Blake Hinson Proud of How Pitt Defied Odds
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GREENSBORO -- Blake Hinson stood in the Pitt Panthers' locker room in the Greensboro Coliseum, eyes red from tears. The sharpshooting, gregarious, sometimes goofy but always positive source of energy was abnormally solemn in the wake of Pitt's 84-73 loss to Xavier in the second round of the NCAA Tournament.
Hinson wasn't upset that the Panthers had lost necessarily, but more so that this journey with a special group of teammates had come to an untimely ending. This loss marked the end of a season in which he had returned to college basketball with a bang after a two-year hiatus and the Pitt program reintroduced itself as a force to be reckoned with once again.
“It’s funny because anytime we get beat by another team that’s better than us, I just kind of accept it," Hinson said. "But I'm never going to play with this group again and this group has literally changed my life. So it hurts but it’s basketball and that’s the sport we love.”
Hinson's basketball career had laid dormant while he dealt with a medical issue and redshirted his only two seasons as an Iowa State Cyclone. He got his competition fix at a local LA Fitness, playing pickup with strangers, trying to stay ready for his next opportunity and ready he was. Hinson averaged 15.2 points and 6.1 rebounds per game while making 38% of his 3-point attempts this season on the way to second-team All-ACC honors, but the "life-changing" part of this season was how he was accepted by his teammates and achieved something with them.
“They brought me out of my childhood apartment and brought me to the NCAA Tournament," Hinson said. "That’s how they changed my life. They accepted me and made me a big part of the team.”
Hinson will walk away from this season proud of how the Panthers climbed from humble beginnings, a familiar spot in the cellar of the ACC preseason media poll, to the top third of their league's standings and the second round of the NCAA Tournament.
To him, this is the team that outplayed every prediction and all the odds elevate Pitt basketball back to national prominence. Skepticism was prevalent everywhere but inside that locker room and their belief was affirmed in the end.
"Everything was stacked against us and we beat them all," Hinson said. “We did everything everybody thought we wouldn’t. People would laugh if you told them we’d be in this position at the beginning of the year, but here we are.”
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