The month of February is coming to an end, and that means the college basketball season is really starting to get down to the wire. After sustaining a recent four-game losing streak, the Pitt Panthers have rallied to win consecutive games, including an 80-69 victory over Syracuse on Tuesday night.

Pitt now sits with a 16-10 record with five regular season games, and in this week’s 3-2-1 Column, we are talking all about the current state of the Panthers’ season, and also what lies ahead for Jeff Capel’s squad.

THREE THINGS WE KNOW

A tale of two halves

Pitt was favored by 10.5 points going into Tuesday night’s game with Syracuse, and the Panthers met expectations and won by 11. The path to that 11-point victory was anything but conventional, however.

Pitt only two made field goals in the first ten minutes of the game, fell into a 22-6 hole, but somehow surged past the Orange with perhaps their most impressive half of basketball in over a month to claim a double-digit win.

Is that the recipe teams should follow for victory? Probably not, but this particular Pitt team has a penchant for falling behind early in games. There are some occasions where the early deficits have buried them completely, yet others instances where the Panthers throw together a furious late-game rally.

The way I look at this season, there is the 12-2 start, and everything that has happened since. The Panthers are 4-8 over their last 12, and have managed to fall behind by double digits seven times in the first half alone during that stretch. Only twice have the Panthers come back and recovered from that type of deficit to come back for a win: Tuesday night against Syracuse and a prior win against North Carolina back on January 25th.

These slow starts are becoming a dangerous way to live. SMU and Virginia buried the Panthers because of it, and Pitt’s comeback bids against Clemson and North Carolina came up one possession short. Technically, we’re only talking about the games they have fallen behind by 10 or more points, but I don’t think anyone would call their starting performances against the likes of Florida State and Wake Forest as success stories either.

For whatever the reason may be, this team does not look to have much of a spark after the national anthem gets played and the starting lineups get announced. On Tuesday, however, a light clicked for this team midway through the first half, and it created a wave of momentum in the second.

Pitt outscored Syracuse 46-28 after halftime and did so on 63% shooting. The Panthers also drilled 6-of-10 from three-point range to run past the Orange to sweep the season series against their rivals to the north. Not only was the offense clicking, the defense stepped up in a big way on Tuesday.

Syracuse shot an uncharacteristic 56% from three in the first half with nine makes from deep, but Pitt dropped that percentage to under 30% after the break. The Orange only had three second chance points in the second half, and after dominating the first meeting, Syracuse big man Eddie Lampkin finished with a pedestrian seven points and six rebounds.

Pitt played well for the final 30 minutes, but as we have seen, better teams can take advantage of their slow starts and it’s something they need to be mindful of during these final five games.

This entire season for the Panthers, with two separate four-game losing streaks during ACC play, is somewhat emblematic of a typical game of this team. They have fallen behind in the conference standings, and are now trying to make a push before it’s too late.

A glimmer of hope

For the remainder of this season, I think this team needs to stay in the moment and focus on the singular game in front of them. There is still somewhat of a path to make the NCAA Tournament, but the Panthers have simply not been good enough this year to overlook any opponent and start to count wins. The focus in the locker room should be 100% about Notre Dame, but for our purposes, we can start to look ahead.

Look, it is no secret that Pitt’s schedule at the end of the season is very favorable. The Panthers have won back-to-back contests against teams at the bottom of the ACC standings, and four of their final five regular season games are against teams in a similar boat.

This is what Pitt has on the horizon:

At Notre Dame (11-15, 5-10, No. 105 NET)

Georgia Tech (13-13, 7-8, No. 119 NET)

At Louisville (20-6, 13-2, No. 27 NET)

AT NC State (10-16, 3-12, No. 134 NET)

Boston College (11-15, 3-12, No. 208 NET)

Outside of that road game at Louisville on March 1st, that is not exactly murderer’s row Pitt will be facing over the remaining five games. The Panthers are sitting with a 16-10 overall record, and 7-8 mark in league play. At this stage last season, Pitt was 17-9 and 8-7. The Panthers are sitting as the No. 50 team in the NET rankings, while last year’s version was No. 56 at this time.

Of course, last year’s team went 4-1 down the stretch and 1-1 in the ACC Tournament and that was still not enough to make the field. The bubble is different from year to year, but that also shows how little room for error this team has over the next five. Pitt still has plenty of work to do to ensure that does not happen again, but there is still that opportunity to stack some wins down the stretch, and go to the ACC Tournament with some sense of hope.

