The 3-2-1 Column: Bubble talk, Hinson's greatness, and more

The mounting pressure of being ‘on the bubble’ has engulfed the talk around the Pitt basketball program in recent weeks. The Panthers have made a push to be in the NCAA Tournament conversation and there are plenty of storylines heading into the final stretch of the season for Jeff Capel’s team.

In this week’s 3-2-1 Column, we are talking all about this Pitt hoops team from the blowout loss to Wake Forest earlier this week, to tomorrow’s game with Virginia Tech, and more. Spring football is right around the corner and we start to gather some early thoughts there as well.

THREE THINGS WE KNOW

A nightmare in Winston-Salem

There was plenty of buzz heading into Tuesday’s night game between Pitt and Wake Forest. Both teams were tied for fourth place in the ACC standings and each team is trying to make a case to make the NCAA Tournament. Pitt won a narrow meeting a few weeks prior, so the rematch figured to be competitive with a lot at stake.

Wake Forest did not appear too interested in having a competitive game, however, and smacked Pitt 91-58. It was Pitt’s worst loss of the season and it came at a rather inopportune time when teams are trying to put their best foot forward for the tournament selection committee. A loss is still a loss no matter what, but a 33-point defeat to a fellow bubble team really does sting.

The Panthers just did not have it on Tuesday. Bub Carrington missed his first six shots, Blake Hinson could barely get one off in the first half, and before you really knew it Wake Forest had a double-digit advantage. Even with time to regroup at halftime, the Panthers were really no match. Pitt missed its first eight shots out of the break and Wake’s lead swelled to over 20 points.

The loss dropped Pitt roughly ten spots in the ever-popular NET rankings, and the Panthers also fell back into a jumbled mess in the the ACC standings as well. The true consequences of the loss are hard to measure with five more regular season games to go and conference tournament week still on the schedule. There is just so much basketball, it’s hard to get worked up about today’s Bracketology report when it will change 100 times before March 17th.

The loss halted a five-game winning streak for Pitt. The Panthers had been playing good basketball and a hiccup was not out of the question, but a beatdown of that nature does take the wind out of the sails a bit more than the average defeat. The one prevailing thought I have is that it’s not like Pitt got exposed or anything, the team just had a bad shooting night and let Wake Forest’s momentum snowball.

The Panthers still have winnable games left and they still feature one of the best pure scoring threats in college basketball in Blake HInson. Beating Wake Forest would have been a huge boost to the tournament resume, but a loss also did not kill it. The big thing for Jeff Capel is not letting one result dictate the next, but this team has shown good bounce back ability this season.

They are all ‘must win’ games at this point

The result of the game on Tuesday did not really change the mission for this Pitt basketball team heading into tomorrow and the remainder of the season. Every game is big when you are on the bubble, so Pitt’s plan did not really alter after losing to Wake Forest. This team needs to have the mindset that it has to win every single game.

Can Pitt afford a loss over these next five? Probably, but it’s also hard to say that definitively. Predicting the NCAA Tournament field on February 23rd is kind of an inexact science. I applaud the Joe Lunardis and Jerry Palms of the world. They get a lot of clicks and eyeballs this time of year, so they have to put something out there every day for people to read. They are predicting what the tournament would look like today, but fortunately for Pitt and other bubble teams the season extends all the way to St. Patrick’s Day.

Being an at-large team for the NCAA Tournament is like taking a final. The exam is on Selection Sunday, and teams on the bubble can still cram in a lot of information just before they take the final test. It would be better to study early of course, but it can still work out by waiting.

With that said, Pitt can still cram in 4-5 more regular season wins and perhaps another in the ACC Tournament. I do not know the magic number it will take for Pitt to make the NCAA Tournament, but 22 victories did it a year ago…barely, so that should still be the aiming point for this team, which currently has a slightly higher NET than the 2023 squad did on Selection Sunday a year ago.

Pitt’s five-game run features three at the Petersen Events Center with two road games mixed in there as well. The Panthers have seemingly broken their home court blues with three straight wins in front of the Oakland Zoo.

