The Pitt basketball season had been trending in the wrong direction, but now the Panthers are full steam ahead down that path. Pitt suffered its worst loss of the season on Monday night with a 73-57 puzzling defeat to Virginia.

Pitt has now lost six of its past eight games, and for a season that once looked filled with promise is on the verge of becoming completely unraveled. We look at what happened, and what’s ahead for Jeff Capel’s team.

The Pitt football team has two potential All-Americans on its roster. That does not seem like a bad starting point, does it? We’ll get into that and a lot more in this week’s 3-2-1 Column.

THREE THINGS WE KNOW

As bad as it gets

In Jeff Capel’s tenure, Pitt has probably lost to worst teams than the 2024-25 Virginia Cavaliers. St. Francis (PA), The Citadel, and maybe Missouri of last season all come to mind in a category that has more candidates than it probably should. But when thinking about the worst singular loss of this particular era, and even with recency bias aside, I think we all witnessed it on Monday night.

Virginia ‘manhandled’ Pitt according to Capel, and that was a fitting way to put what happened to his team. The Panthers lost 73-57 at home on national TV to a team with a losing record and an interim coach, despite entering the contest as a 13-point favorite.

Not only did Pitt lose, it was not particularly close. The Panthers trailed 18-4 midway through the first half, thanks to a lengthy 17-0 Virginia run. Pitt only mustered six made field goals in the first 20 minutes of the game, matching the number of turnovers it committed.

Pitt managed to fall behind by 20 points in each half, got out rebounded 33-21 for the game, and were outscored in the paint 28-18, even though Virginia’s best post player did not participate in the game.

OK, I think I have sold the loss enough. It was an abomination on all those merits alone, and Capel himself even agreed with this premise in the postgame after the Virginia loss.

“This is as probably as bad of a performance of any team I’ve ever coached, and it was embarrassing,” the seventh year coach said. "I’m sorry to the crowd, the students, and fans. It’s my responsibility and I have to do a better of making sure we’re ready to go.”

That is probably the most troubling part.

Pitt’s mantra in the preseason was ‘Leave no doubt’ a reference to narrowly missing the NCAA Tournament the year prior. Last year’s team missed a chance to play in the dance because of some bad early season losses and rough stretches of play, something this year’s group hoped to avoid, which they largely have done until this week.

When Pitt started this season 12-2, it looked like they were on the right path to taking that next step and returning to tournament. The Panthers did good work in the non-conference portion of the schedule, and appeared to be one of the better teams in what was expected to be a forgiving ACC slate.

All the sudden, Pitt is now 14-8 (5-6) with nine games remaining. The Panthers have lost six of their past eight games, with three of those defeats being by double digits. During that stretch, some of those setbacks were to good teams, like Clemson, Duke, and Louisville, and while any loss isn’t ideal, the Panthers didn’t really drop a bad one just yet…until Monday.

The no bad losses thing had kept the Panthers solid in terms of the NET and other metric-based rankings. Well now, they finally have a really bad loss attached to their resume, and it came at a very inopportune time, with a winnable game to start the month of February. This team wanted to leave no doubt this season, but that’s about the only thing they have created recently.

One at a time at this point

By logic, yes, Pitt can still make the NCAA Tournament this season. There are nine games remaining and a conference tournament to add to the current win total of 14. In the game of college basketball, teams can get hot at the right time, and there are, at the very least, some winnable games ahead for the Panthers if they ever decide to snap out of this funk.

However, with this current Pitt team, we’re not even going that far into it. Last week at this time, you could look at the remaining schedule and say, ‘Well if they go 8-3 down the stretch, or if they take care of business here, here, and here….”

Nope. No more of that.

It truly is one game at a time. If Pitt wins the next game on its schedule, the door cracks open slightly for a postseason berth, and each loss the season gets darker and darker. That’s just what it is. The Panthers created their own mess, and it’s going to be a one game at a time approach if they want out of it.

Pitt plays North Carolina tomorrow in Chapel Hill, and on the heels (no pun) of two losses, that does not seem like a great proposition for the Panthers. As we know, Pitt is more than capable of beating UNC, as it just happened on January 28th in Pittsburgh. But of course, Monday’s performance did not inspire much confidence for anything ahead.

