant in the team’s practices, signaling that if he misses any time to start the season, the absence would be brief. There’s also Nike Sibande, a transfer from Miami (Ohio), whose waiver for immediate eligibility was denied in late September after it was met with resistance from his former school. Pitt is in the process of appealing that ruling, but ask anyone around the program when a final decision might be reached and you’ll get the same answer: who knows?

With Sibande, the Panthers would add a dynamic, experienced scorer. Without him, their group of guards is relatively thin, so much so they’d have to shuffle players more aptly classified as wings — think Au’Diese Toney, Gerald Drumgoole and William Jeffress, among others — into that role.

How will the freshmen perform?

Seven of the 13 scholarship players on Pitt’s roster are new to the program, having never played a minute for an ACC team. Of those seven, five are freshmen.

It’s a touted group, one that was ranked 22nd by Rivals among all Division I programs. That rating was inflated a bit by the larger size of the class, but it speaks primarily to the promise those players possess. Two of them — Jeffress and forward John Hugley — are four-star players. Forward Noah Collier is an athletic wing whom teammates like Johnson have praised for his ability to jump out of the gym. Center Max Amadasun, at 6-foot-10, provides the Panthers with a much-needed big body.

Pitt has some foundational pieces in place, beginning with Johnson running the point. Justin Champagnie was the team’s best player in his first college season, turning in an all-ACC freshman caliber campaign. Toney is the team’s best defender and emerged last season as a much more capable offensive option.

What will the freshmen be able to add to that? Hugley stands as the most obvious candidate to make an immediate impact, as he fills the biggest need. At 6-foot-9 and 240 pounds, he could give the Panthers the kind of physical rebounder and instinctive low-post presence they haven’t had for years. While Toney and Champagnie have established themselves as formidable, entrenched pieces on the wing, Jeffress and Collier should, at the very worst, provide some depth and move between different positions. Odukale will be needed to bolster the backcourt.

Program-building is a process, especially given where Pitt was when Capel was hired. Each class of players adds something to it. One can point to Johnson and Toney from two years ago. Last year it was, at the very least, Champagnie, to say nothing of what other players might emerge as contributors from that group. What this class is able (or unable) to accomplish will dictate where the Pitt program will go in the next three or four years.

Where’s the outside shooting going to come from?

Pitt, even in its best and most celebrated days when it sported some of college basketball’s most efficient offenses, has rarely ever been an excellent 3-point shooting team. Last season, however, brought a new low.

The Panthers shot just 29.6% from beyond the arc, tying them for 329th of 350 Division I teams and standing as the worst single-season mark in program history. Without many of the same offensive assets that aided more-successful Pitt teams, their offense languished, finishing with their second-fewest points per 100 possessions since the 2000-01 season, ahead of only the infamous 2017-18 team that went winless in the ACC. Following the graduation of Jared Wilson-Frame — and with the shortcomings of Ryan Murphy, some of them injury induced — no player stepped into that role of consistent outside presence. No scholarship player shot better than 33.1% from deep last season, turning the Panthers into a one-dimensional, predictable offense that regularly suffered. When, as a team, you can’t make three out of 10 3s in an increasingly perimeter-oriented game, you’re not in a good place.

The good news is it can’t really get worse, nor should it. Ithiel Horton alone should provide a huge boost, as he made 40.9% of his 3s on 5.8 attempts per game as a freshman at Delaware in 2018-19. Champagnie and Drumgoole — who shot 26.2% and 12.5%, respectively, from 3 last season — are regarded by teammates and coaches as being better shooters than they showcased in games last season. Examples of that hopeful jump are evident on the team’s roster, as Toney improved his numbers from deep by eight percentage points last season. If Johnson, even with his unorthodox mechanics, can get back to shooting around 35% like he did as a freshman, that would be welcome. There’s also whatever help the newcomers might provide.

If there’s little to no improvement in that area, it’s hard to envision Pitt, or at least its offense, being much better than it was last season.

How far can this team move up in the ACC standings, if at all?

After being picked 10th in the ACC preseason poll last year, the Panthers begin this season with slightly lower expectations, being placed 13th, ahead of only perpetually rebuilding Boston College and a Wake Forest squad in Year 1 under a new coach.

That’s not necessarily a bad thing. Last season, those preseason hopes did Pitt little good, as it went 6-14 in intraconference games and finished in 14th. This season, its projection could serve some sort of motivational purpose, but more instructively, it shows the climb Capel and his players face. Being 13th isn’t necessarily a signal that people view the Panthers poorly, as this writer had them 12th; if nothing else, it’s a sign that the teams ahead of it return more and/or have higher-ranked recruiting classes. For an exercise like preseason prognostications, Pitt exists in a weird space. It’s not a blue-blood like Duke, North Carolina or Louisville, or a recently successful program like Florida State. Its recruiting class was celebrated, but it doesn’t feature any blue-chip, top-25 players who could be seen as guaranteed difference-makers. So what you get is a team that lost three of its top six scorers from a group that underwhelmed last season and a group of freshmen that, while encouraging, exists more as a question mark.

The good news for Pitt is that, for a second consecutive season, the ACC doesn’t look particularly strong. Only two teams — No. 4 Virginia and No. 9 Duke — were in the top 15 of the Associated Press preseason poll and the next-best team, No. 16 North Carolina, is coming off a miserable 14-19 campaign. Florida State should, again, be strong, but beyond those four, there’s nothing all that imposing. Louisville has to replace six of its top eight scorers. Syracuse, Miami, Georgia Tech and Clemson all bring back most of their best players, but none of those teams finished with more than 18 wins last season. Beyond that is a collection of teams Pitt appears capable of competing against.

While it might be hard to envision the Panthers finishing in, say, the top six of the league, it’s much easier to picture them doing better than where they were picked to finish.