The Pitt Panthers dropped a 86-71 decision to Florida in the Preseason NIT on Wednesday night. Pitt held the lead for the majority of the first half, but once Florida settled in, the Gators pushed the Panthers around and took it to them a little after halftime. Jeff Capel’s team is now 4-1 on the young season.

Here are three takeaways from Pitt’s loss to Florida on Wednesday night.

A humbling experience

The Pitt Panthers cruised through their first four games, but all signs made it inevitable that Florida would be their first real test of the 2023-24 season. Pitt did not respond well to that challenge in its 86-71 defeat to the Gators. The Panthers appeared ready for the bright lights of New York City from the start, but as the game progressed they had little answer for Florida’s physical play and got bullied a bit by the SEC squad in the second half.

Pitt started off the game in solid fashion. The Panthers jumped out to a quick 7-0 lead and got it up to 14-7 on a logo three-pointer from Blake Hinson. In fact, Pitt never trailed for the first 19 minutes of the game, but a late 8-0 Florida run right before halftime seemed to change the scope of the game and the Panthers never really responded to that haymaker from the Gators.

We have seen this story before, however, and it occurred in this very building. The circumstances are certainly different, but Pitt’s loss to Michigan last year at the Barclay’s Center was not a death blow to the outcome of the season. Pitt was able to grow from the experience and recover to have a good season and I still think that is very much in play for this team as well.

Pitt has to take this experience and learn from it, but truthfully it’s not all that surprising this game went down the way it did. This team is built to be successful with a freshman point guard running the show and this was the first big test for Carlton Carrington. Pitt’s star freshman has been receiving all kinds of hype and showed some impressive things early in this contest, but Florida got physical with him, threw different defenders his way, and did a good job of getting him out of rhythm and ultimately it got the Panthers out of sync. Florida’s guards, most notably Walter Clayton Jr., just appeared ready to grind out a 40-minute game better than Pitt’s backcourt. For a young guard like Carrington, it was the first time he saw people as good as him play as hard as they did in a college game and I think that is important to remember. This was Florida, not Florida Gulf Coast.

It was not just Carrington, either. Pitt’s whole team got out-hustled most of the game and this should be a learning experience for that. I think Carrington will bounce back, as will this Pitt team, but they probably needed to be knocked down a peg or two. Life was not going to be as easy as the first four games and this should be a good lesson for the team in the long run. You would like to see them respond a little better than they did in the moment, but they also have a whole season to fight back just the same.

This team has to get more production inside

Pitt had a lot of success last season with a strong backcourt, and if the Panthers are going anywhere this season, it will be on the strength of their guards making plays. Pitt has a lot of firepower on the perimeter and that is going to be how they win the majority of their games this season.

There comes a sense of unpredictability when you have a team with guards who have the freedom and gumption to take just about any shot they like, but even so, you would like to see a little more consistency from the post players. The offense doesn’t necessarily run through them, but at the end of the game there needs to be some production next to their names in the box score.

Pitt got manhandled inside against Florida. The Gators held a 44-26 edge in points in the paint. Florida big man Tyreese Samuel posted 20 point and 10 rebounds. Florida’s 6’11” freshman, Alex Condon, chipped in with 11 points and six boards off the bench.

Conversely, Pitt’s three tallest players, Federiko Federiko, Guillermo and Jorge Diaz Graham, combined for seven points (one made field goal) and 12 rebounds in 47 minutes of action.

Florida’s starting center Micah Handlogten, a 7’1” sophomore, was injured almost immediately on Wednesday and never returned to the court. Even with the Gators big man on the sidelines, Pitt still got pushed around by Florida for much of the game.

In fairness to Federiko, he was playing with some foul trouble and never could establish much of a rhythm on the court. Even so, it is known that he is not a player you are going to run offense through, and for now, the Diaz Graham twins still seem like high-energy players who lack muscle and may float away from the basket. It is not a surprise, because all of those guys are somewhat still a work in progress. This game did not reveal any hidden secrets in their respective games.

It was understood prior to the season who those guys were and what their strengths and weaknesses were, but at the same time they have displayed better performances than what they showed against Florida. Federiko played good basketball nearly all of last season and Guillermo Diaz Graham was a beast in March. Pitt needs more performances like that from those three moving forward this season.

Disappointing performance, but still encouraged

Pitt had plenty of shortcomings on Wednesday night in its first real test of the season. After slaughtering four mid-majors, Pitt had to stand toe to toe with Florida, and if you’ve read this far, you know it did not go so well. Pitt’s star players struggled. The team committed too many turnovers and missed a lot of foul shots. The Panthers’ big guys got shoved around, so yea, I think we covered all of the major points by now.

Even after a rough performance against Florida, I still do like the makeup of this team and I sense better basketball on the horizon for this group. I think Pitt has a chance again be a top-five ACC team like it was last season, but obviously there is a lot that needs cleaned up before January in order to make that happen.

Hinson and Carrington are going to have showings like this, and you are going to ride out some games when the shots just aren’t falling for them. Ideally for Pitt, it does not happen on the same night moving forward that both are struggling. Those two have the freedom to shoot just about anything and while I think Capel is generally OK with letting his best players have the ball in their hands, there still needs to be a few more instances of getting easy looks for layups, which I guess ties into the bigs production on Wednesday, or lack thereof.

Pitt settled for a lot of jumpers and even when Capel tried to reel them back in, the guys on the court still resorted to that more often than not. Pitt is definitely a heavy jump shooting team, but this group still needs to unlock some sources of easy offense against better teams and when the deep shots simply aren’t falling.

Pitt still has a tough road ahead with Oregon State on Friday and a quick turnaround to host Missouri on Tuesday night. The Panthers ran into their first test and came out on the wrong end of it. The next test will be to see how they respond. I’m still optimistic they’ll win some games this year, but it will be interesting to see if this year’s team can handle adversity the way last year’s squad did.