On Wednesday night Pittsburgh Panthers basketball advanced to 9-2 after winning 96-56 over the Eastern Kentucky Colonels.

Pitt struggled in the first half, leading only 39-36 at halftime. The Panther’s defense was unable to stop guards George Kimble III and Jordan Crawford, who each had three three-pointers in the first half, accounting for all 6 three-pointers made by the Colonels.

However, they were able to put together one of their best halves of the season by outscoring EKU 57-20. Pitt was able to force six turnovers and make seven threes in the second half which allowed them to go on a 23-0 run, the second largest in program history, over a five-and-a-half-minute stretch in the middle of the half.

Jeff Capel handed, freshman and Lincoln Park graduate, Brandin Cummings the keys to the offense for the first time in his young career. Cummings had 17 points in the first half including the first 12 of the game for the Panthers, he ended with a game-high 30 points, the third-highest mark for a freshman in a single game in program history.

“Yeah, I thought he was outstanding…Beebah (Brandin) has been confident since the first time I saw him he’s a really really confident kid and the confidence comes I think from the work,” said Pitt head coach, Jeff Capel in his postgame interview.

Cumming’s stellar performance also comes on the night his brother, and former Pitt basketball player, Nelly Cummings made his broadcast debut doing color commentary on the first three minutes of the game.

He broke his previous career high of 11 points with still 12:35 left in the first half. Ishmael Legget and Zack Austin both joined the scoring party with 17 and 18 points respectively.

Defensively, Pitt was able to shut down the Atlantic Sun Conference preseason player of the year and EKU’s leading scorer Devontae Blanton, holding him to only 11 points on 5 out of 17 from the field.

When asked what Jeff Capel and his staff did differently that successfully slowed him down, EKU head coach A.W. Hamilton stated, “Tae Tae (Devontae) missed some shots he normally makes, I thought they did a good job throwing different guys at him… but you know they’ve done that. I thought they did a really good job against Virginia Tech doing that. They did the same thing versus us and it knocked us out of our rhythm a little bit.”

Pitt has a much-needed ten-day break before they face off against Sam Houston at home on December 21st in their last game before the Atlantic Coast Conference season kicks off.