Usuual start time vs. Canisius on a weekday was ‘strategic’ move by Capel
The 13th game listed on Pitt’s 2019-20 schedule was a sight so odd that a reader could have been forgiven for believing it to be a misprint.
A noon tip isn’t anything unusual in college basketball. But on a Monday? Even on a day, Dec. 30, that could be loosely defined as part of the holiday season, why was Pitt playing Canisius during the lunch break of what, for many, was a work day?
There was a reason for it — a very good one, in fact, in the mind of Panthers coach Jeff Capel.
“This was strategic,” Capel said.
After its 87-79 victory against the Golden Griffins, Pitt has 18 ACC games remaining to complete its regular season schedule. Of those 18 contests, six will be played at noon, including a home game Saturday against Wake Forest.
For a team that plays a sizable majority of its games at 7 or 9 p.m., such an early start to a matchup can be jolting or, at the very least, awkward. A night game comes with a well-established routine. A team will shoot from about 2 to 3 p.m., which will be followed up by other pregame preparations and time to rest or, if players want it, nap
before returning to the arena.
A noon start is a sharp break from that comfort.
“When you wake up, you’re up,” Capel said. “It’s go time. You have to wake up with energy.”
On Monday, Pitt players and coaches met at 8:30 a.m. and walked through a few things before eating.
It’s a small sample size, but noon starts hadn’t previously been kind to the Panthers, who fell in their only previous such game this season, a shocking 75-70 loss Nov. 9 to Nicholls State. Monday represented an opportunity for Capel and his players to get more experience playing that early and, against a team they were favored to beat by 13, do so in a lower-pressure situation.
Bizarre as the arrangement was, the game’s environment was normal enough, with an announced 8,035 fans in attendance, the third-largest crowd of the season (behind only West Virginia and Florida State). Still, beneficial as it might end up being for players, it was undeniably a detour from the familiar.
“It really feels like AAU days,” forward Au’Diese Toney said. “You used to get up early in the morning and play ball.”
Stars come out
When it was in one of its most dire positions Monday — leading by just one, 67-66, with seven minutes remaining after leading by 12 earlier in the half — Pitt did what many teams in such a situation ideally do: turn to the stars.
From that point, the Panthers outscored Canisius 2013, but what might be most notable about that final push isn’t how much they scored, but who did the scoring. Of those 20 points, 14 came from guards Xavier Johnson and Trey McGowens, the team’s two leading scorers entering the afternoon.
In those minutes, Pitt’s starting backcourt took control, as none of those points were assisted. It’s partially a product of the ball-handling responsibilities that come with being a guard, but those two players, both sophomores, have had a large hand in shaping the Panthers’ fortunes, good or bad. Johnson is using 25.2% of Pitt’s possessions while he’s on the court this season — down from his 30.3% mark from last season, but still one of the 350 highest percentages of all Division I players — while McGowens is using 23.1% of them. Those are the two highest figures on the team.
On Monday, that assertiveness helped deliver a win.
“We wanted the ball in their hands,” Capel said. “I feel very confident and comfortable with them with the ball in their hands making the correct play, whether it’s them scoring for themselves, creating something for someone else or if they get fouled, being able to step up to the line and make free throws. That was strategic.”
A long-awaited return
Gerald Drumgoole — and, specifically, his injured left ankle — had loomed as a topic of intrigue for weeks, so much so that questions about his playing status had been prefaced as being obligatory.
On Monday, after missing the Panthers’ previous eight games over a six-week stretch, the freshman forward returned to action. In four minutes, he scored four points — getting a basket on his first possession in the game — pulled down two rebounds and had two turnovers, one of which was an attempted behind-theback pass to a trailing teammate on a fastbreak.
“It’s been a bumpy road for him, so it was good to see him back out there and doing what he loved,” Toney said. “He did good [Monday].”
For a team that will need to utilize the versatility of some of its younger players to thrive, the return of the 6foot-5 Drumgoole, the program’s highest-rated recruit in the 2019 class, can’t be minimized, even if there’s still work that remains.
“It gives us a little bit more perimeter depth,” Capel said. “He has to get in shape. That’s a big thing. He has to be able to get in physical condition to be able to compete for extended minutes at a high level.”
A (big) missing piece
In a game in which Pitt gave up 12 offensive rebounds in the opening 15 minutes, turning what would have been a rout into a contest that was still in doubt in the final four minutes, the absence of forward Eric Hamilton was especially noticeable.
A 6-foot-9 graduate transfer, Hamilton played only four minutes, getting subbed out with 9:10 remaining in the first half and never returning to a game he had started. Hamilton hadn’t played fewer than 12 minutes in Pitt’s previous seven games, a stretch in which he averaged 23 minutes per game. He had become an important piece for the Panthers, as well, averaging 9.9 points and seven rebounds per game in that time. For the season, he is getting 13.6 percent of possible offensive rebounds while on the court, the 55th-best mark in Division I, and a team-high 17.6 percent of available defensive rebounds.
Hamilton’s limited minutes weren’t due to any kind of injury, but beyond that, Capel wouldn’t elaborate why a player who could have clearly helped Pitt was largely confined to the bench Monday.
“He just played four minutes,” Capel said.