You could say it is a matter of which Pitt team shows up at the Smith Center tomorrow, and lately, that has been hard to predict. In the January 28th game against the Heels, Pitt held UNC to a season-low point total of 21 in the second half. It was an impressive defensive performance, which is something that has been few and far between of late. A week later, Pitt allowed Virginia’s Dan Day Ames scored a career-high 27 points, despite him entering the game averaging six a contest.

This team is simply that unpredictable right now.

And that’s just it, the game to game inconsistency for this team has been one of main culprits. In some outings, turnovers can be a problem for Pitt, but then other times they protect the ball well. Certain guys play well in one game, only to disappear the very next time out. While there have been some areas of this team that are hard to predict, there are other issues that have lingered.

At this stage of the season, it’s fair to point out they simply are not a good rebounding team. They have been out-rebounded in seven of the past eight games, and five times by double digits. Some games they can overcome that fact, but others it has buried them.

The Panthers, when they have played well this season, were at least making some outside shots. This is not a great team from the outside percentage-wise (35%), but they are fourth in the ACC in makes per game at 8.4. However, Pitt is just 12-for-38 from deep over the past two games. Zack Austin, Ish Leggett, and Jaland Lowe are a combined 4-22 over that span. Those three guys are eating a lot of minutes without providing much of a threat from an important area.

For the totality of this downward stretch, Jeff Capel has been looking for solutions and has done it in the form of tinkering with lineups and rotations. It is February 7th, and he has yet to find that right combination. On some nights, Pitt plays several guys off the bench, in others, the lineup will stick with six guys.

How much the bench plays in a given game is usually dictated by matchups, but perhaps that’s kind of the issue. This team has lacked an identity this season, and that is why some guys have lacked consistent roles, or are being miscast.

Pitt is not dictating anything on the court right now, but rather playing how the opponent chooses to play. If you think back over the past month, Pitt has rarely held a comfortable lead. Even in recent wins over UNC and Syracuse, the Panthers needed strong second half pushes.

This team just falls behind too much. Last year, Pitt had some similar deficiencies, but could at least go into most games with the notion they could just shoot people out of the gym with Blake Hinson and Bub Carrington firing up a bunch three-pointers.

If nothing else worked, they could do that. I just don’t know what that is for this team.

Pitt has a pretty good starting point

Let’s brighten the mood a bit and talk about Pitt football, but no seriously. I know the 2024 season ended in an absolute train wreck for the Panthers, but the thing with college football, it keeps moving. In this sport, you play for four months, and spend the other eight talking about the next season.

While Pitt’s 2024 campaign finished in a less than desirable manner with six straight losses, a lot has happened since then. The Panthers signed 21 high school recruits, added 13 players via the transfer portal, and started making moves for the class of 2026. Next month, the team will begin spring practice, and the march to the 2025 season opener is very much on across college football.

In the aftermath of a six-game losing streak to end the season, is there reason for optimism around this team and program? Well, of course, everyone is optimistic in the offseason, but I think Pitt has a good nucleus towards building a competitive team in 2025.

Earlier this week, ESPN Senior Writer Chris Low produced a, ‘Way-too-early preseason All-American team’, highlighting the top returning heading into next year. Both Desmond Reid and Kyle Louis were listed by Low as (way-too-early) preseason first team All-Americans, putting themselves right up there with the biggest stars in college football.

It is not much of a reach either. Reid and Louis were well compensated with accolades following their performances in 2024. It is only natural to expect them to maintain or elevate from their current level. With both guys being mentioned, Pitt was one of seven schools to have multiple guys on the first team, joining the likes of Alabama, Clemson, Michigan, Notre Dame, Ohio State and Penn State.

Those schools listed above are all big-name programs at the moment, and watching the College Football Playoff, it was obvious it takes a complete team to win a national championship. But when watching the 2024 ACC regular season, there aren’t many teams built like that, which should play in Pitt’s favor as it tries to contend at the top of the league next season.

For a starting point, Pitt can look at its offense, and build around one of the most explosive players in college football. Reid was fifth nationally in 2024 and will be the top returning player in all-purpose yardage this season. The dynamic running back amassed 966 rushing yards, 579 receiving yards, and totaled ten touchdowns, scored in three different ways in his first year with the Panthers.

Reid is a big play waiting to happen, and he’s playing in an offense more than willing to feature him. Getting him the ball worked a lot for the Panthers in 2024, and should be a strength yet again, as he has shown he does not need a lot of space to break a big play.

