Pitt notebook: Pat Narduzzi says Ryland Gandy has put in solid claim as starting cornerback
With the exception of quarterback, no position on the field will get greater scrutiny during Pitt’s spring drills than cornerback. All three cornerbacks who played the most significant minutes last season — M.J. Devonshire, A.J. Woods and Marquis Williams — are gone. In their place has stepped redshirt sophomore Ryland...
Pitt Take 5: Panthers can finish as high as 3rd, as low as 7th in the ACC
For the moment, let’s set aside talk and speculation about Pitt’s NCAA Tournament hopes and dreams and concentrate on four hours coming up Saturday night. Three ACC games will be contested between 6 and 10 p.m. The results will impact where Pitt lands in the ACC’s final standings and whether...
Pitt’s 3 guards hold key to team’s late-season surge
Basketball is a game of ball control. Maintaining and maximizing possessions are critical to a team’s success, and guards often control the offense’s flow. No wonder that nine of the past 10 players who were named Most Outstanding Player in the Final Four are guards. Miami rode guards Jordan Miller,...
First Call: A team that may be in the lead for Jake Guentzel; Mitch Trubisky signs elsewhere; ex-Pitt Panther released
We begin Thursday’s “First Call” the same way we ended Wednesday night. That’s waiting for the Penguins to trade Jake Guentzel. At least there is an update on that front. We get into some recent struggles for Sidney Crosby. Mitch Trubisky has a new home. A former Pitt Panther is...
Pitt women fall to Georgia Tech in 1st round of ACC Tournament
GREENSBORO, N.C. — Tonie Morgan had 24 points and 11 rebounds for her eighth double-double of the season, Kara Dunn added 14 points and nine rebounds and 10th-seeded Georgia Tech knocked off No. 15 seed Pitt, 73-60, on Wednesday in the first round of the ACC Tournament. Georgia Tech (17-14)...
Pitt football players look to restore program’s 4 pillars this season
Nailed to the wall at the back of the players’ meeting room are four words coaches and players believe are “pillars” of the Pitt football program. Attitude. Effort. Toughness. Knowledge. Two members of the defense said Wednesday those pillars were missing last season, and one of the goals of spring...
Pitt’s ‘controlled freedom’ catches Florida State coach Leonard Hamilton’s eye
Jaland Lowe called it “controlled freedom.” Leonard Hamilton, whose Florida State team was crushed by Pitt’s wave of 3-point shots, was impressed with “the uniqueness” coach Jeff Capel put on display Tuesday night and for the past two months. How impressed? “This team is capable of beating anybody in our...
Recent spotlight on Bill Hillgrove, Chris Shovlin illustrates Pittsburgh’s basketball play-by-play legacies
Bill Hillgrove retired after 30 years as the voice of the Pittsburgh Steelers last week. However, he will remain as the play-by-play man of the Pitt football and men’s basketball teams. He has been a part of both of those broadcasts for more than 50 years. The news of Hillgrove’s...
Pitt hits 20-win mark with victory over Florida State
There were four distinct storylines that explained Pitt’s 88-73 victory Tuesday night against Florida State, what the game meant to the program and what coach Jeff Capel and his players are trying to accomplish in the latter stages of the season. • First, Blake Hinson wrote his name into the...
On 1st day of spring drills, Pitt QB Nate Yarnell says ‘there’s no room for complacency anymore’
After the first day of Pitt’s spring practice, no one knows if offensive coordinator Kade Bell’s system will work any better than Frank Cignetti’s did. Sure, players and coaches have ideas and high hopes, but this fast-paced, no-huddle offense is on the other side of anything Pat Narduzzi has implemented...
Pitt players recognize stakes of remaining games, eschew talk of NCAA Tournament
Sustained success has eluded Pitt men’s basketball in the post-Jamie Dixon era. Dixon’s teams were criticized for their inability to make deep runs in the NCAA Tournament, but most Panthers fans no doubt would be thrilled to see the program return to annually being in the March Madness conversation. Jeff...
Difficult to miss the 7-man class of quarterbacks on 1st day of Pitt’s spring drills
Add about 20 degrees to the morning temperature and you’d have a difficult time believing Pitt didn’t start summer drills Monday morning on the South Side. The sun was shining, the grass was green and coaches’ sharp words filled the air. Coach Pat Narduzzi brought his 110-man team outside Monday...
