Pickup Game Trash Talk Kept Pitt F Blake Hinson Fresh During Two-Year Hiatus

Pickup games at an LA Fitness in Florida helped keep Pitt Panthers forward Blake Hinson fresh during his two-year hiatus from college basketball.

PITTSBURGH -- You wouldn't think that Blake Hinson had taken two whole years off from big-time college basketball if you hadn't been following the Pitt Panthers closely this offseason. 

11 games in, he's leading the team in scoring and rebounding with the fourth-highest field goal percentage of anyone averaging 10 or more minutes and fourth-best defensive rating of any Panther. The two-year hiatus, caused by injury an illness, separated a productive tenure with the Ole Miss Rebels from this season at Pitt and instead of looking rusty, Hinson hasn't missed a beat. 

Hinson himself isn't surprised by the immediate success he's enjoyed, particularly because he worked hard to make sure the downtime didn't feel like downtime. He resorted to pickup games in the absence of live, big-time college basketball to fill his time. 

Typically, pickup is beneath the level of play a high-major college player needs but for Hinson, it was all he had. So the LA Fitness in Orange City, Florida - right in his hometown - became a regular stop. 

"Shoutout LA Fitness, Orange City," Hinson said. "They know what it is."

Hinson found that to hold true. He's been a good basketball player for a while now and that means finding competition that can challenge him at any old gym difficult, so he had to create an environment up to his standards by himself. He didn't recruit fellow Division I players or find a special gym - Hinson simply started talking trash to his opponents. 

"You go into a pickup gym and people like me, we have a hard time finding good competition but the best thing I did was I would start a lot of talk," Hinson said. "I’d talk a lot to my teammates and the other team and I would make it competitive."

Hinson would make the gym artificially loud and heighten the intensity of the games with his voice. What exactly did he say to get other players so riled up? 

"I plead the fifth," Hinson said. 

But whatever he said worked. Hinson claims his trash-talking would invite some extra physicality and focus from his opponents. He made sure to create the most hostile environment he could so he could take more hits and pull the best from players he had a talent advantage over.  

"That same person you didn't feel like could be competitive, once you kind of stir him up, he’s competitive," Hinson said. "Now you’re working on your game. Now you’re getting better.”

While he rejected the label of "instigator", Hinson admits he did play that role sometimes. But it had a purpose and his methods have paid off as he completes the climb from public gyms to the ACC. 

"When I’d go in, it’d be loud and I lowkey started it," Hinson said. "It would bring the competition out of people and it would bring the competition out of me so it was good. It was fun. It was all learning.”

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