71 - 62 
The Pitt men’s basketball season got underway on Friday night against Navy. This season is expected to be a tough one to watch and nothing tonight seemed to suggest otherwise. The Panthers put up a bit of a fight but still lost, 71-62.
Navy shouldn’t be a terrible team this year. They return quite a bit from a team that was .500 last year and they’ll probably have a shot to win 20 games. But obviously, good teams don’t lose these sorts of games. Navy, for example, hadn’t beaten an ACC team since 1971.
This is going to be a long year for the basketball team but there were still some things to like in this one.
First, there are a couple of pretty good players on this team in Jared Wilson-Frame and Marcus Carr. It’s a shame Pitt won’t have Wilson-Frame for more than two years because that kid is gutsy. He led the team with 20 points and was the only player consistently going to the basket. And while Carr struggled in the second half, I saw enough to believe that the true freshman is going to be very good - possibly as soon as this year. Carr had 12 and Ryan Luther added 14 along with eight rebounds.
Second, I really like how Pitt played and fought back. They were down only one at halftime but scored only one point in the first ten minutes of the second half during an ugly drought. They were down by 15 with only about nine minutes to play but clawed their way back to cut it to four. They had a chance to cut it to two but Wilson-Frame missed a pair of free throws and Navy pulled away from there. But that Pitt was even able to make it a game again says something.
It would have been great to see the team pull out a win here but this was also the first D-I game for most of the team and considering they were playing an experienced team on the road, it’s hard to say that the result was unexpected.
The biggest problems I see for this team will be consistently getting enough scoring and also rebounding. Pitt will have some more scoring droughts this season and, unofficially, only tied Navy on the boards. They will have a hard time on the glass with better opponents and team loses Ryan Luther after this year.
I mentioned on Twitter that it was weird watching Pitt play without expectations. For the first time in many years, that’s what this was. The Panthers have had down seasons but none in a long time in which you’d expect them to lose to Navy. This season is just going to have a different feel to it.
I think the Panthers will be competitive at times this year but we’re all going to see plenty of stretches like tonight where they look really good at times and have a hard time scoring points at others.
Because of that, there will be times when the team is entertaining to watch. But in terms of a win-loss record, this still looks like it’s going to be a dog of a season.
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