The first obstacle is hosting Virginia Tech tomorrow. The Hokies are just a game behind Pitt in the ACC standings and actually have a slightly higher NET rankings. It still will not qualify as a ‘Quad-1’ win for Pitt, but this will be a challenging opponent. Virginia Tech seems like a very deep long shot to make the tournament, but still can play its way higher in the ACC standings.

The Panthers then head on the road to take on Clemson and Boston College next week, before finishing the year with a pair of home games against Florida State and NC State. Of Pitt’s final five games, only Clemson would give the Panthers another quality win. The other four are not exactly cakewalks, but would also qualify as winnable games.

The Panthers are done with Duke and North Carolina unless they meet them in the ACC Tournament, meaning every game from here on out is not asking Pitt to beat a ranked opponent. Pitt should be able to stack a few more wins, and perhaps all five, which would be the ticket. Nobody knows what Pitt’s exact path is to making the NCAA Tournament, but these all feel like plausible scenarios.

- 5-0 regular season, 1 or more wins in ACC = Lock

- 5-0 regular season, 0-1 in ACC = Pretty confident

- 4-1, 1-1 in ACC = Pretty confident

- 4-1, 0-1 in ACC = Nervous

I think anything below four wins in the regular season would mean Pitt would not to go on a serious run in Washington DC in the ACC Tournament, as in either winning the whole thing, or making the championship game and taking North Carolina to four overtimes, you know something easy to do like that.

But again, this can and will change about 100 times before Selection Sunday, and please remember that when you’re making yourself crazy of the next month. I’m convinced the true madness of this whole event begins and ends with computer rankings.

The coaching staff is whole heading into spring

It has been interesting to watch the small, but not overly subtle effect college football’s two big changes have done to the coaching carousel. The NCAA certainly opened the floodgates with NIL and the opening of the transfer portal just ahead of the 2021 football season. We have seen how it has affected the game from a recruiting standpoint, but it has also seeped into the coaching

Look, college coaches have always had the ability to jump from job to job, but there does seem to be some more pointed movements because of the current climate in the sport. Traditionally a college football assistant coach was expected to do two things: coach a position and recruit high school football players. Obviously, there is a lot more to it but those were the two main functions. We have seen now that coaches are expected to do those two things, while also recruiting the transfer portal and at times working to keep their own locker rooms in order.

The workload doubled in a sense, but it has also created understandable frustrations. The way college sports are set up right now, you have no idea who you are coaching from year to year. The entire roster can flip with little to no warning at all and at least in the NFL, players are bound by contract. I can see how that would turn some people. It turned Charlie Partridge to work in the NFL, and we saw Tiquan Underwood do the same thing. It’s happening all across the country and even earlier this werk USC lost its running backs coach to the Los Angeles Chargers. It’s a trend nationally and it goes well beyond Pitt.

That was all just a very long preamble to say Pitt hired JJ Laster earlier this week to replace Underwood. He is the final piece of the puzzle to the 2024 Pitt football coaching staff and now the sixth new assistant on Pat Narduzzi’s staff for this upcoming season.

Laster comes to Pitt from Western Carolina. Well, he had been hired at Old Dominion and worked there for the past month, but spent the past three seasons working alongside Kade Bell at Western Carolina. We all know the story on Western Carolina’s offense by now as it was one of the best at the FCS level under Bell’s watch, and of course Laster played a role in that as well.

Laster has also worked with Censere Lee and Raphael Williams, a pair of Western Carolina wide receivers who have since transferred to Pitt. Given his experience with Bell, and some familiarity with some of the personnel, Laster made sense as the type of hire you would make a few weeks ahead of training camp. He should be able to come in and hit the ground running from a coaching standpoint.

I think the obvious trend when you look at the hires Pitt has made on the offensive side of the ball by now is the inexperience at the power-four level. It’s not to say Laster, Bell, and the three other new assistant can’t all be really good, but the unproven aspect is definitely a cause for concern and will be a storyline to watch for this upcoming season.

