GREENSBORO, N.C. -- Pitt has absolutely everything to play for, and Pitt has absolutely nothing to lose.
And that is what makes Pitt dangerous in this NCAA Tournament.
Motivation is coming at every corner for this Pitt team, and especially after the 11th-seeded Panthers' 59-41 shutdown of No. 6 Iowa State Friday inside Greensboro Coliseum in the second round of the NCAA Tournament, the intentions could not be any more clear.
"That's our energy, man," Nike Sibande said after Friday's game in Pitt's open locker room. "We came out today, we came out, and we've got something on our mind, man. We feel like we've got something to prove. We continue to have something to prove every game."
I followed with this question to Sibande based on that answer: "What do you have to prove?"
"That we're meant to be here. That we're meant to be playing in March," Sibande said. "This is where we all live, this is what we all dreamed of doing. Every single one of us, everybody in this locker room. We talked about it. We dreamed of doing this. We all talked about it the first day we got together, and it's amazing to see it come together."
At multiple points deemed undesirable, Pitt is a couple of wins away from being deemed undeniable in this NCAA Tournament.
Pitt was insulted by being picked 14th in its own conference, Pitt was insulted when it had to go back on the NCAA Tournament bubble despite being in first place in the ACC for a good chunk of the middle of the season, Pitt was insulted when it had to listen to talk about how the Big 12 is a superior conference to the ACC.
Pitt answered the call on all three of those points. Up next is a challenge against an old friend, as the Panthers will meet Sean Miller's No. 3-seed Xavier Musketeers Sunday with a spot in the Midwest Region semifinal on the line.
This team has motivation. That is not the question.
The only question about this team, now, is how far they can take this thing.
Here is the beauty of the situation: No matter what happens from this point, this Pitt team will always be remembered for something.
That something can mean many things. It will be remembered as the first team to win two games in an NCAA Tournament since Jamie Dixon led Pitt to the Elite Eight in 2009. It will be remembered as the team which defied a 1-3 start to its season and a 1-3 close to its season -- as Jeff Capel said regarding the ACC Tournament loss to Duke: "Duke happened" -- and still broke into the NCAA Tournament. It will be remembered five, 10, and 20 years from now as the team which put Pitt basketball back on the map.
As announcer Ian Eagle painted on the game's broadcast, as the final buzzer reverberated throughout Greensboro Coliseum: "Pitt basketball is back."
It is back, but it is also not done yet.
"We're playing with a chip on our shoulder," Greg Elliott said. "We're just here to prove people wrong. That's it. ... We're just here to prove people wrong. Every time, it's just something. Iowa State said Blake (Hinson) wasn't good enough. We've got Blake now, and look at what he's doing. It is what it is, man. It just goes to show that my teammates will be ready for whatever, and I'm willing to go to war with every guy in this locker room. At the end of the day, as long as I know they've got my back, and I've got theirs, we're good."
Of course, Elliott is referring to Hinson as a former Iowa State player who transferred to Pitt over the previous offseason. Hinson has not and will not open up about why he transferred away -- instead, he insisted that "they were standing in the way" of Pitt Friday -- but what Elliott said is just a blip of how tightly knit and connected these players are with each other.
This is the last run for Sibande, Elliott, Nelly Cummings, and Jamarius Burton in their college basketball careers. This run can last until early April, or it could be concluded Sunday.
It continued by knocking off a team from the Big 12, which has been widely regarded as the best conference in college basketball. Pitt's players and Capel have taken pride in carrying the torch for the ACC, and it stands as one of three teams remaining in the 2023 NCAA Tournament, alongside No. 5 seeds Duke and Miami.
"We were picked 14th in our own league, and at this point in the season we're trying to prove that the ACC is a good league, as well," Cummings said. "We're representing the ACC, representing our program, representing Pitt, representing a lot of different things. We're just going to keep going, because we've been doubted all year long.
"I'm definitely proud, for sure. Everybody knows the story at this point, so all the stuff that went into this, all the stuff that we've been accomplishing is definitely great, but we're not done yet. We're definitely still focused on continuing to show that."
Big-picture, small picture.
Take Burton's perspective on this picture:
"We're just out here trying to get our respect," Burton said. "We were picked 14th in our league. That's disrespectful. We weren't ranked all year. That's disrespectful. For us we we understand that the world doesn't really believe in us, and we'll just continue to fight and understand that it's all about the guys in this locker room, the guys that bought in from the beginning, and we'll just continue to keep that mindset and understand that as long as we're connected we'll continue to keep dancing."