First Call: Diontae Johnson appears to dismiss trade talk; Steelers checking out Pitt lineman
Pittsburgh Steelers receiver Diontae Johnson seems less than thrilled about some recent trade rumors. At the NFL Scouting Combine, the Steelers spoke with a former Pitt Panther and a stud wide receiver. A former WPIAL star had a banner night in the NBA, and the Robert Morris men’s hockey team...
You can debate whether Pitt deserves an NCAA bid, but there’s no questioning Bub Carrington’s freshman season
The numbers connected to Pitt’s quest to land an NCAA Tournament berth paint hopeful and discouraging scenarios at the same time. 7: That’s good. Pitt has seven victories on an opponent’s home floor, as many as No. 4 Tennessee, No. 9 North Carolina, No. 12 Creighton and No. 18 South...
Pitt hits 16 3-pointers in 90-65 rout of Boston College
Coaches in any sport demand that their players stay in the moment and forget about the past no matter how good or bad it looks in the rearview mirror. After Pitt’s 90-65 victory against Boston College on Saturday night, assistant coach Milan Brown allowed his thoughts to drift a bit...
Change, higher learning are keys for Pat Narduzzi while Pitt’s offseason shifts toward spring drills
Pat Narduzzi turns 58 nine days after Pitt’s Blue-Gold Spring game next month, steeped in the dogged stubbornness that comes from growing up with an old-school coach as a dad, a decade or more as a linebacker and 34 years as a coach at six institutions of higher learning. Those...
Former Aliquippa, Pitt corner M.J. Devonshire wants to follow in his mentor’s footsteps in NFL
As far as mentors go, M.J. Devonshire may be without peers when it comes to the prospects attending the NFL Combine in Indianapolis. When the former Pitt cornerback was contemplating whether to return to school for a sixth season or declare for the NFL Draft, all he did was dial...
Pitt Take 5: Final 3 games before ACC Tournament should not be overlooked
Interest in Pitt’s final three regular-season games isn’t the same as it would have been if the Panthers had defeated either Wake Forest or Clemson. At this point, no one wants to hear the initials N-I-T when N-C-A-A are the only letters that really matter in March. Nonetheless, Pitt has...
Pitt’s Jeff Capel says ‘smarter’ nonconference scheduling could clear smoother path to NCAA Tournament
Before the start of the season, Jeff Capel felt good about Pitt’s nonconference schedule. There was a trip to Morgantown, W.Va., where the Mountaineers are usually tough to beat. Plus, Capel scheduled a home date with a Missouri team from the SEC that was in the NCAA Tournament last season....
Longtime play-by-play man Bill Hillgrove retires from Steelers
A man known for exquisite preparation in his professional dealings, Bill Hillgrove didn’t necessarily plan for Thursday to play out the way it did. But it was impossible not to recognize how perfectly fitting the way the day in which Hillgrove announced his partial retirement was going to end. “I’m...
Analysis: Pitt must set sights on strong finish, even if it includes a berth in the NIT
Pitt is in the grip of a slump, if that’s the correct term for losing two of three games at a point in the season that matters most. The Panthers’ NCAA Tournament hopes, already slim before the 69-62 loss at Clemson on Tuesday night, have all but disappeared. Blame Pitt’s...
Pitt’s NCAA Tournament hopes take big hit in loss to Clemson
There’s no doubting the reality that confronts the Pitt basketball team, game after game. Without Blake Hinson’s points, Pitt is a different team and victory is nearly impossible against the best opponents. That was proven in Littlejohn Coliseum on Tuesday night when Clemson’s Jack Clark followed Hinson anywhere he went...
Old friends, Pitt’s Jeff Capel and Clemson’s Brad Brownell prepare for crucial ACC clash
There was a time more than two decades ago when Jeff Capel and Brad Brownell matched their teams and their wits against each other with a different prize at stake than what will go to the winner Tuesday night at Littlejohn Coliseum in Clemson, S.C. Capel was the coach at...
Pitt’s Jeff Capel, ACC coaches look for court-storming controls before fans get even more physical
Just as terrifying for Duke coach Jon Scheyer as seeing his All-ACC center Kyle Filipowski hobble off the floor because of an injury inflicted by a fan from the opposing team was another scene Saturday that hasn’t received the same amount of attention. Truth be told, it could have had...
Pitt hopes Zack Austin can continue disruptive play in season’s final weeks
With the decisive 79-64 victory against Virginia Tech, Pitt knocked down the first of five or six (perhaps seven) obstacles standing between the team and a second consecutive NCAA Tournament bid. There is a lot of work to do, and the odds are against the Panthers. But the heaviest lifting...
