Each time Diaun Pinkett and Blaine Gartley take the floor with their teammates an opportunity arises.

The players clad in the Chatham men’s basketball team’s purple and white are constantly presented with the chance to create history. While their Shadyside university has been around since 1869, Chatham only opened enrollment to men in 2015.

That same year, the Cougars men’s basketball program was born.

 “I feel like it’s pretty cool,” said Gartley, a senior point guard who is a 2022 Mt. Lebanon graduate. “Throughout my four seasons, we’ve had a bunch of record breakers. I use ‘record breakers’ loose because there’s not really any records before, but you’re chasing that.

“We are doing things that no one has done at this school before.”

Earlier this season, Gartley set a new school record for career steals, while last week senior guard Simon Boyer surpassed Marcos Cintron’s previous mark of 1,277 points in a Jan. 25 victory against Allegheny to become Chatham’s all-time leading scorer.

More importantly, though, Chatham is singularly focused on creating another kind of history.

Chatham junior guard Diaun Pinkett, a Montour product, is averaging a team-high 16.8 points per game this season. (Courtesy of Jeanine Leech/Chatham University athletics)

The NCAA Division III Presidents’ Athletic Conference’s first-place Cougars have won eight consecutive games.

Pinkett said he and his teammates are focused on winning Chatham’s first regular-season PAC championship before winning its third conference tournament title and first NCAA tournament game in school history.

“It just shows how much hard work we’ve put in as a team and how much we want to get to that championship and win an NCAA tournament game,” said Pinkett, a junior guard and 2022 Montour product. “No Chatham team has ever won in the NCAA tournament. We made it before, but no one ever won a game. We want to win a PAC championship, and we want to win that game.”

With an 82-74 victory against Waynesburg Wednesday night, Chatham (16-3, 13-1) maintained its spot atop the PAC standings ahead of Saint Vincent (14-4, 10-3) and Grove City (13-5, 10-3).

At the center of all of the Cougars’ success has been David Richards.

A 2005 New Castle graduate, Richards is the second men’s basketball coach in Chatham’s history.

After succeeding Andrew Garcia in 2018, Richards led the Cougars to PAC tournament titles in the 2018-19 and 2022-23 seasons, which qualified his program for automatic NCAA tournament berths each year.

While Richards has led Chatham to some quick success over his seven seasons at the helm of his program, this season may just be different.

“I think what kind of separates this team from other teams we’ve had is just the overall veteran experience we have,” Richards said. “We have four starters back from last year’s team. Two guys are four-year starters. We brought in two transfers that have two-plus years of college experience. We have guys that come off the bench that have college experience.”

And that leader of that pack is Pinkett.

The 6-foot-1, 210-pound guard is averaging 16.9 points per game, which is good for fourth in the PAC, to go along with 5.8 rebounds per outing and his 46 assists and a team-leading 61 steals. He is shooting 52% from the field, 38% from 3-point range and 80% from the free-throw line.

Pinkett was named PAC Player of the Week for Jan. 13-19 when he averaged 24.5 points, 9.5 rebounds, 2.5 assists and 3.5 steals, while shooting 52% from the field and 88% from the foul line in two conference road victories.

“Diaun’s a guy that you don’t have to run a ton of plays for,” Richards said. “He has such a high motor and impacts the game in so many different ways. All of a sudden, you look at the box score and he has 17 points and 8 rebounds and we barely ran any plays for him. He’s a terrific driver. He finishes extremely well at the rim.”

Pinkett said he also credits his ability to make 3-pointers and affect the game on defense with creating his ability to step up as a leader this season.

Chatham men’s basketball coach David Richards instructs his players during a recent practice. The New Castle native is looking to lead his program to the first Presidents’ Athletic Conference regular-season championship and NCAA Division III tournament victory in school history this season. (Courtesy of Jeanine Leech/Chatham University athletics)

“I’m on the best player every game so I actually have to sit down and play defense and trusting my teammates to make plays, too,” Pinkett said. “When I drive, the whole team collapses on me, so I have to kick it out and hope for my team to make shots.”

While Pinkett certainly does his part to create scoring opportunities for his teammates, Chatham’s ultimate facilitator is Gartley.

The 5-foot-10, 160-pound point guard is averaging 6.7 points and 4.4 rebounds per game, but his 84 assists lead the Cougars, and he contributes on the defensive end with 47 steals.

Gartley’s average of 4.4 assists per game leads the PAC, while he is second in the conference with a 1.8 assist-to-turnover ratio and fourth with 2.5 steals per outing.

“He’s a four-year starter,” Richards said. “He’s been one of our team leaders since his freshman year. He’s one of those guys where his impact on the game goes far beyond the box score. His playmakng ability, his energy on defense, his leadership just impacts a team in ways you can’t imagine.”

Junior guard Xaiver Lovenson is averaging 16.2 points and 6.7 rebounds per game, while Boyer is averaging 12.3 points per game and junior forward Luca Robinson chips in 8.7 points and 6.1 rebounds per game.

Gartley said Chatham’s ability to balance its scoring load makes it a very scary team on the offensive end of the court.

“We’re really deep, and we have seven, eight, nine guys that can score 20-plus on any given night,” he said. “We have super efficient players, so guys are coming in and only playing 10 minutes, but scoring 12 to 15 points. That’s very rare that you see that at the college level.

“Even the guys who aren’t getting as much minutes, it just shows you how competitive our practices are,” Gartley added. “Top to bottom, it’s very, very close. It’s not a clear-cut eight, nine guys. I think we have 15 guys rostered, and all 15 guys can come in and give something to this program.”

And, Gartley said, the ultimate thing left to give is to leave an impact on his program. Chatham won PAC tournament titles in 2019 and 2023. The Cougars were knocked out of the NCAA tournament by North Central Illinois in 2019 and Saint Joseph, Conn., in 2023.

“I can’t put into words that feeling,” Gartley said. “Obviously, we want to go make noise in the NCAA tournament, but that PAC championship win, if we can do that two times in four year, that would be huge.”

Pinkett said he and his teammates have the confidence to do just that.

“We’ve been killing it this year,” he said. “Last year we came up short. This year, we added a few pieces and brought a lot of guys back. We are trying to make it far this year, win a championship.”

John is a copy editor and page designer at the Post-Gazette, but he's currently on strike. Email him at jsanta@unionprogress.com.

John Santa

John is a copy editor and page designer at the Post-Gazette, but he's currently on strike. Email him at jsanta@unionprogress.com.