The Pitt basketball team is currently riding a hot streak. The Panthers have won four consecutive games and six of their past seven. Pitt knocked off No. 21 Virginia on Tuesday by a score of 74-63. That result gave Pitt its sixth road victory of the season and also the team’s second ‘Quad-1’ win of the year as they continue to try to build a tournament resume.
Pitt started ACC play with a 1-5 record and has managed to climb into a tie for fifth place with seven games remaining. The current stretch has been fueled by some special performances and unique storylines.
Hinson’s heater
Blake Hinson is simply one of the more exciting players in Pitt basketball history and in many ways he is becoming one of the very best as well. That is not an exaggeration either and the numbers are there to back up Hinson’s brilliance.
Hinson has scored 988 points in 60 career games at Pitt. Assuming he scores 12 points over the next two games, he will be the fourth fastest player to reach 1,000 points in a Pitt career trailing only Don Hennon (44), Billy Knight (45), and Brian Shorter (50). Of course, Hinson has already reached the 1,000-point plateau for his career, and is over 1,500 factoring in his two seasons at Ole Miss as well.
The bulk of his offense comes from behind the three-point line and his numbers there are equally as impressive. Hinson currently has 82 three-pointers on the season, which is the seventh best individual season in Pitt history. His 97 triples last season is the third-highest mark. He is now one of three players to have two separate seasons with 80+ makes joining Ashton Gibbs (2011-12) and Jason Matthews (1990-91).
He currently has 179 for his career, the ninth-highest career total in the Pitt record books. Julius Page currently is fifth with 210 and with at least eight games remaining, it seems Hinson can make a run towards finishing his career in Pitt's top five.
Hinson’s gaudy scoring numbers are not empty figures either. He has 19 career 20-point games, including ten this season. Pitt is 15-4 over the past two years when Hinson reaches 20 or more points. Pitt’s two best wins this season, Duke and Virginia on the road, were fueled by Hinson. He is averaging 25.5 points, six rebounds, and is shooting 60% from three in those two huge victories.
Pitt basketball has had some tremendous players throughout its history, but the two-year run Hinson is on can stand with some of the best. He is a clutch performer, routinely hits jaw-dropping shots, and has the personality to match the game. In two short years Hinson really has managed to endear himself to the supporters of this program and will be a fan favorite well after his career at Pitt ends.
Reverse splits
The talk around this team in early January was about its inability to protect the Petersen Events Center. The Panthers lost their first four ACC home games this year. Not only did Pitt go winless, the team was hardly competitive.
Pitt managed to bounce back to claim home victories over Wake Forest and Notre Dame in its past two home games. The Panthers are still just 2-4 in league play at home as opposed to 5-2 on the road. The road victories thing has been a big topic surrounding this team, but the basic splits between the two are certainly staggering.
In six ACC home games, Pitt is averaging 64.1 points per game. The team is shooting 30% from three-point range (45-149). In the seven road games, Pitt scores 73.8 points per game and shoots 37% (70-187) from beyond three.
It’s hard to understand why more success happens on the road for this team, considering Pitt played well at home last year and that is normally a natural advantage for any team. I don’t how or why the mindset changes when Pitt plays on the road, but it’s hard to deny it is a real thing at this point.
Wins in opposing ACC arenas
Pitt does not have a long history in the ACC. The Panthers are currently in the middle of their 11th season in the conference. There have been two wins this season where one of the statistics to come out of it was how it was Pitt’s first win in that arena since whatever year. That’s cool, but it’s also were noting Pitt never played at Duke or Virginia for about three decades, so not many chances to stack wins there for most of the time between.
Nevertheless, Pitt won its first game at Cameron Indoor Stadium since 1979 back in January and of course, Pitt claimed its first win in Charlottesville since 1974 with a victory earlier this week. As such, Tuesday’s 74-63 win also became Pitt’s first win in John Paul Jones Arena.
