The Panthers’ tournament hopes, opportunity for revenge sit on a Thin Blue Devil Line

Sitting at 10-7 and losing four of their last five games, Pitt men’s basketball currently sits on the outside of the NCAA tournament bubble. And if the Panthers want to salvage their season, they must get revenge against one of the best teams in the country. 

“Pressure does two things — bursts pipes and creates diamonds. Which one are you?” 

A commonly used quote was best phrased by Brian Cook, author of “The Thin Blue Line: Perception is Deception.” And it best describes Pitt men’s basketball’s current state. 

Their chances of returning to the NCAA tournament for the second season in a row rely on pulling off multiple upsets down the stretch of their schedule. Losses to Clemson and Duke as well as two losses to Syracuse put the Panthers in a tough spot. Their first opportunity to pull off an upset is Saturday, Jan. 20, against Duke in Cameron Indoor Stadium. 

Going into Durham, North Carolina, and beating a top 10 team is no easy feat. The Panthers got run off the floor in their home matchup against the Blue Devils, and according to redshirt junior forward Zack Austin, it’s one they want to quickly forget. 

“No,” Austin said when asked if there were any positive takeaways from the first Duke game. “We lost by 22, so there’s not much we can take from this. I’m not a glass-half-full type of guy. We lost at home in front of a great crowd.”

The Panthers now head into enemy territory, in front of a great crowd in its own right. The stakes are raised even further, as a team is not often given an opportunity for revenge just 11 days after their first contest. 

The Panthers are 1-5 in the ACC, and to build an NCAA tournament resume, they will most likely have to win at least nine of their remaining 14 games. This would get them to 9-9 in the ACC and a middle seeding in the ACC tournament. From there, the Panthers would have an opportunity to play their way into the NCAA tournament.

Luckily for the Panthers, history is on their side. Their head coach Jeff Capel was a player on the 1995-96 Duke team that started the season 0-4 in the ACC. The Blue Devils turned their season around, finishing the season 8-8 in the ACC and earning an eight seed in the NCAA tournament.

To Capel, while his Blue Devils team was coached by the legendary coach Mike Krzyzewski, the players’ toughness made the difference. 

“It was players that did it,” Capel said in a press conference last week. “I played for arguably the greatest coach ever. We’d been through tough times — the coach and the coaching staff believed in us of course, but there was a toughness we had [between the players].”

Capel wants to see the Panthers display some of the mental toughness that those Blue Devils displayed nearly two decades ago. And they’ll need toughness to upset this year’s Duke team. 

While turning around a season is not unfamiliar to Capel, experience separates the Panthers and that Blue Devil team. Since the beginning of the new year, the Panthers have a starting lineup that includes two first-year guards, Carlton “Bub” Carrington and Jaland Lowe, and sophomore center Guillermo Diaz Graham. 

The Panthers are a talented team and that is not up for debate. Carrington is a four-time ACC Freshman of the Week winner, and their leader, senior forward Blake Hinson, is one of the most dangerous three-point shooters in the ACC. 

But the Panthers often go through multi-minute scoring droughts. In their last contest with the Blue Devils, the Panthers suffered through a nearly eight-minute span where they didn’t convert a field goal. 

When their young players don’t see their shots falling, they suffer through mental lapses that allow their opponents to go on runs. 

To stop their emotions from impacting their playing, Lowe said it comes down to maturity.

“It’s a next-play thing,” he said. “It’s a mindset.”

Capel believes, similarly to Lowe, that their experience explains their up-and-down offensive play. 

“We’re inexperienced,” Capel said in the press conference of the Syracuse game. “It’s not an excuse, it’s an explanation.”

Along with the experience differences, those ‘95-96 Blue Devils had multiple marquee victories despite their rough start in the conference. The Panthers do not. The Panthers have zero Quad 1 or 2 wins. Their best victory is a road win over 6-11 West Virginia. 

This is what makes the Duke game so important for the Panthers. They have an opportunity to get revenge and gain a win on their resume that will set them apart from the rest of the NCAA tournament bubble teams. 

Coming into the game losing four of their last five is not favorable for the Panthers, but unlike Austin, Capel believes these losses are learning lessons.

“I don’t believe in burning the tape,” Capel said. “I think you learn from every experience that you go through.”

The pressure is on for Capel and the Panthers. With the talent on the roster, Capel knows fans are expecting more, and with an inexperienced team, he knows he needs patience. But time is running out on patience, and Capel knows that. Capel is not long removed from people calling for his job.

“We’re going through something really hard right now,” Capel said. “And this will teach us a lot as a group, because that’s life. But in my experience, there comes a point where enough is enough, and you fight through and figure it out.”

The Panthers could burst like a pipe and lose to the Blue Devils in embarrassing fashion like they did on Jan. 9. The loss would mark the fifth loss in six games, their sixth loss in the ACC and another failed opportunity at a Quad 1 victory. 

Or, the pressure could turn the Panthers into a diamond and give them a much-needed victory over the Blue Devils. The Panthers will find out what pressure does to them on Saturday.