On Wednesday, Pitt welcomed in the year of 2025 by beating California at home without Ishmael Leggett and Damian Dunn.
The Panthers looked to Jaland Lowe, Beebah Cummings, and Cam Corhen for scoring production, as the three scored 27, 15, and 19 points, respectively. Pitt won the game 86-74, winning by 12. The Panthers were 14-point favorites leading up to the game, prior to Leggett being announced as out.
Shorthanded Pitt Overcomes 16-Point Deficit to Beat Cal, 86-74
Pitt dropped from No. 10 to No. 13 in the NET rankings with the win. The top-nine teams stayed in the exact same positions from Jan. 1 to Jan. 2. However, Illinois, Oregon, and Maryland all jumped Pitt in the rankings by advancing one spot each. Check out today’s NET rankings here.
Pitt’s win over California falls into the “Quad 3” category with the Golden Bears ranked No. 122 in the country. As long as Cal finishes the season above the No. 161 ranking, that will stay a Q3 win.
Check out this article to see the NET quadrant system explanation from the NCAA.
“When we adopted the NET in 2018, we had reviewed several seasons worth of data and we insisted that we would continue to evaluate the metric,”Dan Gavitt, the NCAA’s senior vice president of basketball, said in an NCAA article. “We’ve been very satisfied with its performance thus far, but it became evident after two seasons of use that this change would be an improvement. While we will continue to monitor the metric, I don’t anticipate any additional adjustments for several years. We believe this change will result in more precision throughout the season and will be easier for our membership and the public to understand.”
Pitt now moves on to play against Stanford on Saturday, Jan. 4 at 6:30 p.m.
