PITTSBURGH — Saturday night belonged to Blake Hinson.
Pitt’s senior star continued to lead the red-hot Panthers on Saturday as they took on Louisville in front of a strong Petersen Events Center crowd. The veteran came into the game just 12 points shy of the 1,000-point mark in his Pitt career, and it only took him 13 minutes to reach that point.
Pitt jumped out to an early 11-2 lead, as Louisville hit just one of its first nine shot attempts. Hinson drained a deep three as well as a step-through lay-in early on to rile up the Panthers’ fan base, but the Cardinals weren’t giving up that quickly. Louisville answered with a 7-0 run of its own, as Kaleb Glenn found success inside and Pitt went cold.
As Pitt went on a bit of a cold streak, Ishmael Leggett was called for a personal foul on a Louisville shot attempt. Pitt head coach Jeff Capel visibly disagreed with the call, and shortly after, was assessed a technical foul for arguing with the official. Louisville had built up a 10-0 run and taken the lead from the Panthers for the first time. However, Hinson wasn’t going to let this one get away from Pitt.
The Deltona, Florida native drained his second three pointer of the night to snap the streak, giving Pitt the lead once again with 11 minutes to play in the half. He then went on to make three more layups, three more three pointers, and four more free-throw attempts in the half to explode for 27 points in the first half alone. At the break, Hinson single-handedly had as many points as the entire Louisville team, as Pitt led 37-27 over the Cardinals.
In the second half, Pitt’s Jaland Lowe hit his first three pointer of the game to continue Pitt’s hot shooting stretch. Hinson knocked in another three shortly after, officially setting his career high in points with 30 in the first 22 minutes of the game.
Hinson stayed hot and the Panthers continued to roll over the Cardinals, extending their lead all the way up to 22 points with 10:50 to play. At that point, Hinson had 38 points and Louisville had 37. While Hinson handled the scoring load, Pitt’s Bub Carrington set up his teammates with eight assists throughout the game and Federiko Federiko grabbed a team-high eight rebounds.
Hinson finished his career performance with 41 points on 14-for-24 shooting. He finished the night 9 for 13 from three-point range in an unbelievable showing from downtown. Down the stretch, Louisville earned several buckets on the inside from Brandon Huntley-Hatfield, but the Panthers’ lead was too big to overcome. Pitt capped off the win with a two-point bucket from former walk on KJ Marshall, igniting the Pete one last time and closing out the 86-59.
For Louisville, Glenn led the way with 17 points in the effort, while Mike James scored 13 points and Tre White added 16. As a team, the Cardinals finished with a 44% night from the field and shot 8% from three-point range.
In the win, Pitt out-rebounded Louisville 36-27 and forced the Cardinals to turn the ball over 12 times.
With the win, Pitt advances to 17-8 (8-6 ACC) on the season. The Panthers added a Quad 4 victory with the triumph over the Cardinals. The winning streak is now up to five games, and Pitt has now won
The Panthers will now take on Wake Forest on Tuesday, Feb. 20 at 9 p.m. in Winston -Salem, North Carolina. That game will be televised on ACC Network.
Just taking care of business at home! Regroup and lets get ready for the next game. H2P!
I was worried this was a trap game. Blake, save some buckets for the next game! Awesome.
Great game, avoided the trap. Now the Wake Forest game is critically important. Every game is important from now on. We don’t want to give the committee a chance to screw us!
Outstanding win. Let’s see if Capel can keep this team focused.
Pitt is doing what needs to be done to improve their chances to get into the NCAA Tourney, and their seed-line in the ACC Tourney.
Louisville was severely short handed. It looked like Pitt was handling them like they were an exhibition/scout team.