Victory an inside job
Wilson-Frame leads way again, but frontcourt provides muscle in win vs. Trojans
Not even an hour after his Pitt team had dispatched its most recent opponent, Jeff Capel’s mind already was on its next one Friday following a demolition of VMI.
“I know we will start to face better competition,” Capel said. “I understand that. That will happen Monday.” The Troy Trojans indeed represent a different level of competition for the Panthers, something Capel knew well from having faced them in the 2017 NCAA tournament when he was the associate head coach at Duke.
The end result, however, was the same — even if the way it came wasn’t.
Though senior guard/forward Jared Wilson-Frame paced the team offensively for the second time in as many games, scoring a team-high 24 points, it was Pitt’s much-maligned and oft-questioned frontcourt that proved to be the difference in an 84-75 victory Monday at Petersen Events Center against a
tenacious Troy team, producing in a way it hadn’t yet in the young season.
“It was a team that presented a different challenge from what we’ve seen so far this year in that the strength of their team are their post guys,” Capel said. “I thought our guys did a really, really good job, especially our post guys.”
The Panthers three rotation players taller than 6 feet 6 — Kene Chukwuka, Terrell Brown and Peace Ilegomah — combined for 25 points and 11 rebounds, all of which were accrued by Chukwuka and Brown (the former with 13 and 6, the latter with 12 and 5). In the team’s previous two games, that trio had combined for just 17 points and 24 rebounds, tallying those numbers against weaker opponents than the Trojans.
Chukwuka’s point total was a career high while Brown’s performance was perhaps as unexpected, coming in a game in which he was thrust into the lineup only after Chukwuka and Ilegomah each racked up two fouls in the opening 13 minutes. In the team’s first two games, he averaged just two points and two rebounds in eight minutes per game, disappointing totals that Capel said didn’t prevent him from practicing hard and diligently the past two days.
“Every game it’s a different role, kind of,” Chukwuka said. “It makes you play different every game because there’s always different challenges. With the rotation, Capel’s always just preaching to go in and play hard. If you get tired, we’ve got a sub for you, then you’re coming back in. We were talking about this last time I was up here, everybody was talking about how he lets you play through mistakes and stuff, that’s just how he is. He has faith in you, and you just go out and play hard.”
That showing was perhaps most impressive because of who it came against. Though Troy isn’t a particularly tall team — it had no starters taller than 68 and no players taller than 6-9 — there’s talent and toughness packed within those available inches. Perhaps its two best players, Jordon Varnado and Alex Hicks, play on the low post, a duo that Capel knew well from their previous matchup 20 months ago, when the former had 18 points and 10 rebounds and the latter finished with 14 points and six rebounds against a frontcourt featuring multiple future NBA players.
That duo collectively struggled Monday, making just 11 of 27 shots, with Varnado, the team’s leading scorer, going 5 of 15.
“I knew they were quick and athletic, but man, they were physical around that rim,” Troy coach Phil Cunningham said. “They fought him around there.”
Pitt’s big men were far from the sole determining factor in the win, as WilsonFrame had another hot shooting game, leading Cunningham to dub him as “the difference in the game,” and freshman Xavier Johnson continued to wow, briefly flirting with a triple-double with 15 points, 9 assists and 7 rebounds.
But on a night in which the Panthers never trailed against an opponent who lost by only four two days earlier on the road against a Saint Louis team picked as the preseason favorite in the Atlantic 10 Conference, each of the frontcourt’s points and rebounds had a sizable impact for a team still figuring out what it can get from its tallest players.
Brown has the touch around the basket — Capel said he’s the best scorer of the three — Chukwuka excels in pick-and-pop situations and is the best outside shooter of the trio, and Ilegomah is the most physical. A group that will succeed with a collective effort, not with its individual talents, showed some glimpse of what it can do against stiffer competition.
“Those guys, collectively as a group, have to do a good job, have to continue to get better and have to do their job and they have to understand it’s different from everyone else,” Capel said.