Panthers handed a bad loss
Coach says team has to ‘grow up’ after first defeat
Not even 24 hours removed from Pitt’s seasonopening win against Florida State Wednesday night, Jeff Capel had a message for his team once it reconvened at the Petersen Events Center, where the confetti had long been cleared, but where a sense of euphoria and accomplishment still lingered.
As Capel saw it, all of his players — from his three freshmen to his two star sophomores to graduate transfer Eric Hamilton, now at his third college in five years — had to understand the seriousness of college basketball. Nothing, especially for a rebuilding program like Pitt, could ever be assumed in a sport where the unexpected can often become the ordinary.
“It’s every day,” Capel said. “It’s not one game. It’s not sometimes. It’s every day. It’s the investment mentally and physically you have to put into it. We have to understand that. We have to learn that.”
A loss Saturday to Nicholls State showed just how hard that lesson can be delivered. Against a team picked to finish 11th in the 13-team Southland Conference, the Panthers were outplayed, outhustled and outclassed. They fell behind early, blitzed by an energized opponent that led by eight within the first five minutes and 10 at halftime, and were never able to recover, leading for only 35 seconds of a possible 40 minutes in what ended as a 75-70 loss.
On Wednesday, Pitt was able to start its 2019-20 season on an emphatic and hopeful note. Fewer than three days later — as an 18.5-point favorite against an opponent over whom it had every kind of advantage, be it on the court or in resources — it succumbed to disaster.
It was, if nothing else, an illustration of the inherent wackiness that comes with a sport in which games rest upon a group of people as fickle and inconsistent as college-age students. There are few other explanations for how the same team could beat the ACC’s preseason No. 5 team only to fall three days later to a small-conference foe that was 14-17 last season.
To Capel, it was an indictment of where his team is now, of the maturity, focus and perspective that it lacks.
“We have to grow up,” he said. “We’re not as good as our guys maybe think we are or we think we are. I guess people have patted them on the back for a night and two days. They won’t be getting pats today.”
Unenviable as Saturday’s loss was, it wasn’t unimaginable, at least to Pitt’s players and coaches. Earlier in the week, on Tuesday, Nicholls went on the road and took Illinois to overtime before losing by eight. In the days after the Florida State win, Capel stressed that fact to his players, so much so that guard Ryan Murphy said they were reminded of it every five minutes.
For the six scholarship players who have been with the program the past two seasons, they knew such a loss was possible. They had experienced it last season, when they fell at home to a Niagara team that went 13-19 and fired its coach. Now, a new collection of players endured the same fate and are now left to learn whatever they can from the pain it caused.
“We aren’t one of these programs yet where you can just show up and you’re going to out-talent everyone,” Capel said. “That is not us. We aren’t going to just out-talent anyone. I don’t care who it is we play. That’s not who we are. I understand that. We have to understand that.”
It was evident early that the Panthers wouldn’t be able to coast on the talent and prestige gap alone. For virtually the entire afternoon, the difference between the two programs and teams was imperceptible, if not non-existent.
Pitt had five turnovers in the opening 4:17 and didn’t make a field goal until nearly six minutes had elapsed. Xavier Johnson, the team’s leading scorer and best player, didn’t score a point in the first 18 minutes. The Colonels took advantage of those miscues and more, building a lead as large as 12 with 16 minutes remaining.
They did it with shooting, going 11 of 24 from 3-point range as a team, with D’Angelo Hunter, a West Virginia transfer, and Kevin Johnson combining to go seven of 14. When they weren’t making 3s they were collecting their own misses and getting good looks close to the basket, finishing with 19 offensive rebounds and 26 second-chance points.
“They’re a really streaky team,” said Murphy, who scored 28 points, the secondmost in Pitt history for a player off the bench. “If they’re hot, they’re hot. If they’re off, they’re off. Tonight, they were hot.”
The Panthers mounted a late push, remaining within a possession for much of the game’s final five minutes, but they were unable to fully erase the damage that had been done and when they had the chance to, they only continued with self-inflicted wounds. Twice in the final 30 seconds, they had a chance to tie the score, but were undone by turnovers, first when Au’Diese Toney was called for a travel with 25 seconds remaining and then when Murphy had the ball poked away from him with 10 seconds remaining. In both instances, Pitt trailed by just three.