Pittsburgh Basketball: 3 takeaways after first 4 games of 2021-22 season
3. John Hugley has been the big bright spot so far
What flew under the radar of Pittsburgh’s big upset loss to start the season was sophomore big man John Hugley’s big individual performance of 27 points and 10 rebounds against The Citadel. He also had 17 points on 7/10 shooting against West Virginia’s wall of interior defenders, while also going for another double-double against UNC-Wilmington.
The 6’9 big man is a former top-100 prospect that had a lot of hype last year but played just seven games before being suspended the rest of the season due to off-the-court legal issues. But he came back and became the star of the team early and most reliable offensive player. In fact, he’s the best free throw shooting on the team, which is good because he draws a lot of fouls per game.
Hugley is a skilled big with a variety of moves and can stretch it out towards the perimeter if need be. But he has to be out there on the court for Pittsburgh to have any semblance of an offensive game, which has led to fatigue in the second half. For a guy reportedly weighing above 270 pounds, that’s going to wear him down if the team can’t find other guys to scorer and give him a breather.
And the young man still has some developing to do both game-wise and mentally. He was benched for the entire second half against Towson due to what Coach Jeff Capel described as “poor effort”. The good news is that the team won, thanks to sophomore center Noah Collier having a good final 20 minutes for the team on both ends to make up for not having Hugley.
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But let’s be clear, the team will need John Hugley on the court for the next game against Vanderbilt if they’re to have any chance of winning. Even without the second half, the big man is leading Pittsburgh Basketball with 16.0 ppg and 8.0 rpg on 49% shooting from the field. Let’s see what he does against better competition, which will be what he and the team have the rest of the way. There’s a ton for the Panthers to work on to be competitive but there are some bright spots to work with. Whether it’s going to be good enough will be the question.