Fueled by a near miss last March, No. 18 Pitt is off to its hottest start in more than a decade

PITTSBURGH (AP) — The sting of ending up on the wrong side of the NCAA Tournament bubble still lingers for Jaland Lowe and the rest of his Pittsburgh teammates.

Part of that is by design. Every day when the Panthers walk to the locker room after practice, they pass a graphic culled from the tournament selection show last March that reads “First Four Out” and features the Pitt logo grouped with the other few teams with solid resumes forced to watch the madness go on without them.

“I don’t like seeing it, I’m not going to lie,” Lowe said. “They could take it down now.”

The sophomore knows it’s just wishful thinking. Coach Jeff Capel has no plans to take it down, and Lowe understands why.

“It’s a great reminder to know the feeling of what we had last year and that we don’t want to go through that again,” he said.

There’s a reason the Panthers have co-opted the phrase “Leave No Doubt” this time around. They thought 22 wins and a fourth-place finish in the Atlantic Coast Conference a year ago would have made them an NCAA lock. It didn’t. And it has driven them to the program’s best start in more than a decade. A buzzer-beating road win at Ohio State last Friday pushed the Panthers (7-1) to 18th in this week’s AP Top 25, their highest ranking since the 2013-14 season.

“It just shows a testimony to our work and the culture that we’ve built here and what winning does,” Lowe said. “So we appreciate that for sure.”

Even if they don’t linger on it. Zack Austin, who calmly drained the winner against the Buckeyes, pointed out it’s still only December. And there’s a very real chance that Pitt’s appearance in the poll could be a cameo if it can’t survive two more road tests this week starting Wednesday at Mississippi State.

The visit to the Bulldogs is part of five straight games against power conference teams away from the Petersen Events Center, an ambitious bit of scheduling by Capel designed both to test his team and impress the computer ratings.

The early returns have been promising. Pitt already has drilled rival West Virginia, breezed past LSU and rallied from a 14-point second-half deficit to take down the Buckeyes in overtime on Zack Austin’s 3-pointer with fractions of a second to go. The Panthers’ only loss came against now 11th-ranked Wisconsin in a tight back-and-forth affair that wasn’t decided until the final minute.

They’ve done it with a roster that — as Capel likes to point out — is littered with players the powers that be in the ACC didn’t bother to recruit. Yet the Panthers believe they can make up in chemistry what they lack in pedigree.

While Bub Carrington left for the NBA after a dazzling freshman season and Blake Hinson graduated, most of the rest of Pitt’s core stuck around, something that doesn’t happen in the portal era as much as it used to.

The return of Lowe, Austin, guard Ishmael Leggett and twin forwards Guillermo and Jorge Diaz Graham gave Capel a base to build on. He added transfers Damian Dunn (Houston) and Cameron Corhen (Florida State) and signed guard Brandin Cummings. Papa Amadou Kante recovered from a knee injury that cost him his freshman season to give the frontcourt some needed muscle.

The arrival of Dunn and Corhen complemented what the Panthers already had, meaning Capel didn’t have to blow it up and start from scratch. Pitt plays with a mix of tenacity and belief because the players weren’t introduced to one another five minutes ago.

“I emphasize that in the huddle every day,” Lowe said. “I tell my guys that I trust y’all, I believe in y’all no matter what.”

The proof came in the final moments against Ohio State when Capel drew up a play the Panthers had never run in practice.

Down two, Lowe sprinted up the court and drifted to his left, drawing two defenders in the process. Austin, trailing the play after inbounding the ball, found himself open behind the 3-point line. The ball splashed through the net for Austin’s fifth 3 of the day.

The Panthers poured onto the court in joy, but the celebration was a little more muted than the last time Pitt pulled out a victory on the road, when Hinson leaped onto a table at Cameron Indoor Stadium following an upset at Duke and let the student section know just how he felt.

The reality is, the Panthers have gotten to the point where they expect to win. The rubble that Capel inherited in 2018 is long gone, replaced by a quiet confidence of a program that seems well on its way to a third straight 20-win season.

The expectations have changed. The mindset for a roster Lowe called “undervalued” and “underappreciated” by others has not.

“I feel like we’re even hungrier now,” Lowe said. “And if we start to get (full of ourselves), then we’ll level each other for sure.”

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