2pm.
Some RSNs, especially on the East Coast. Otherwise, ACC NE/WatchESPN.
Even if Pitt wasn’t 2-2 in the ACC. And instead was 1-3 or even 0-4, I would be thrilled with what I’m seeing from the team and the direction they are heading. The actually winning ACC games makes it easy to love this team and this coaching staff; but what stands out for me is the visible improvements, the adjustments and growth, from game-to-game.
Pitt started ACC play with a complete and utter beatdown at the hands of UNC. The Tarheels forced Pitt outside and the defense — zone, a bit of packline and soft man-to-man that kept the Pitt guards from getting directly to the rim. Knowing Pitt is not a consistently good outside shooting team.
So, what happened the next game? Against Louisville, Pitt was relentless about attacking the basket. There was not nearly so much settling for outside shots. The Panthers kept attacking and it forced the officials to make foul calls. Pitt set the tone the entire way for that game.
There was the issue of foul shooting, though. Oh, the issue. Pitt was miserable at the line. Everyone was. It was almost like a virus on the team. Sub-50%. There was also the turnovers, but to some degree that was expected against Louisville.
A few days later in Raleigh, Pitt’s FT shooting was 86%. Despite a distinct advantage by NC State in size, this game was very much Pitt’s to win. They were attacking regularly and not giving the ball away the same way. (Yes, Pitt had 17 turnovers in the game, but the TO differential was only -4 so it wasn’t that great a factor as this was a very up-tempo game that will have more turnovers then a low-tempo limited possession match.)
But, in a way similar to the Louisville game, you could see Pitt start to wear and fade down the stretch. They were wearing down. The defense was faltering and they started pressing more on offense. NC State also killed them on rebounds. Specifically on offensive rebounds. A lot of it was size, but some of it came from just not going as hard inside for defensive rebounds as they did on offense going to the rim. NC State ended up with 21 offensive rebounds which game them a crap-load of extra shots. The players knew they didn’t finish.
Capel is hoping to build a culture of discipline and doing the right thing, and that’s the kind of team he wants to take into the Carrier Dome on Saturday to play Syracuse.
After the loss last week at N.C. State, Capel boarded the team bus and wasn’t pleased with the deportment of some of his players, and he let them know it. Those on the bus said they never saw a bus get so quiet, so quickly.
On his radio show Thursday night on KDKA-FM, Capel talked about the incident and how it might have contributed in a small way to the culture he’s trying to build at Pitt.
“I’m not going to even say a change of culture,” he said “The past couple years I don’t think there was one (at Pitt).
“It wasn’t like when Jamie (Dixon) was here. There certainly was a big-time culture when he was here, a culture of toughness, togetherness. Those are the Pitt teams I remember watching from afar and really, really admired.”
Capel’s team is acquiring some of that toughness, especially on defense, where it has drawn 40 offensive fouls in 17 games. Over the previous two seasons and 65 games, Pitt drew 33.
That led into Florida State. If NC State had a size advantage, then FSU is size advantage-plus. That didn’t matter. Pitt was relentless going at the basket on both ends. They could beat the guards on the outside and force the FSU bigs to defend the rim. Drawing the fouls. Making the free throws. Putting FSU completely on their heels. And they were the same with the defense. Getting rebounds. Out-working FSU.
Pitt may have been -5 on OReb differential — which, really is damn good against FSU — but they were +4 on DReb. Rebounding differential is a bad stat for analytics, but I have seen it be a great tool in looking at how hard a team worked. And Pitt worked.
But, again, Pitt started to fade with 7-8 minutes left. Pitt’s double-digit lead started to shrink. With 4 minutes left, the lead was down to 5. I’m sure I was not the only one crying for Head Coach Jeff Capel to call a timeout. Young team. They need a blow. They need to regroup.
Nope.
He had them keep going, and he was right. They players did it themselves. They regrouped on the court and re-focused. They pushed FSU right back down the hole.
Seemingly, every game to this point has been improvement. They have improved on something that was lacking in the previous game. The coaching staff has built upon the stuff the players did right.
The talent is real on the team. Especially with those freshmen guards. But the way Terrell Brown has gotten so much better. Just from the start of the season. Seeing Kham Davis look increasingly comfortable out there on both ends. Even Jared Wilson-Fram — for all of his inconsistency with 3-point shooting — is out there working on defense and being a team leader.
I’m so happy with the coaching of this team. It is a joy to have hope and be positive about the future. To the point where in the increasingly numerous, silly and way too early NCAA Tournament projections, Pitt is getting mentioned.
Pittsburgh (12-5, 2-2 — NET: 65, SOS: 114): Just a quick shout-out to Jeff Capel’s fightin’ Pittsburgh Panthers, who in a matter of five days beat Louisville, nearly knocked off N.C. State on the road and beat Florida State. This has the feel of a team that makes a little bubble noise, goes deep in the NIT and makes its real push the following year, but you never know.
Now time for the downer reminder. Progress is not a straight line. As much as it has been that way for the last two weeks, there are going to be dips. There are going to be regressions, mistakes and points where it looks like everything has gone wrong.
I’m just hoping they can put that off for another week or so.
It will be a curious thing to see how Pitt does against Syracuse and their zone. They aren’t going to bust it the way Pitt used to in the past. With a front-court sitting in the middle of the zone knocking down short jumpers to force the Orange increasingly out of position. It’s going to be a different challenge
The good news, is Pitt’s coaching staff is well-experienced and assistant coach Tim O’Toole did two stints in Syracuse. This is a really nice article about his ties to Jim Boeheim.
“Coach Boeheim’s been a second father to me,’’ O’Toole said. “He’s given me incredible opportunities. Twice. I’d be nowhere without him.’’
In 1991, Gary Brokaw resigned as the head coach at Iona. Brokaw’s departure left his staff without jobs. That included a young assistant named Tim O’Toole, who just four years earlier had been a senior at Fairfield University.
Then O’Toole got a call from Boeheim.
“Coach Boeheim offered me an opportunity,’’ O’Toole recalled. It wasn’t much of an opportunity, but it was a chance to stay in the game at a big-time program.
O’Toole became a volunteer assistant, which evolved into a restricted earnings coach position. He spent four years at Syracuse before Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski, acting on a recommendation from Boeheim, hired O’Toole as an assistant.
Fast forward to 2012. O’Toole, who had gone from Duke to Seton Hall before finally getting a head coaching opportunity at his alma mater, has been out of basketball for six years since leaving Fairfield after eight seasons.
…
“I’d been out of coaching for six years,’’ O’Toole said. “Hop called me and said Coach Boeheim had an opening for the director of operations. He said, would I come back and work for Bay? Of course.’’
The one year as the director of basketball operations at Syracuse jump-started O’Toole’s coaching career. He spent the next five years in the Bay Area; three years as an assistant at Stanford and then two more at California.
For Pitt to beat the Orange in Syracuse, the guards are going to need to penetrate and do it before the interior defenders can get outside the restricted area. They are going to need to be adequate enough on the 3-point shooting to keep Syracuse from collapsing even further inside to prevent penetration.
Defensively, the Orange don’t make a lot of threes. They count on getting inside and using their frontcourt and overall length to their advantage. Like Pitt, they get to the free throw line a lot. So this game could be something of a slog depending on how it is called.
