Not only does Nelly Cummings embrace the most challenging moments on a basketball floor, but he’s been known to create them in his mind — even when they don’t exist.

For proof, turn back the pages of the calendar to March 21, 2014, and the PIAA Class A championship game at Giant Center in Hershey.

Cummings, now directing things at point guard for Pitt, was doing the same for Lincoln Park — as a freshman then known by his given name, Renell.

Lincoln Park, a charter school in Midland, was down 16 points in the second quarter to Mathematics, Civics and Science charter school, “a loaded team out of Philly,” according to Lincoln Park coach Mike Bariski, then an assistant.

Lincoln Park rallied and found itself ahead by one with less than two minutes to play. Except, Cummings didn’t know it.

“He took this balls-y shot (from right foul line extended) and hit it to put us up three,” Bariski said. “He came off a screen. He put the ball down, and the (defender) stepped back and he just elevated for a mid-range jumper.”

At the next timeout, Cummings confessed to his coach, “I thought we were down one.”

Didn’t matter. Lincoln Park won 70-66. As Bariski said, Cummings “wasn’t afraid of the moment.”

“He wants the moment, actually. That’s the big thing about him.”

Although he was a 15-year-old freshman, Lincoln Park’s older players got along well with him.

“He fit right in with those guys,” Bariski said. “They never even looked at him as a freshman. His relationship with Ryan Skovranko and Elijah Minnie, they kind of had to get along with him because he got them the ball.”

Three years later, Lincoln Park had just lost to North Catholic, 56-51, in the WPIAL championship game at Petersen Events Center.

Bariski was passing out the runner-up medals to his players when he made eye contact with his star guard.

“(Cummings) looked at me, and I looked at him,” Bariski said. “We said to each other, ‘We’re going to see them again.’ We said it at the same time.”

Sure enough, Lincoln Park won the rematch 54-46 in a PIAA semifinal game at Ambridge.

That night, the fourth quarter belonged to Cummings.

“I told the team, as soon as we get up two possessions in the fourth quarter, we’re not shooting again,” Bariski said.

“With six minutes to go in that game, all we did was go to Nelly. I can’t believe they let him catch it.”

For the game, Cummings hit 23 of 24 foul shots, 17 of 18 in the fourth quarter.

“He just willed us to win that game,” Bariski said.

Lincoln Park lost the state title game that season to Neumann-Goretti, 89-58, but Cummings left the school with 2,411 career points — fifth-most in WPIAL history — after appearing in three WPIAL and two PIAA title games and helping his team to a four-year record of 103-16.

Cummings averaged 30 points as a senior. One night he scored a school-record 52 against Central Catholic.

“It was like if he closed his eyes, it was still going in,” Bariski said.

Bariski said Central Catholic coach Chuck Crummie was astonished. But Lincoln Park’s coach has known Cummings since he was in Midland’s fifth-grade Bantam League program.

“He looked like a fullback. Pudgy, little kid,” he said. “Looked like he was going to take the game over.

“In sixth grade, he was unstoppable. In seventh grade, he was the talk of Beaver County.

“Eighth grade, he had a jump shot. You look at most eighth graders. They’re not strong enough to get the ball up. It’s kind of a push. He had a rise to his jump shot. That’s the thing that stood out. He had a jump shot that actually left the floor.”

To this day, Bariski believes college recruiters overlooked Cummings, who started at Bowling Green before transferring after one season to Colgate and to Pitt last year.

He said Robert Morris, St. Bonaventure, Temple and several Ivy League schools were interested. At the time, Pitt was transitioning from Jamie Dixon to Kevin Stallings. “They didn’t come with a lot of gusto,” Bariski said.

“I think everybody made a mistake on him. Offensively, he was a dog. Defensively, you don’t want to get in a fight with Nelly Cummings. You really don’t.

“With him, our practices were brutal. Nelly isn’t backing down from anybody. One of his greatest attributes is he’s a really tough, tough, tough competitor.

“And a tough kid. One of the hardest workers you’ve ever seen. After every practice, kids go, ‘All right. We’re done.’ He would stay and shoot foul shots.”

Cummings (6-foot, 185 pounds) has carried over some of those attributes to this season at Pitt.

“One of the toughest guys I’ve ever met, just an absolute competitor,” Pitt senior forward Aidan Fisch said on the “Jeff Capel Show” on 93.7 FM.

“He’s always been overlooked, smaller guard, ‘not good enough to do this.’ Whatever they may say. He’s got a chip on his shoulder. That’s just a fact of the matter. He’s here to prove everyone wrong.”

Cummings has scored 1,357 points in five college seasons while starting 102 of 132 games. This season, he’s averaging 10.7 points while shooting foul shots at a 90.9% rate (30 of 33).

Also, he eagerly stood up to North Carolina’s R.J. Davis in the most intense moments of Pitt’s 65-64 victory Wednesday night in Chapel Hill, N.C. It was the third straight win for the surging Panthers (16-7, 9-3 ACC), who host Louisville on Tuesday.

“Man, that was just a little competitiveness,” Cummings said on the 93.7 FM postgame show.

Cummings wasn’t shy about trying three consecutive 3-pointers — and making all three — while helping Pitt rally in the second half.

“I always believe in myself,” he said.

Cummings might not be the last member of his family to play basketball at Pitt. His brother, Brandin, has given coach Jeff Capel a verbal commitment to join Pitt’s class of 2024.

Meanwhile, Nelly attends as many Lincoln Park games as his Pitt schedule allows, keeping an eye on the tradition he helped maintain.

Bariski said Cummings has told him, “Coach, the standard is the standard at Lincoln Park.”

Said the coach: “We’re going to get T-shirts that say that.”

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