Bench got Pitt past foul trouble once again
Team survived loss of its top 3 scorers
It was going to take an unusual, perhaps even sadistic, combination of factors for Pitt to lose Wednesday against an injury-scarred Miami team down to just seven scholarship players.
Only four minutes into the game, however, it looked like a recipe that was quickly coming together. With 16:19 remaining in the first half, forward Abdoul Karim Coulibaly was whistled for his second foul and was taken out of the game. Fourteen seconds later, the same thing occurred with Justin Champagnie, the Panthers sophomore star who was coming off back-to-back contests with at least 20 points and 20 rebounds. The matchup had yet to begin in earnest and Pitt already was down 40% of its starters.
It was a sequence of events that ultimately didn’t doom the Panthers. They beat the Hurricanes, 70-55, and did so decisively, leading by double digits for the final 10:19. But the way they were able to win that game remains notable — they did so with only so much help from the team’s top three scorers.
In Pitt’s first five games, Champagnie, Au’Diese Toney and Xavier Johnson were responsible for a disproportionate amount of the team’s offensive production. Combined, they had been responsible for 69.2% of Pitt’s points, 66.9% of its made field goals, 65.5% of its assists and a whopping 77% of its made free throws. Wednesday, with Champagnie and Johnson limited by foul trouble, those three spent just 12:49 of a possible 40 minutes together on the court. And yet their team won with relative ease.
The victory was earned because of a level of scoring depth that had been largely non-existent during non-conference play. Champagnie, Toney and Johnson combined
for 32 points — not even half of the Panthers total — and only Toney had more than 10. The contributions came from elsewhere, which was as welcome as starting 1-0 in the ACC.
“We think we have more talent and when opportunities present themselves, they have to be ready,” Pitt coach Jeff Capel said.
Ithiel Horton exemplified those efforts, with 18 points and four 3-pointers (on six attempts). It wasn’t just the Delaware transfer, though. With Coulibaly out much of the first half, freshman John Hugley came in and had his best offensive game of his young career, scoring a career-high 9 points, all of which came in the first half. He used his 240-pound frame effectively, creating space for himself in the low post and nudging opponents out of his way.
Against a Miami team dangerously low on capable bodies, Hugley baited Hurricanes forward Deng Gak into two fouls in a span of 2:42 midway through the first half, sending him to the bench.
There’s much Hugley needs to improve upon — and what freshman big man doesn’t need such refinement? — but Wednesday offered signs of progress.
“He posted hard, he took up space, he caught it, he finished, he shot-faked,” Capel said. “He was a presence down there, but he’s got to do that over and over.”
Some of Hugley’s freshmen teammates stepped up as well. Femi Odukale played 18 minutes in place of Johnson, scoring 4 points and pulling down 3 rebounds, though he was sloppy doing so, with 4 turnovers. In 12 minutes, Noah Collier had four rebounds.
Capel said he could see his freshmen wearing down near the end of the first half, as many of them are unaccustomed to playing as many consecutive college minutes as they had. Miami capitalized, outscoring the Panthers, 9-2, in the final three minutes.
“One of the big things for those guys, and really for everyone — extra work is not punishment,” Capel said. “That’s one of the things that can happen with the young kids, that you practice hard, but then a coach is like, ‘Hey let’s do some extra, 15 or 20 minutes.’ ... It’s not punishment. We’re trying to help you to get better because we need you.”
What they were able to do in the minutes they weren’t so fatigued mattered quite a bit. In Pitt’s 21 possessions with Champagnie, Toney and Johnson all on the court, it scored 22 points (1.05). In 48 possessions without them, it had 48 points, a small drop-off.
If players such as Horton and Hugley can produce at something close to the rate they did Wednesday, the Panthers will not only advance in their quest to find a reliable fourth scorer, but they’ll balance an offense that can be dependent on three players.
Nike swooshes in
Nike Sibande only needed so much time to get prepared for his first game of the 2020-21 season. Just under an hour before tipoff against Miami, the news he waited weeks for became official — he, and all other transfers in the sport, were immediately eligible after an NCAA ruling.
Once he checked into the game, it took him even less time to make an impact.
On his first possession with the Panthers, the Miami of Ohio transfer drained a 3 to put his team up, 5-4. It was a sign that Sibande would be able to live up to the promise of being a dynamic addition to a backcourt that was still relatively low on options.
The rest of the night didn’t go quite as smoothly. Sibande missed his only other shot attempt — a blocked layup — and finished with 3 turnovers and 2 fouls in 8 minutes.
His debut in Pitt’s rotation was only so productive, but for someone playing in his first game in nine months, it wasn’t unexpected.
“You saw he got us going with a 3, but you saw the rust,” Capel said. “He hasn’t played in a game since early March. But he’s going to be really good for us and that gives us another weapon.”
The sound of ... not silence
The prevailing noise from the first half of the game wasn’t the squeaking of players’ shoes or instructions barked by coaches from the sideline. Rather, it was whistles. Lots of whistles.
Pitt was called for 15 fouls in the first half, with five players being hit with two fouls apiece. From those calls, Miami got 11 points on free throws, accounting for nearly half of its 25 first-half points and buoying a severely shorthanded offense. If anything, the Panthers were fortunate that mark wasn’t higher, as the Hurricanes made only 55% of 20 free-throw attempts.
It was the second time in the past two games that Johnson was called for two fouls in the first half, leading to another opportunity for Odukale.
In two Power Five conference games this season, both on the road, Pitt has been whistled for 47 fouls (23 against Miami, 24 against Northwestern).
“It’s a tricky thing to navigate, to be honest,” Horton said. “We’re known for our defense. We’re known for our aggression and intensity when we get up in guys, but as you saw tonight, when we travel out of state to Florida and these other places, they don’t really play like that. They’re going to call ticky-tack fouls. I think it’s just us being smart, us listening to the game and us listening to the coaches and kind of knowing who has fouls.”
Numbers of note
.412: Pitt’s 3-point percentage in the win, its second-best mark of the season.
5: Turnovers by Johnson, to four assists. It’s the first time this season he has finished a game with more turnovers than assists. For the season, he has 36 assists to 22 turnovers.