The defense is in a similar spot. As Pitt tries to put its best 11 guys on the field, the Panthers will at least know one spot will be manned by of the most versatile defenders in the sport to lead the unit. Louis was one of the breakout stars in college football, with 101 tackles, 15.5 TFLs, seven sacks, and four interceptions, as he was the only player in the country to boast that kind of stat line.

Obviously, that list is just one guy’s opinion, but I don’t think it will be the last time we’ll see Reid and Louis earn national recognition going into the 2025 season. I know the season ended poorly for Pat Narduzzi’s squad, but we’re thinking ahead. Pitt has two really, really good players, and in today’s climate and where the Panthers fit into the hierarchy of the spot, that’s a darn good launching pad for this team, and one that should inspire some level of confidence.

TWO QUESTIONS WE HAVE

Who are Pitt’s next best players?

You might be saying, “Well, they had Reid and Louis last year, and went 7-6” and you would be correct in thinking that. It takes more than two really good players to be a competitive team. The success of Pitt’s 2025 season will likely be how the players around Louis and Reid develop this offseason, plus how all the parts in the transfer portal get blended into the mix.

Pitt has some star power with those two, but every star needs a supporting cast. After Pitt’s big two, who else can this team truly count on for big-time production in 2025?

When looking at the defense, there is not a significant gap between Louis and fellow outside linebacker Rasheem Biles, which is saying something about how good Biles is and can be. The Ohio native was almost as productive as his teammate, going for 82 tackles, 14.5 tackles for loss, 5.5 sacks, and one interception in 2024, which earned him second team All-ACC honors.

Pitt has to feel good about those two, plus third-year player Braylan Lovelace, to form a pretty fearsome linebacking trio. The defense can be chaotic and disruptive with those three running around, but the success of the whole group will be aided by the pass rush, as well as the back end.

I think Pitt has good young parts to its defensive line, but when once he returned from injury, it was pretty noticeable when Sean FitzSimmons was in the game for the Panthers at defensive tackle. The former WPIAL star had some big-time showings last year in his first semi-healthy season, and there is something to build on there, I think.

Offensively, and as a whole, the best path for Pitt to having a successful, bounce back type of season is for Eli Holstein to be the team’s second best offensive threat behind Reid. At times in 2024, he absolutely was just that. Holstein was named ACC Rookie of the Week each time after his first five games. He seemed to hit a roadblock after that, then of course two different injuries wiped out the back end of his freshman campaign.

If the Holstein that engineered two fourth quarter comebacks, and dropped over 400 total yards and four touchdowns against North Carolina is back for this season, then that can’t be a bad thing for Pitt.

This team also needs at least one other weapon to seriously emerge besides Reid, and the logical candidate there is Kenny Johnson. At times, the York (Pa) native has been an explosive threat and contributing member of this offense, and at other times, he has been a secondary, seldom-used weapon. Pitt needs him to be the first option. Johnson was 18th in the ACC in all-purpose yards himself at 83.6 yards per game, and good things can happen when Pitt incorporates him into the offensive attack.

I think it goes without saying, that Pitt will need much better offensive line play in 2025 in order to compete. Any returnee who takes a big step forward from last year, or any newcomer who makes an impact will be a welcomed addition for this unit.

Pitt does have two defined ‘best’ players at the moment. But beyond those two, the Panthers have some other guys who performed at all-conference levels, like Biles who did it over a full season, or Holstein and Johnson who played at a high level at times. There is obviously room for more to join in, but the whole returning core is at least more than two guys.

Is there reason for optimism for the Pitt baseball season?

This section is going to serve as my introduction to the 2025 Pitt baseball season, which is set to begin next week with a three-game set against Eastern Michigan down in Florida. 13 of Pitt’s first 14 games will be out of town, which is common of a college baseball team in the north.

The Panthers are entering the seventh season under head coach Mike Bell, and will be looking for their first winning record since 2022. Bell holds a 133-147 overall record, with his best season to date coming in 2021, where Pitt finished 23-20, and was one of the first teams left out of the NCAA Tournament field.

There seems to be a sense of optimism around this 2025 team here in the preseason, which is strange because if you look, Pitt was picked to finish 14th in the 16-team ACC. Although, it might just be one of those things. The additions of Cal and Stanford only strengthened what was already one of the best leagues in the country. The ACC seems destined to get double-digit bids into the NCAA Tournament, which cracks the door for a team in Pitt’s position picked towards the low end of the league.

