Legendary musician Willie Nelson penned his song ‘On the Road Again’ back in 1979. That song is fitting for this stretch of play for the Pitt basketball team. The 18th-ranked Panthers are in the midst of a five-game stretch away from the Petersen Events Center, and it continues tonight, on the road yet again, in Starkville, Mississippi.
Pitt will take part in the second annual SEC/ACC Challenge and will be going up against the Bulldogs of Mississippi State set for a 9:15 p.m. tip on the SEC Network. The Panthers won their first true road game of the season, with a dramatic overtime victory over Ohio State last Friday, by a score of 91-90 on a last second Zack Austin three-pointer.
Grabbing any win in someone else’s gym is never easy, but it can be a confidence booster. Another thing that can lift a team’s spirts is to overcome adversity while doing it.
Last Friday’s win in Columbus checked both of those boxes.
The Panthers had to fight through an 11-point deficit with 16 minutes remaining, and did so in their first game without starting guard Damian Dunn, who is out with an injury. Throw in a boatload of foul trouble, an additional injury to starter Guillermo Diaz Graham, and Pitt had to overcome a considerable amount adversity, but came out of it on the right side.
“I mean, it was super important,” Pitt sophomore point guard Jaland Lowe said of getting that first win on the road. “I mean, it sets the tone for the rest of the journey that we got coming up. It shows how important and how focused we got to be in the details of everything, because it's not easy at all, especially with these games we got coming up.”
The Panthers are off to a 7-1 start, and have gained plenty of attention already, more so than the previous two years. In recent seasons, Pitt has started slow, and it has caught up with them during the lengthy bubble talk that consumes college basketball in February and March. Having roster continuity, however, may be a reason this team already appears more comfortable on the road, and in general, early on this season.
Pitt went 7-4 in road games last season, with memorable wins in hostile environments like Duke and Virginia. Lowe, Austin, Diaz Graham, and Leggett all had significant parts in some of those road wins a year ago, which has allowed this team to just hit the ground running in all facets this season.
“I think it really helps everybody, everybody come in, know their roles already,” Austin said of having a returning core with experience. “Everybody's familiar with the situation, knows the coaching staff, what they need to get better on, and what the coaching staff want from them.”
Lowe echoed those thoughts.
“I mean, that helps tremendously because it gives a sense of knowing and knowledge of what we have to do in order to win games, how to be a really good team, to know when adversity comes, how to get through that,” said the talented sophomore who is averaging 16.6 points a game this season.
The Panthers made a run late last season, with an ‘us against the world’ mentality. Things are a bit different this season. Pitt found itself ranked No. 5 in the initial set of NET rankings, ranking up there with the best teams in the country.
Lowe said the added attention is not getting into their heads just yet.
“I think we still have the same underdog mentality,” he explained. “I feel like our locker room hasn't changed at all. The way we talk about certain aspects of the game hasn't changed. I feel like we're even more hungrier now.”
It should be no problem to be hungry for Pitt, a program that felt disrespected last season. The Panthers won 22 games, had a top five finish in the ACC, but were also one of the first four teams left out of the NCAA Tournament. Head coach Jeff Capel has a screen up in Pitt’s locker room reminding his players that they were one of the first four teams left out, and the team has to walk by it every day.
“I mean, it's in the back of our heads for sure,” Lowe said of missing last year’s Big Dance. "We don't like to bring it up too much, but we all know it. It doesn't have to be said.”
The Panthers have claimed wins over LSU and Ohio State during this run, but also lost a game to Wisconsin. They are hoping to improve to 3-1 on this mini road trip, and there’s no extra motivation needed either.
Games like tonight, against another tournament-hopeful team, are easy to get amped up for according to Austin.
“I think we all was excited,” said the senior forward, who is shooting a career-best 41% from three this season. “No disrespect to the teams we played before, but we know how much these games mean to the national media and what people are going to say about us after the stretch. And we wanna come in and show people that we're for real. We feel like we're one of the best teams in the country, and we're trying to prove that.”
