Panthers fail to finish in final seconds
Jeff Capel didn’t hide how deeply this most recent loss throbbed. There was no point in him trying to do so.
Pitt’s 54-53 loss Tuesday night to Minnesota was what its coach described as “a gut punch.” It was a game the Panthers controlled, had ample opportunities to win and perhaps should have won, but by the time the final horn blared in Petersen Events Center, they were left to process what, exactly, went wrong.
“This one hurts,” Capel said. “All of them hurt, but this one really does.”
In a season in which wins figure to be difficult to come by, Pitt let one slip away while falling to 2-5.
In the matchup’s final 13 minutes, the Panthers trailed for just 1:02, watching their lead swell to as many as eight. They made just one of their final eight shots and in the final 2:55, when the game was ultimately decided, they were held scoreless. Two of their final four possessions, one of which was a failed half-court heave with time expiring, ended with a turnover.
“We didn’t make shots,” Capel said. “I think it’s as simple as that.”
With an eight-point lead, and the scattered and sparse home crowd in as much of a frenzy as it could be, Pitt gave up 3-pointers on backto-back possessions and in 1:24 what seemed like a sizable advantage vanished.
Trailing by three with 40 seconds remaining, the Golden Gophers got a layup from Payton Willis to get within one. On Pitt’s ensuing possession, guard Jamarius Burton dribbled out much of the shot clock until seven seconds remained. From there he drove from the top of the key to the elbow, where he hoisted a jumper that fell well short. After the game, Capel said they were trying to set a flat ball screen to open up the floor and provide Burton with a chance to make a read off of what he saw. He got to the spot, Capel said, but the shot simply didn’t fall.
Minnesota, after taking a timeout, got a lane for E.J. Stephens to get to the basket, where he missed a contested layup. Luke Loewe, however, was there to tip it in with 2.4 seconds left. It marked the second time on its final two possessions that the Golden Gophers, statistically the worst offensive rebounding team in Division I entering the evening, collected one of their misses and scored.
It made an already painful night sting that much more.
“All you hope on those is you’re able to get something at the rim,” Minnesota coach Ben Johnson said. “He did a good job of playing through contact and getting to the rim. We just told our guys with 7.6 [seconds left], you’ve got to be all out. We don’t normally crash offensively, but when it’s time to win the game, you’ve got to go all out. Luke made a great play and a great read and was able to tip it in.”
The loss negated a fantastic performance from sophomore John Hugley, who finished with 25 points and 14 rebounds, giving him his third double-double in seven games this season. Over a period of 11:16 stretching from the end of the first half to the early minutes of the second half, the big man from Cleveland scored 16 consecutive points for the Panthers. During that span, what had been a groggy offense outscored the Golden Gophers, 16-5. Over the course of his 35 minutes on the court, Hugley drew 11 fouls, but only capitalized on them so much, missing five of his 11 free-throw attempts.
The Golden Gophers eventually adjusted, packing their defense in around Hugley and frequently double-teaming him, which muted his impact a bit in the final 11 minutes when he scored only one point. He didn’t touch the ball on his team’s final two possessions.
There was a time earlier this year when Minnesota seemed like a favorable matchup for Pitt.
Picked to finish last in the Big Ten in a preseason mediapoll, the Golden Gophers, now 6-0, experienced unprecedented roster turnover in an offseason in which Johnson replaced Richard Pitino as head coach. The team lost its top seven scorers from last season as 10 of its players entered the transfer portal, leaving Eric Curry, at 3.7 points per game, as the leading returning scorer. A programrecord 10 new scholarship players were brought in to mitigate the losses. Heading into the 2021-22 season, only two players on their roster had competed at the majorconference level.
On Tuesday, though, something that has already become painfully clear not even a month into the season was reinforced — when it comes to this iteration of the Panthers, there’s really no such thing as an enticing matchup.