Fueled by a near miss last March, No. 18 Pitt is off to its hottest start in more than a decade
Associated PressThe AP Top 25 men’s college basketball poll is back every week throughout the season! Every day when the Panthers walk to the locker room after practice, they pass a graphic culled from the tournament selection show last March that reads “First Four Out” and features the Pitt logo grouped with the other few teams with solid resumes forced to watch the madness go on without them. A buzzer-beating road win at Ohio State last Friday pushed the Panthers to 18th in this week’s AP Top 25, their highest ranking since the 2013-14 season. Pitt already has drilled rival West Virginia, breezed past LSU and rallied from a 14-point second-half deficit to take down the Buckeyes in overtime on Zack Austin’s 3-pointer with fractions of a second to go. “And if we start to get, then we’ll level each other for sure.” ___ Get poll alerts and updates on the AP Top 25 throughout the season.