Pittsburgh Basketball: Ranking non-conference opponents for 2021-22 season

It’s a very important season for head coach Jeff Capel and Pittsburgh Basketball. The past team campaign had plenty of ups and downs but in the end, the team failed to make a postseason appearance.

One of the reasons why the Panthers‘ resume wasn’t good enough was due to several bad losses, including to Saint Francis (PA) in the season opener. That’s been a theme for the program in the past few years, losing a non-conference game to a low-major team that they shouldn’t have lost to.

With a new-look roster, Pittsburgh looks for different results for the 2021-22 season. And after last season’s non-conference schedule was essentially made up on the fly and had to deal with postponements and cancellations, this year will hopefully be different when it comes to operating during an ongoing pandemic.

Excluding the exhibition game against Gannon, Pittsburgh has 11 non-ACC opponents set. On paper, it’s not the toughest schedule but for a program still looking for momentum, this will be an opportunity to get some wins heading into ACC play. Here’s how I would rank the opponents from least to most talented.

11. Towson Tigers

2020-21 season record: 4-14 (3-9 in CAA)

The overall record for the Tigers last season is a bit misleading since they had to play most of the top-tier of the Colonial Athletic Association in their unique schedule. But they still struggled as a team and now won’t have leading scorer Zane Martin around.

The two other double-digit scorers (Nicholas Timberlake and Charles Thompson) from last year are back, along with three incoming transfers. The most notable is Terry Nolan Jr., who was a double-digit scorer at both Bradley and George Washington. They’ll need someone to emerge next season as a go-to option but without much size outside of Chinedu ‘Victor’ Uyaelunmo, they’ll be an easy out for a power conference team.