This article is a Fanpost written by a reader and not the staff of Cardiac Hill.

Rafael Maia defends a shot against Georgia Tech's Marcus Georges-Hunt

I didn't make much of Rafael Maia, at first. In the first few games of the season, he was just one of four guys splitting minutes at the five, and at times left me feeling underwhelmed. He looked a little out of shape; a little clumsy.

But when I watched Pitt face off against Purdue on December 1st at the Pete, I noticed Maia's efforts in the paint against the Boilermakers' gargantuan bigs. He came away with two steals and a block in his ten minutes of playing time, but those were only partially representative of the tenacity and toughness he displayed, making AJ Hammons and Isaac Haas work hard to carve out space on the block.

Maybe Jaime Dixon saw what I saw; he probably saw more. Regardless, he chose to trot out Maia at center over previous starter Alonzo Nelson-Ododa in Pitt's following fixture, the City Game against Duquesne, and the big Brazilian delivered another gritty performance: 9 points, 2 rebounds, 2 assists, 1 block and 2 steals over 25 minutes in the win.

Maia has started every game for Pitt since, solidifying his place in a rotation of key players that has recently shrunk down to seven. (Nelson-Ododa, Damon Wilson, Cameron Johnson and Ryan Luther, while still contributing, are all averaging less than 7 minutes per game in ACC play thus far)

Let's leave numbers aside, for a second. The great thing about Maia is that he's acutely aware of his abilities and their limitations and is happy to work his ass off to play a specific, unglamorous role. As I mentioned before, he's tough on D: he's not a great athlete but he knows how to use his size to impede paths to the basket. He did another good job this past Saturday against Notre Dame's Zach Auguste, an explosive, above-the-rim big who you may have spotted having his way with the MonStars of Kentucky's frontcourt last March.

And when Raf grabs a defensive board, he often seems to locate James Robinson and toss him the ball in a nanosecond, then start hustling down the court. Maia's not very fast, but he hustles, always. On offense, he rarely gets scoring opportunities but he battles for position in the paint anyways, or runs to the top of the key simply to receive a pass from one wing and swing the ball the other way immediately. Of course, this is strategy: Maia is simply executing plays designed by Jamie Dixon. But he does so consistently and without unduly stopping the ball to look towards the basket in an attempt to "get his."

Ok, now the numbers. The obvious, big picture stuff is there: Maia has the lowest usage percentage of any Pitt player (10.9) and he averages only 3.6 points per game. But the little stuff shows up too: he has the highest steal percentage on the team and his defensive rating is second only to that of Sheldon Jeter. Maia is also second on the team in total rebound percentage and is averaging 8 RPG during ACC play. The dude is plain scrappy.

(stats, as always, available here http://www.sports-reference.com/cbb/schools/pittsburgh/2016.html

On what is starting to look like a pretty good Pitt team, the man from Sao Paolo is panning out as the true glue guy, the player who revels in doing the dirty work and not much else in order for the team to succeed.

Keep doing what you do, Rafael Maia.