Pitt picked 7th in ACC men's basketball preseason poll

Stephen Thompson / Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Optimism is as high as it’s ever been for Pitt men’s basketball during the Jeff Capel era. The ACC released its preseason poll Tuesday, and the Panthers were picked to finish seventh in the league, their highest standing in the predicted order of finish since Capel took over as head coach in 2018. 

Senior guard Ishmael Leggett also earned preseason All-ACC second-team consideration from the voting media. He earned the least votes of anyone picked for the first or second teams. No Panthers earned votes for preseason ACC Player of the Year or Rookie of the Year. 

It’s the highest Pitt has been picked to finish in the ACC since 2014. In its 11 seasons as a member of the ACC, Pitt has been picked to finish higher than seventh just twice — in 2013 and 2014, its first two years in the league, when it was picked to finish sixth.

Pitt was picked to finish ninth in last year’s ACC preseason poll and ended the season fourth, its best season-ending position in the conference standings since moving over from the Big East in 2013. Pitt’s 12 wins in ACC play during the 2023-24 season were the second most in school history, trailing only the 2022-23 squad’s 15 ACC wins. 

Capel’s teams have exceeded projections from the preseason media poll in each of the past two seasons. In 2022, the Panthers were picked to finish 14th out of 15 teams and earned the fifth seed going into the ACC tournament. A year later, after being picked to finish ninth by voting media, Pitt finished as the No. 4 team going into the postseason. 

The Panthers lost three starters from last year’s 22-11 (12-8 ACC) squad. Blake Hinson, a two-time All-ACC selection who set a school record with 110 3-pointers made last season, and Bub Carrington, a 2024 ACC All-Freshman team pick, are both in the NBA now, leaving loads of scoring and playmaking to replace. And Fede Federiko, Pitt’s starting center for the past two seasons, transferred to Texas Tech this offseason.

Pitt will count on a step forward from sophomore point guard Jaland Lowe, who averaged 13.1 points, 3.6 rebounds and 4.1 assists to just 1.6 turnovers per game while starting the final 19 games of the 2023-24 season. Leggett, the reigning ACC Sixth Man of the Year, returns to lead the Panthers on both ends of the floor. 

Capel pulled seasoned sixth-year guard Damian Dunn, whom Pitt recruited twice during his college career as he moved from Temple to Houston and then Pittsburgh, and Cam Corhen, a 6-foot-10 junior from Florida State, from the transfer portal to help cover for their offseason losses. 

Returners Zack Austin, Guillermo Diaz Graham, Papa Kante, Marlon Barnes and Jorge Diaz Graham will compete for minutes in the regular rotation, and freshmen Amsal Delalic, Brandin Cummings and Amdy Ndiaye will add depth in their first seasons of college basketball. 

Capel has led the Panthers to consecutive 20-win seasons despite having to reinvent his roster each offseason. But hitting the 20-win benchmark isn’t enough for this group, which still feels the sting of a close NCAA tournament snub from this past March. 

Long season predicted for Pitt women

Pitt women’s basketball has finished either in a tie or with outright ownership of last place in the ACC for the past three seasons, and voters don’t expect that to change anytime soon. Voters picked the Panthers to finish last in the now 18-team league after an 8-24 campaign.

Tory Verdi, entering his second year as head coach of the Panthers, has retooled his roster by adding more power-conference experience via the transfer portal. Six new transfers arrived this offseason — Mikayla Johnson (Colorado), Khadija Faye (Texas Tech and Texas), Raeven Boswell (Georgia Tech), MaKayla Elmore (Clemson), Amiya Jenkins and Brooklynn Miles (Kentucky) will bolster a team headlined by returners Bella Perkins, Marley Washenitz and Aislin Malcolm. 

The Panthers have won more than four conference games just once since joining the ACC and will aim to improve on that mark with a deeper, more experienced group in 2024-25.