Freshman Odukale impresses on defense
An early December game against Gardner-Webb isn’t exactly the stuff of legendarily high stakes or obstacles, but just 93 seconds into the contest, Pitt already was handed its first bit of adversity.
It was then that Xavier Johnson, the team’s starting point guard and the player who has the ball in his hands more than any other person on the Panthers roster, drove to the basket, extended his right forearm before pulling up for a shot and was whistled for a foul.
It was a tad ticky-tacky, but that mattered little. Johnson, saddled with two early fouls, was off to the bench, and for much of the remaining 18:27, Pitt’s offense would be put into the hands of freshman Femi Odukale.
Thrust into that role, he fared
admirably. His final stats in the Panthers’ 67- 50 win weren’t anything flashy, well-rounded as they may have been — 2 points, 2 rebounds, 1 assist, 2 turnovers, 2 steals and 1 block — but the most important one might have been the number of minutes he played — 20, a career high.
Defensively, he was strong, helping anchor a group that gave its opponent little, if anything. At 6 feet 5 and with a reported 6-11 wingspan, Odukale showed, albeit against a small-conference opponent, how versatile and effective he can be on that end of the floor. Not even two minutes after he entered the game, he rose up, without fouling, to successfully contest a drive from Gardner-Webb forward Ludovic Dufeal, who is 3 inches taller than the Pitt freshman.
Minutes later, he showed the presence of mind to move off his man, slyly come close to a Runnin’ Bulldogs big man and reach in to disrupt his post moves and force a turnover.
In the rare instance in which Abdoul Karim Coulibaly was slow to come off hedging a ball screen and return to his man, Odukale used his length to leap up and intercept a pass that, had it been completed, would have resulted in a wide-open layup.
While Odukale was on the court in the first half, GardnerWebb scored just 15 points on 33 possessions. That’s indicative of a much larger group effort defensively, but the freshman guard certainly played his part. Jaheam Cornwall, a fellow Brooklyn native who is the team’s leading scorer, scored just four points in the first half, with Odukale primarily marking him.
Offensively, he left more to be desired, which isn’t surprising for a freshman in his fifth college game. He missed both of his shots, and while he was on the court in the first half, Pitt struggled to score, getting only 19 points on 32 possessions. He finished the game with just two turnovers, an impressive figure given the number of minutes he logged, but there were times when he showed a lack of awareness (again, not uncommon at all for a freshman).
Any stumbles he encountered, though, were reflective of larger problems the team experienced offensively.
“We weren’t sharp. We weren’t strong, and we were careless,” coach Jeff Capel said of Pitt’s first-half offense.
Beyond how he looked in a single game is what the bigger picture shows.
The win Saturday marked the second time in a four-day stretch in which Odukale was called on to spell a foul-plagued Johnson, as he contributed seven alltoo-crucial minutes in a onepoint win earlier in the week at Northwestern. In that game, he had the assist on three of Pitt’s final nine made field goals, the last of which came off of a steal in the final 30 seconds that got the Panthers within one.
As the past two games have shown, if Odukale needs to be counted upon, he appears to be up to the task.
“For Femi to come in and play the minutes that he played, I thought he did some really, really nice things,” Capel said.
Excelling on defense
With 7:44 remaining in the first half, the score between the Panthers and Runnin’ Bulldogs looked like what it would if the two schools were just over 12 minutes into a football game: Pitt 14, Gardner-Webb 0. It’s an easy joke, but sometimes easy jokes are easy for a reason — because they’re true. In this case, that oddity was created by a miraculously cold start for the Runnin’ Bulldogs, who went the opening 12: 16 without a point and missed their first 18 shots.
They eventually found their footing — compared to what they had been doing, how could they not? — but still finished the game with incredibly low totals — 29.7% shooting from the field, 20% from 3-point range and only 50 points on 76 possessions (0.66 points per possession).
The abnormally horrid start was due, in some part, to bad luck. Of the first 18 shots Gardner-Webb missed, 10 were open (or relatively open) looks. Some were 3s that came this close to falling, while others were attempts close to the basket that, somehow, didn’t end up in the basket.
Pitt, however, played its part in that momentary shutout. In the first 9:06, the Panthers forced nine turnovers, ending some possessions before they could really develop. When Gardner-Webb would get close to the basket, they did a good job of denying their opponent, with four blocks in the first 14 minutes and any number of shot alterations that forced the Runnin’ Bulldogs to miss 12 layups in that time.
Overall, it was a great defensive showing against an opponent that, just two days earlier, shot 53.4% from the field, 63.2% from 3 and scored 84 points on 75 possessions against a talented Western Kentucky team in a two-point road loss.
“They’re a team, GardnerWebb, that runs really good stuff,” Capel said. “One of the things we wanted to do was just try to make them uncomfortable, try to disrupt their rhythm a little bit. I thought we did a good job of that.”
Just (about to) Do It
A Pitt team that, at least five games in, appears noticeably deeper than it was last season may soon be getting even more help.
A report from The Athletic over the weekend said a blanket waiver is expected to be approved Wednesday by the NCAA’s Division I Council that would allow all Division I men’s and women’s basketball players to be eligible immediately for this season. For the Panthers, that would mean the sudden addition of Nike Sibande, a transfer guard from Miami of Ohio who has been sitting out after his waiver for immediate eligibility was denied and his appeal had yet to be resolved.
Sibande, understandably, was excited by the development, texting Capel a link to the tweet with the news, along with a smiley face emoji. Pitt has just as much of a reason to be excited, as it should get a boost from a three-year college player who averaged 13.9 points per game last season.
Capel’s only wish is that he could have Sibande sooner.
“One of the things I don’t understand is if it’s going to be approved next Wednesday, why not just go ahead and do it?” Capel said. “It doesn’t make sense of these kids that are going to be out, that could be two games they miss, depending on someone’s schedule. I hope it happens. I hope it happens for Nike and for any other kid that’s in the exact same situation because I think it’s the right thing to do. If it happens, we’ll be excited. He’s a good player. He has worked really hard. I think he’ll fit in greatly with us. If that happens, we’ll figure out the best way to utilize what he does and help him get better.”