For a team that has not played particularly well in a while, to even have these discussions is at least encouraging, for lack of a better term. Yet at the same time, to be in this predicament has to frustrating for the locker room, and of course, followers of this team have to feel the same type of way.

In the preseason, Capel and the returning players were all mindful of how last year ended. They talked about ‘leaving no doubt’ this season, but again, there is a lot of that surrounding this squad right now. At the very least, the season is not cooked and there is still plenty to play for at the moment, but one loss could wipe that all away. The chances are slim, but also not zero...

Pitt will have a new-look receiver room in 2025

The Pitt football team is just a few short weeks away from starting spring practice. In the time leading up to that date, Pitt has staged press conferences with all the mid-year enrollees from transfers to high school recruits from the class of 2025.

On Wednesday of this week, the new delegation of Pitt’s wide receivers spoke to the media for introductory press conferences, which indicated a changing of the guard a bit. The Panthers added three players out of the transfer portal, and also brought three high school recruits into the fold as well.

With 2024 leading wide receiver Konata Mumpfield off to the NFL, Pitt will have a new-look this season when it comes to the wide receiver position. This is also starting to resemble a group that second-year offensive coordinator Kade Bell wants with his playmakers: small and fast.

Pitt has three different groups to its wide receiver room: a trio of contributors from last season, a few young guys buried on last year’s depth chart, and the aforementioned six newcomers. Obviously, the success of this room will likely start with guys who made impacts last year. The hope is that Kenny Johnson, as well as Poppi Williams and Censere Lee, can all take steps forward in their second year either in this offense, or at the FBS level.

For Pitt to have a successful season, there will need to be other players who can emerge and fill in the gaps. When Bell’s offense is clicking, the ball gets spread around, they generate a lot of snaps with tempo, thus creating more opportunities for different receivers.

Still, the one thing that struck me about Pitt’s approach in 2024, and perhaps it was more on the quarterback than anything, but there was almost too much of an equal opportunity in the receivers room. For Pitt to be successful, it is probably OK to key in on its best options. At times, there would be perfectly called end zone passes that were not converted, because they seemed to emphasize the wrong players in those scenarios.

Pitt should plan to utilize Johnson as a player who is making those tough one-on-one grabs in the end zone, while also incorporating his open-field playmaking at the same time. He needs to be the top option this season, and the expectation is for him to be just that.

For guys like Lee and Williams, those guys look to be at their best when operating in the soft spots of the defense. Which makes sense with their speed and separation skills in the open field. I think there is a better way to deploy all three options, and Eli Holstein’s growth as a player should help unlock those qualities.

When listening into the newcomers, it’s a confident group to be sure. Bell’s ties are to Florida, and five of the six receivers brought in this offseason are from the Sunshine State. In order to survive and also thrive playing a competitive brand of high school football, there needs to be a level of confidence, and this group has that.

It’s hard to project how the freshmen will fare in their first season before spring practice begins, but transfers like Cataurus ‘Blue' Hicks, Andy Jean, and Deuce Spann should all come into this spring hungry with something to prove. They all stated they wanted a greater opportunity from their last school, and that chance is being presented to them in Pittsburgh.

Pitt has some weapons on offense, but this wide receiver group in particular does have some questions. Is Johnson ready to be that top guy? Can any of the newcomers make big impacts? And perhaps, can some surprise contributors emerge?

How this group actually fares on the field when the games actually starts is still a bit of an unknown, but as far as the offseason goes, the competition for playing time at that particular position should be pretty intense, one would think.

TWO QUESTIONS WE HAVE

Should Brandin Cummings have been playing more all along?

If you have followed along with this Pitt basketball season, there have been a lot of questions about how this roster was constructed for one, but how it has been deployed throughout the season has brought on plenty of questions as well.

The one that seems to be at the forefront right now is with Brandin Cummings. The freshman from nearby Midland (Pa.) showed promise early in year, saw his minutes increase when Damian Dunn got injured, but then virtually disappeared when Dunn returned to the lineup.

Unfortunately for Pitt and Dunn, the senior got hurt again, and is out for the year, yet benefitting the most from that is once against Cummings, who has now scored in double-figures in three straight games. The freshman guard is shooting 38% from long range on the season, but from January 4th through February 8th, he hardly played at all.

