PITTSBURGH (93.7 The Fan) – A goal for returning Pitt starter Blake Hinson is to dunk on someone. He was serious, he's in much better shape and he wants to add to his game. Last year his team dunked on the ACC, surprising the league and not only making the NCAA Tournament, but winning a couple of games.
Hinson is not shy about his goals for the follow-up season, he wants to win a championship.
"Yes, that's how I look at it," Hinson said. "Honestly, that's how I look at it. That's how I go into every season. I don't go to practice every day to not try to bring home the trophy."
"The goal is to win a championship."
The team lost several key players from last year's team- Nelly Cummings, Jamarius Burton, Greg Elliott, Nike Sibande—all guards. Junior guard Ishmael Leggett saw an opportunity after entering the transfer portal from Rhode Island. He said from the moment he stepped on campus and met the team he knew he was a part of a winning culture, on and off the court.
"We've got a lot of guys who love winning," the 6'3" Leggett said at ACC Media Days on Wednesday. "We've got a lot of gritty guys who would do anything to win. I think that first and foremost is something that every team needs, just a bunch of dawgs. That's how I'd described them, dawgs."
"Something else is defensively I think we're very versatile, and we'll be able to switch up our match-ups, switch 1 through 4 sometimes even 1 through 5 because our lineups are so versatile. I think those two things combined with our offensive skill set (we) will be a force in the ACC."
It's a lot to expect for Pitt to maintain in a Power 5 conference with Top 25 programs at Duke, North Carolina, Miami and Virginia. Plus, Clemson adds Joe Girard, Virginia Tech, Wake Forest, Florida State should all be good with Syracuse a big wild card without Jim Boeheim.
"I think we can be really good defensively," Capel said. "I thought last year we made a huge jump offensively if you look at our numbers. It was easy to do it from the first four years because we were bad everywhere, but last year we made
a significant jump offensively. I think we can make a huge jump defensively because of our size, our length, our athleticism. It's something we're working on every day. We have to buy into it, which I think they have."
"We have guys individually that can defend and collectively as a group with that size, length, athleticism, and intelligence."
"Look, I think we have guys that understand how to play and are able to follow a game plan and scouting and things like that. I'm excited about who I think we can become."
Pitt gets former four-star forward Will Jeffress back from missing all last year due to injury, plus Leggett, transfer Zach Austin and they are excited about three freshmen making an impact-guards Bub Carrington and Jaland Lowe and forward -Marlon Barnes. Hinson is the unquestioned leader and likely far-and-away their leading scorer with defense coming from Federiko Federiko and 20-pounds heavier seven-foot twins Jorge and Guillermo Diaz-Graham.
"I'm really excited about the guys that we have returning because they got a chance to see, hear and feel what a good team sounds like, what it feels like, what it looks like every day," Capel said. "I think with that experience, I've already seen them trying to pour into the new guys to our program, with Ish and Zack,
two guys that have played college basketball but are grateful and appreciative to be a part of what we're doing. And then to our freshmen."
"I'm excited about who I think we can become. I'm excited about who we are right now. I look forward to the journey."
And seeing that Hinson dunk. Often the life of a news conference, Hinson said he's not being funny. He's dropped a lot of weight just by eating less and running more.
"Sometimes it gets really grueling running and the conditioning," Hinson said. "But getting a highlight dunk seems worth it."
So would getting to a second consecutive NCAA Tournament, even if some think that is funny as well.
