The Pitt basketball program weathered the storm in the month of January and comes into tonight with a 12-9 overall record. Jeff Capel’s young team showed promise and pulled off two big wins last month, but if there are any lingering postseason hopes moving forward, they will be won or lost in the decisive month of February.

Pitt generated some buzz nationally by springing upsets over Louisville and Florida State to start the ACC season with a 2-2 record; not only were both wins crucial to the program by getting the weight of last season’s 0-18 ACC record off it’s back, but both games also provided the Panthers with a surprisingly respectable postseason resume at this juncture.

Louisville is currently one of the hottest teams in the country and has risen to No. 15 in this week’s AP Poll. Florida State has spent most of the season in the polls and currently sits at No. 25 in the rankings. Both wins were not only impressive for Capel’s turnaround of the Pitt program; they mark a sign of hope heading into February.

But January was not all good for Pitt. The Panthers are now in the midst of a four-game losing streak to close out the month of January and have now slipped to 2-6 in the ACC. It’s not ideal, but it’s not exactly insurmountable either. Pitt still has a chance to make a run at a NIT berth and even still an outside shot at the NCAA Tournament.

The team's ACC schedule to this point has been nothing short of brutal. All eight conference games have been against opponents who currently sit in the top 50 of the KenPom.com rankings; in fact, Pitt's has been the toughest conference schedule in the country using those rankings.

By contrast, of the Panthers' upcoming ten games, five will be against teams ranked outside the top 50. While no games would classify as easy in a conference like the ACC, the upcoming schedule is certainly more forgiving than the first eight games Pitt has played.

Of course, it does appear the team is hitting a bit of a wall, and as expected, the depth and experience of this group is being tested. For as good as the freshman backcourt of Xavier Johnson and Trey McGowens has been this year, both have struggled as teams have watched more and more film on both players.

McGowens averaged 21.7 points in Pitt’s first four ACC games, but has been limited to 8.2 during the team’s four-game losing streak. Johnson has been held under double digits twice in the past four games as well, breaking a season-long streak of double figures up until that point.

In addition to teams taking more caution with with Johnson and McGowens, Pitt’s third freshman starter, Au’Diese Toney, missed last game with an injured right hand, and Pitt sophomore center Terrell Brown is currently dealing with sickness.

It’s a crossroads for this team, but it is still better than what the team posted last season with an 8-24 final record. Capel’s team was picked to finish last in the ACC in the preseason polls, and with a roster that was pieced together quickly over the offseason, any sort of success was not necessarily counted on to accomplish much at the start of the season.

Tonight, Pitt begins it’s final ten-game run to close out the regular season against a familiar foe: Syracuse. The two teams met in mid-January in the Carrier Dome with the Orange prevailing 74-63. Although Syracuse won by double digits, the Panthers, sparked by Johnson and senior Jared Wilson-Frame, applied pressure on Syracuse throughout the game.

The venue for this game, of course, switches to the Petersen Events Center. Pitt historically has played Jim Boeheim’s teams very well at home. Since “The Pete” opened in 2002, the Panthers own a 9-3 record against the Orange on their home floor.

In addition to history being on Pitt’s side, both of the Panthers' ACC wins have come in front of their home crowd, and the energy and crowd that once made the Petersen Events Center one of the more hostile arenas in the country has returned under the early resurgence led by Capel.

It remains to be seen how this young Pitt team will handle the challenge and the pressure of a full ACC slate, but we will know a little bit more after tonight’s game.