TWO QUESTIONS WE HAVE

How good has Blake Hinson been?

The Wake Forest game is fresh on everyone’s mind, but what happened in Pitt’s game over Louisville last weekend is certainly something worth revisiting. Blake Hinson put on an electric performance where he scored a career-high 41 points and tied the school and his own record with nine 3-pointers. Hinson carved up the Cardinals to be sure, but that showing sort of highlighted the brilliant run he has been on for two years now.

Hinson came to Pitt with virtually no expectations. He was four-star recruit at one time and had some success at Ole Miss for two seasons, but he also hadn’t played at all in two years prior to his arrival in Oakland. Hinson started his Pitt career with a bang and scored 27 points in his debut. In his 61st career game with the Panthers, Hinson toppled the 1,000-point mark in only two seasons at Pitt.

He became the fourth fastest Panther to reach 1,000 points. Hinson is the 48th member off the 1,000-point club at Pitt. No other two-year player at Pitt has reached 1,000 points before him, not even DeJuan Blair.

Hinson’s scoring prowess has been prolific during his time in a Pitt uniform. The Florida native has now scored 20-or-more points in 20 of his 62 career games at Pitt. The Panthers are 16-4 in those contests. His volume scoring has been impressive and Hinson holds a 16.7 career scoring average at Pitt, which would be the eighth highest total in school history.

The raw scoring numbers are impressive but what fuels them is his ability to make three-point shots. There has never been an outside shooter in Pitt history quite like Hinson. He currently has 92 three-pointers on the year and needs 11 more to break Ashton Gibbs’ single season school record of 102. Hinson drained 97 last year, giving him 189 during his time at Pitt. He has a legitimate chance of cracking the top-five in the Pitt record books.

Hinson needs 111 more points this season to reach 600 for the year, which has only happened 13 times previously in a single season at Pitt. He would need to simply hit his scoring average of 18 points per game over the next six contests to reach that threshold, so it’s another milestone that is very much in reach for him.

The senior forward has endeared himself to Pitt fans because of his abilities, but also with the way he plays the game. He is having fun out there and anyone watching can attest to that. As his national profile has risen, others have seen it, too. Hinson has had unbelievable performances, has hit some seriously clutch shots, and has the personality to embrace the type of player he is. Jeff Capel said it pretty well in a press conference on Monday.

“He’s willing to live with whatever result comes from some of those shots. It doesn’t get him down. It doesn’t get him where he stops believing in his ability to get hot and go on a run.”

It would have been hard to imagine Hinson standing where he is today when Pitt landed him with little fanfare back in April on 2022, but he’s turned himself into one of the best offensive players in school history. He still has some to add to it, but he’s already laid down a pretty impressive legacy here.

Who has the most to prove during spring practice?

There is not an official start date for Pitt’s spring practice that we know of just yet. The annual spring game is slated for April 13th, so with some guesstimating based off of years prior, we believe spring football should start around the first week of March, so I think it’s fair game to start previewing that.

This is one of the more highly anticipated offseasons at Pitt football in quite some time. There is a sense of unknown because Pitt’s coaching staff really changed, especially on offense with five new assistant coaches on that side of the ball. Newly hired offensive coordinator Kade Bell is bringing in a tempo-based, no huddle offense, which is a pretty foreign concept for Pat Narduzzi as he enters his tenth season on the job.

There have been lengthy discussions this offseason about high school recruiting, transfer portal recruiting, and assistant coach hirings, but very little about the actual 2024 Pitt team itself, so it’s time we start getting into it a little bit more. Here are five members of the Pitt football team who I think have a lot to prove heading into spring ball.

Nate Yarnell

If you end one season as the starting quarterback, it only kind of makes sense that is where you fall in line when the offseason starts. I think that is where we are with Nate Yarnell. He’s in the lead to be the starter because there is nobody else that fits that bill, but he does have to go out and win the job and that process starts in spring ball. Yarnell was solid in his two starts to end the year, but nothing more than that. There is going to be a push from Alabama transfer Eli Holstein along with Christian Veilleux, who started five games last season. It is going to be interesting to see which quarterbacks take to the new offense the best, and also how Bell evaluates them. Yarnell and all the quarterbacks will be the center of attention this offseason.

