Pitt will enter its next game in a slightly stronger position than it was a week ago.
Junior wing Au’Diese Toney will play for the Panthers whenever they play next, coach Jeff Capel said Monday, after missing a 64-54 loss to Louisville on Dec. 22 with a right ankle injury. Pitt’s scheduled Tuesday game against Duke was postponed Monday due to COVID-19 protocols.
Toney had been listed as “day to day” at the time, but Capel said the Alabama native practiced with the team Sunday evening and Monday morning.
Toney’s return provides a much-needed reinforcement for a Pitt team that will look to get whatever it can to try to make up for the loss of star forward Justin Champagnie, who will be out six to eight weeks with a knee injury.
As the Panthers scramble to do that, Toney’s re-emergence is paramount. If Champagnie is the team’s best and most important player, Toney isn’t particularly far behind in either category.
Six games into his junior season, the 6-foot-6 guard/forward is second on the team in scoring (16.2 points per game) and rebounds (five per game). In addition to being the team’s best defender, he has shown significant offensive improvement from his first two college seasons. This season, he is shooting 52.5% from the field, up six percentage points from last season, and 40.9% from 3-point range, an improvement of eight percentage points from the 2019-20 campaign. With that added efficiency, his points-per-game average is up nearly seven points from the 9.5 he averaged last season.
Pitt is 5-2 on the season, which includes a 1-1 mark in ACC play.
Craig Meyer: cmeyer@post-gazette.com and Twitter @CraigMeyerPG
First Published: December 28, 2020, 7:04 p.m.