Just play, guys
Jeff Capel wants his players to stop dwelling on their mistakes.
WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. — There was a sense of nostalgia that overtook Jeff Capel, if even momentarily, as the Pitt coach stepped inside Lawrence Joel Coliseum on Tuesday, the building that houses a Wake Forest program that gave his late father the chance to break into the college coaching ranks in the mid-1980s.
The emotions that gripped him as he prepared to leave that same building Tuesday night after a 78-76 overtime loss to Wake Forest were entirely different.
What Capel saw on the court in the setback was emblematic of many of the problems that have festered within his team of late and have caused a certain sense of frustration within him that, when assessing the Panthers’ performance after the loss, came to light Tuesday.
“We have to be about ‘we,’” Capel said. “We still have some guys that are into ‘them’ because they’re not playing well. They’re not playing well because they’re into them. We need everyone present with us all the time and focusing on how to win. ‘What do I have to do to win,’ instead of ‘I’m not playing well’ or ‘I can’t hit a shot’ or ‘I’m not getting the foul’ or ‘I’m not getting the ball’ or ‘Coach doesn’t believe in me.’ Those are things that, to be quite frank, losers do. That’s what we are right now. We have to change it. That’s the bottom line. We’re the ones that have to change it.”
The label of “losers,” while biting, holds true right now. The loss to the Demon Deacons was Pitt’s sixth in a row, taking the Panthers from 2-2 in conference play to 2-8.
The reasons for that plunge have been multifaceted. The Panthers’ early ACC schedule was difficult, though Wake Forest, at 1-8 in conference with the worst scoring differential in the league, represented a prime opportunity to break out of that slump. There have been injuries and illnesses that have caused players to miss time or not play effectively.
But what Capel has seen and felt from his team, the issues he spoke of Tuesday, has been seen and felt by some of his players.
“I feel like people kind of focus on themselves and their previous bad games,” guard Sidy N’Dir said. “It’s human nature to be mad about yourself and not having a good game. But you can’t hurt the team. You can’t focus on the play the entire game. Just because you’re having a bad game, you’ve just got to move on. We need everybody to be focused, possession by possession. I just feel like some of the guys … I think it’s everybody … everybody sometimes isn’t here, isn’t with the team. It’s really going to hurt us. I don’t know what it is, minutes or not scoring. I don’t know what it is. We’ve just got to play as a unit.
Other reoccurring problems showed themselves over the course of the loss, sometimes in the most critical moments.
A Wake Forest team that shot 34 percent from the field and 21.1 percent from 3-point range in its previous eight games shot 42.2 and 37.5 percent, respectively, against Pitt. The gang-rebounding Capel has preached to an undersized team is something he said the Panthers still struggle with (they’re allowing teams to get offensive rebounds on 33.3 percent of their missed shots, making them one of the 30 worst Division I teams in that area). Despite missing only three more shots than the Demon Deacons, Pitt was outrebounded, 48-35, with its two big men, Terrell Brown and Kene Chukwuka, combining for one defensive rebound in 45 minutes.