Kenny Johnson

Kenny Johnson looked to be a very talented and explosive athlete as a freshman. He just happened to play in an offense that struggled to get him the ball, so his opportunities were limited. I think heading into year two, it will be worth monitoring to see if he can take that next step on a personal level, but also how the new coaching staff can find ways to use him. Johnson has a lot of tools to be a legitimate playmaker and is going to play in an offense that should cater to his abilities more.

Nahki Johnson

I kind of like this storyline and it could be one of the bigger boom or bust moves of the offseason. Nahki Johnson was one of Pitt’s prized recruits in the class of 2021, but he has done very little in three seasons with the program. Johnson has been a defensive end his whole career and is reportedly moving inside. The former West Mifflin star has a sturdy frame as it is, so I don’t think bulking up to play inside will be an issue, and his quickness should be able to translate. This move was certainly intriguing with the potential of Charlie Partridge working with him, but I still like the move and think there’s a chance he can turn some heads during the spring. Pitt does not really have any sure things at defensive tackle and Johnson has as good of a chance as anyone to play.

Ryland Gandy

I think all the cornerbacks are going to be watched closely this offseason given the turnover at the position. Pitt really only played three corners last year and all three seniors have since moved on from the program. Ryland Gandy was the No. 4 cornerback last year and did see some meaningful snaps towards the end of the year, but that was about the extent of it. There’s Gandy, Nebraska transfer Tamon Lynum, the oft-injured Rashad Battle, and a bunch of an inexperienced players manning this position, so it feels pretty wide open. There had to be something Gandy showed to be that fourth guy last year and it will be worth keeping tabs on if he can take a big step in his third year at Pitt.

All Three Western Carolina transfers

It did not take long for Kade Bell to bring along some familiar faces with him from Western Carolina. Running back Desmond Reid and wide receiver Censere Lee transferred to Pitt almost immediately. Rapahel Williams, Western Carolina’s leading receiver in 2022, eventually joined them. Williams had transferred to San Diego State for this past season, but was ineligible. All three players posted big-time numbers in Bell’s offense at the FCS level. It will be interesting to see where these guys fit in as they are blended into an ACC roster.

ONE PREDICTION

Pitt bounces back on Saturday

Pitt had one bad game on Tuesday in an otherwise impressive stretch of basketball. The Panthers are 7-2 over their past nine games and have crawled back to relevancy. The Wake Forest result should not be a turning point or the start of a downward spiral, but rather a blip on the radar.

I expect Pitt to come out and play well tomorrow and beat Virginia Tech. The Panthers have been playing too good of basketball lately to think it will all come crashing down just like that after one bad game. The Wake Forest loss did not reveal any deep rooted issues in my eyes, just an off night against a hot team that plays well at home.

Virginia Tech should be a challenge, however. The Hokies have long been a thorn in Pitt’s side. Since joining the ACC, Virginia Tech has owned the series with a 9-3 advantage. Pitt lost an important February game in Blacksburg last season, but I think the team gets revenge tomorrow.

Virginia Tech is only 15-11 overall, but like Pitt, finds itself in a crowded middle of the pack in the ACC standings. The Hokies might not have serious tournament chances, but they are still fighting for their lives anyway.

This team will present a lot of tough matchups for Pitt’s defense. Fifth year head coach Mike Young runs good offense, and his team are always tough to defend on the perimeter and this year’s squad is no different. The Hokies have three lethal outside shooters in Hunter Catoor, Tyler Nickel, and Sean Pedulla. All three have over 40 made three-pointers this season. Cattoor and Nickel have an identical 42.9% three-point percentage.

Even with those obstacles, I think Pitt is up to the task of bouncing back and also winning at home. The Panthers should have a good home environment on hand Saturday and I expect them to feed off of it and pick up the team’s 18th win of the season.