In the past four seasons, Pitt has claimed a road victory against nine members of the ACC. Pitt has won at Duke, Georgia Tech, Louisville, NC State, and Virginia this season. Pitt claimed wins over Florida State and North Carolina last year, while Pitt’s last win in Syracuse was back in 2022 and the Panthers beat Miami in 2021.
That means Pitt has five ACC opponents where they have struggled to win lately or in one case not at all. Coincidentally enough Pitt has three opportunities to end those streaks over the final seven games of the regular season.
Pitt can start with Wake Forest on Tuesday. The Panthers have never won in Winston-Salem and have lost all five games inside of Joel Coliseum. The Panthers won their first-ever game at Clemson’s Littlejohn Coliseum in 2014 and have since lost five straight games to the Tigers in South Carolina. Pitt plays at Clemson on February 27th. Lastly, Pitt has not defeated Boston College at Conte Forum since 2017, but it does own a 12-5 record all-time against the Eagles in their current home arena. The Panthers ship up to Boston on March 2nd for their road finale this season.
The other two will have to wait until at least next year. Pitt’s last win against Notre Dame in South Bend happened in 2016, back when Jamie Dixon was still the coach. Now that Pitt notched wins in Charlottesville and Durham, the longest winning drought Pitt currently has against an ACC opponent is in Blacksburg. Pitt has lost six straight games at Virginia Tech and the team’s last win occurred back in 2003, when the two schools were both still in the Big East.
Comparing backcourts
Pitt currently has a 16-8 record through 24 games this year. Looking back to last season, the Panthers had a 17-7 record to this point of the year. I don’t know how many parallels there are between the two seasons. Last year’s squad was made up of virtually all newcomers, mostly upperclassmen, while this season’s team has a little sense of continuity with some returning players, but certainly less experience with two freshmen playing key roles.
There is no denying Pitt’s 24-win season a year ago was fueled by the play of four senior guards. Of course Blake Hinson was a big part of it, but Pitt played they way it did because it had experienced guards who were all capable of leading the team in scoring on a given night.
This season’s team really only has three guards making noise and there really isn’t that extra attacker like Nike Sibande brought to the team last season, but simply comparing the production of Jamarius Burton, Nelly Cummings, and Greg Elliott vs. Bub Carrington, Ishmael Leggett, and Jaland Lowe is an interesting discussion.
It took this year's trio a while to hit its stride. Lowe dealt with an early season nagging injury and Leggett faced a similar challenge with shoulder setback at the beginning of January. In the past seven games, Pitt’s three-guard look has been whole with all three players logging over 20 minutes in all seven contests.
As we know, Pitt is 6-1 in those games since Leggett has returned to full strength. I know it’s not an exact comparison by any means, but I wanted to see how Pitt’s three guards over these past seven games stacked up compared to last year’s backcourt.
2023-24 (Last 7 games):
Jaland Lowe
13.5 PPG
38% from three
83% free throws
3.2 APG
3.4 RPG
Bub Carrington
13.2 PPG
29% from three
86% free throws
3.2 APG
5.2 RPG
Ishmael Leggett
13.4 PPG
40% from three
74% free throws
1.8 APG
5.1 RPG
2022-23 (full season totals):
Jamarius Burton
15.2 PPG
30.5 from three
83.6% free throws
4.3 RPG
4.3 APG
Nelly Cummings
11.1 PPG
35.7 from three
88.3 free throws
4.8 APG
2.6 RPG
Greg Elliott
10.4 PPG
41.6% from three
87.2 free throws
1.1 APG
4 RPG
Pitt has simply played a lot better over the past month and having three guards capable of scoring and making plays has been key to that success. Lowe’s emergence and Leggett’s surge have seemingly helped Carrington get back to a better place in his game as well. It's hard to replicate the experience and toughness factor that Burton and Cummings brought to the team, but this group is doing a pretty impressive job of replicating it over the past seven contests.