Obviously, Pitt’s two best players are guards, Jaland Lowe and Ishmael Leggett. Dunn is also a veteran who was brought in to log significant minutes, so in general, the role for Cummings was always going to tough to carve out because of those three guards of him. Still, Pitt has struggled as a team for the better part of two months, and giving up on one of the team’s best outside shooters felt like a mistake.

Nobody knows his team better than Capel himself, and I am not going to pretend I have a grasp as to what happens at practice. It was obvious Cummings made typical freshman mistakes on defense, and that can bother coaches, but I can’t really say there was a ton of good perimeter defense happening on the floor anyway.

The question was: Should Cummings have played more? I think the answer is yes, but at this point, that is kind of irrelevant. What the freshman guard has done of late, and the importance he has down the stretch is going to be significant.

Cummings has only committed 11 turnovers in 25 games this season. He is shooting 80% from three. The former WPIAL star can score from all three levels, and he is starting to show some of that in recent games.

In recent seasons, Pitt has played pretty well with three-guard alignments, and he is currently the third guard right now. He has played 30+ minutes in back-to-back games, and that is a number that does not seem like too much for him, either, and should be somewhat sustainable moving forward.

Whatever happened with his playing time is now in the past, and in the present, Pitt has a talented freshman guard who can and is helping the team right now.

What challenges does Notre Dame present?

Pitt plays Notre Dame tomorrow, and if you were to look up some information on the Irish right now, you would probably see a bunch of headlines about head coach Micah Shrewsberry. The second-year Notre Dame head coach went on a bit of a rant following the team’s loss to Louisville on Sunday evening. Shrewsberry was animated, but more in the spirit of sticking up for his players around negative headlines.

To follow up that outburst, the Irish lost by 24 points to SMU on Wednesday night.

Notre Dame has lost five out of six, and comes into tomorrow’s contest with an 11-15 overall record and a 5-10 mark in the ACC. Shrewsberry surprisingly guided Penn State to the NCAA Tournament two years ago, but he in the thick of a rebuilding project in South Bend. As mentioned previously, this is simply part of the schedule where Pitt needs to advantage. Notre Dame is not without weapons, but as a whole, there is a reason this team only has 11 wins.

The Irish anchor their team with a pair of sophomore guards: Markus Burton and Braeden Shrewsberry, who is indeed the son of the head coach. Burton tops the ACC in scoring at 20.3 points per game, while the younger Shrewberry is third in the league with 72 made 3-pointers this season. If this duo stays together, success will eventually follow, for this talented, young back court, but for now, there are too many holes elsewhere on the roster, aside from perhaps junior forward Tae Davis

The Irish only won 13 games last season, and there is a reason they have struggled this year as well. Notre Dame is not an overly deep team, and has gone 7-22 since a 4-0 start to the season. Pitt is not without its own faults and struggles, of course, but going into tomorrow, this is a game and matchup where the Panthers have to pounce on the opportunity.

ONE PREDICTION

Pitt makes it three in a row

To save all the suspense, the prediction this week is that I believe Pitt is going to win tomorrow. The Panthers have not won three consecutive games since winning five straight from December 7th to January 4th.

Pitt has obviously struggled for some time now and ultimately worked itself to the wrong side of the bubble because of it, but there is still somewhat of a chance here to collect some wins down the stretch and at least get themselves in the conversation for a tournament bid.

I do not want to put too much stock into wins over teams like Miami and Syracuse, but it did feel like the Panthers found some things over these past two games. Pitt figured out a way to win without Jaland Lowe against the Hurricanes, and then popped off for their best half of basketball against the Orange just a few days later incorporating him back on the floor.

Pitt’s second half explosion in the Syracuse game showed what this team can do when it is clicking. There were guards driving with purpose, and shooters stepping into shots when they kicked it to them. Not only that, Pitt at least held ground defensively against one of the league’s best rebounders, too, something this team hasn't done much of this year.

For the first time, since probably November, the Panthers actually looked like the team many expected them to be this season. Pitt had some good early season moments, but this is a group that lost their way. Perhaps it is too late and the damage is already done to their resume, or maybe not all is lost. I think Pitt at least wins tomorrow, and lives to see another few days.