The abrupt ending to Pitt’s basketball season means a lot of things, but one that certainly needs recognized is Blake Hinson’s run as a Panther is over suddenly. In two seasons, Hinson proved to be one of the most prolific scorers in program history and was the key to Pitt’s resurgence with back-to-back 20-win seasons.
Hinson and the Panthers were riding high just days prior after beating Wake Forest on Thursday, but then the season came screeching to a halt when Pitt did not hear its name called to be in the NCAA Tournament, then declining an NIT bid just moments later.
There was no warning, just a quick band-aid pull.
Pitt lost to North Carolina 72-65 on Friday night in the ACC Tournament semifinals. Hinson scored only five points in the defeat, well below the 18.5 he averaged this season. The Panthers’ year was over, but at the time when he spoke that was not certain, but a chaotic weekend of upsets likely stole a bid from the tournament hopeful team.
Hinson talked to the media inside the locker room of the Capital One Arena, his last postgame scrum as a Panther, without either side really knowing it. The season started with the big question of would Hinson be able to become Pitt’s leader, but in what ultimately ended up being his final postgame, he answered that question undoubtedly.
“A lot of teams guard me a lot of different ways,” Hinson started. "They try their best to not let me score. It’s my job to score. I didn’t do my job tonight. It’s not necessarily anything they did in particular. I mean, they played good defense for sure, but at the end of the day it’s my job to be able to overcome the good defense and I didn’t do that tonight.”
Taking blame for a loss isn’t the sole definition of leadership, but the accountability factor is a large part of it. When hearing that’s what he did, Pitt freshman point guard Bub Carrington was quick to come to Hinson’s defense.
“Blake, that’s an amazing brother I feel like,” the freshman said. “Like a great person, an amazing teammate, amazing guy, always upbeat, always energetic and I knew he was going to put this game on himself, but it’s not his fault at all. We lost as a team.”
Hinson was the one who sparked the season’s turnaround, going for 24 points in an improbable and unlikely 80-76 upset over then No. 7 Duke inside of Cameron Indoor Stadium. It was vintage Hinson, going 7 of 7 from three-point range, and of course letting the Cameron Crazies know about it afterwards.
Hinson led his way and it resonated. After a 1-5 start in league play, the Panthers kept plugging along. His voice carried and so did his offense. The Florida native is one of the deadliest pure scorers in Pitt history.
As a senior, Hinson set Pitt’s single season 3-point record (110) and single-game (nine, twice). He finished seventh in career 3-point makes with 207 as a Panther, and recorded 298 3-pointers in his four-year career overall.
Hinson scored 1,159 points in two seasons and became the fourth fastest player to reach 1,000 at Pitt. He totaled 609 points in 33 games this year, the 13th 600-point season in Pitt history.
Hinson earned first team All-ACC honors this season and was a second team pick in 2023. In two seasons at Pitt, he helped generate a 46-23 record. He was there to end Pitt’s six-year NCAA Tournament drought last season and nearly got the team to another this year with a 12-4 record over the final 16 games
Hinson, like many others in the Pitt locker room after the UNC defeat, had the same thought - that the team deserved to be in the tournament. Hinson recognized the effort it took for his team to overcome the rough start to even be in contention for a bid.
“Starting 1-5 then grabbing a four-seed in this tournament, ended up winning a game, that’s good work,” he said. “We played really hard throughout the second half of the season, we’re definitely deserving.”
The committee did not see it that way.
Outside of the team who wins the national championship, no team or player gets the proper sendoff they may deserve, but that is especially true for a star player on a bubble team who got left out of the tournament.
If you lose in the NCAA Tournament, there is at least some finality to the situation. When you lose in the ACC Tournament with some hope on the table, it leaves things open ended. Jeff Capel did not get to sit next to Hinson at the podium the same way he did with Jamarius Burton, Nelly Cummings, Greg Elliott, and Nike Sibande after the team lost in the Big Dance last season.
That group had some closure, Hinson's run is simply over.
Capel got to speak his peace on Hinson back on March 9th, after Pitt beat tournament bid-thief NC State in the regular season finale, 81-73. The Pitt coach recalled a story about how he planned to break the team down in the huddle before the first practice of the season, but Hinson, the team’s new leader, took charge of the moment and he watched him take ownership of the team right then.
“I just let him do it,” Capel recounted of that moment. "He’s done it, these guys believe in him, and what he has meant for this program, for me, for our coaching staff - when you have a guy that believes that like that, our paths crossed for a reason.”
They certainly did, but the storybook ending got left out of the final script.