Last year, the Panthers went 26-29, although with just a 10-20 mark in the ACC with a quiet exit in the conference tournament as well. Pitt returns some promising pieces. Plus, the Panthers had a really good transfer portal haul on paper, highlighted by some local players transferring closer to home.

Pitt’s offense will be centered around Luke Cantwell. The senior first basemen transferred to Pitt ahead of last season from Fairleigh Dickinson and was an instant impact player. He started all 55 games he played and leading the team in total bases (102), and produced 10 home runs and 44 runs batted in.

Ryan Zuckerman was a surprise last season, and the talented third basemen should provide even more pop in 2025 after homering nine times as a freshman. Jake Kendro and Jayden Melendez are two other regulars back from last season with experience.

Bell, who has had some nice transfer portal pulls in recent years, is hoping to strike gold yet again. David Pedanou was an all-conference player for Dayton last season and brings versatility defensively. The 6’4” senior is a career .310 hitter over three college seasons and also had 33 stolen bases in 2024, adding some much needed speed on the base paths. Pedant is the headliner, but there are some other notable portal pickups.

West Allegheny product Gavin Miller is back closer to home after transferring in from, Auburn, as he brings starting experience from the SEC. Redshirt freshman Derrick Tharpley, another player originally from the WPIAL, may have as much upside of young player on this roster.

Pitt looks like it can have a productive offense in 2025. Through the years, that is not always that uncommon of this program. Like at all levels of baseball, pitching comes at a premium in college. Pitt has learned that the hard way the past two seasons, but from the weekend rotation to midweek starters, this feels like the best-looking group they’ve had in a few years.

Aidan Coleman and Ryan Reed both hung in there as young pitchers last year and should be better for having gone through it. The Panthers added Kentucky lefty Drew Lafferty, originally from nearby South Park, to bring another talented young pitcher to the fold. Veteran transfer Noah Czajowski should be a factor, and Fairleigh Dickinson transfer Patrick Gardner may slide right in as the Friday night starter after striking out 93 batters in 86 innings in 2024.

While Pitt’s roster looks improved, even to the point where it can be called intriguing, there is still the beast of the ACC this team will have to endure. According to D1Baseball.com, seven of the preseason top 25 teams are in the ACC, and each weekend is going to be a grind for the Panthers.

Pitt can likely stay in NCAA Tournament conversations this season simply by treading water in what will be a juggernaut of a league. Of course, this program has not made the tournament since 1995, but every couple of years, the Panthers always seem to be able to make a push. As we sit a week before the season, it feels like this 2025 club might have those capabilities.

ONE PREDICTION

Pitt splits these next two

I may very well regret this prediction. After all, how could anyone predict Pitt to win a basketball game ever after what transpired on Monday? I do not know what the rest of the season has in store for this team, but I also don’t think they will go winless over these next nine either.

Pitt plays North Carolina tomorrow in Chapel Hill, and on Tuesday, the Panthers will be in Dallas to take on SMU. In terms of what is left on the schedule, these are two of the tougher games to be sure, along with that March 1st game in Louisville.

Having said that, I think this Pitt team will get one of the next two. I’m not sure which, but I think the Panthers are going to completely fade away from this season without some kind of fight. If they do clear that bar, that would put them at 15-9, not exactly inspiring, but it’s something to work with over the final seven.

As for tomorrow, North Carolina’s 13-10 record is not all that imposing, but Pitt can’t take anyone lightly in light of Monday’s effort, and of course that UNC roster has plenty of former top-50 recruits that can string together a good performance on the right day. SMU has not gotten a ton of love for starting this season 18-5, but the Mustangs are sort of beating the teams they are supposed to this year and are quietly having a solid season.

While the opponents matter, everything regarding this Pitt team right now seems to be internal. If they are going to start winning again and turn this season around, it has to happen within the huddle, it really does not matter who they are playing on the court

The Pitt team from November absolutely could walk into both of these gyms and at least expect to win. The Panthers of late, well that’s an entirely different story. Either way, this team has good players. This group has won some quality games this season and contributed to big wins last year. I have to think at some point they will draw a line in the sand and say enough is enough.