Pitt Brimming with Confidence Built by Brutal Brooklyn Trip

When the Pitt Panthers were at their lowest, Jeff Capel hammered them with encouragement.

PITTSBURGH -- The Pitt Panthers left a two-day trip in Brooklyn 1-3, fresh off of blowout losses to Michigan and VCU. After winning the season-opener over UT Martin, the Panthers dropped three in a row by an average of 16.7 points per night, including an ugly loss at home to rival West Virginia. 

What was touted as the most talented and experienced roster head coach Jeff Capel had ever had during his tenure in Pittsburgh looked disappointingly ordinary and familiar - stagnant and unproductive offensively, overwhelmed defensively and all together in a funk. But that wasn't the end of this team's story, in fact, it was only the beginning, according to graduate transfer guard Greg Elliot. 

"You don’t want to lose by 30 - like what happened against Michigan - but you got to take every loss as a lesson, I say," Elliot said. "So we had some losses earlier that we had to learn from but it takes a mature team to look in the mirror and be like ‘It’s not about what they were doing. It’s the stuff that we didn’t do well that cost us some games.’ So once we fixed those things, it gave us a better chance to win games and we pulled them out because we’re an older team.”

Elliot and company did just that, rattling off five straight wins and emerging victorious in six of their last seven contests. Over that seven-game stretch, they've scored 70 or more points six times, 80 or more points four times and allowed an average of 64.2 points. 

Elliot claims the belief Pitt held in themselves never wavered throughout that difficult trip and only grew stronger. Suffering those defeats only encouraged them to get closer, dig their heels in and learn about how tough they actually were. 

“I would say [I learned] how resilient we are," Elliot said. "We were all new to each other, so you had no clue what these guys were like and when the battles start out there on the court. We practiced, but it’s different when you’re going out there and it’s against a different opponent. … Being able to take a punch, get up, get off the mat and fight back.”

During a period Elliot called "gut-check time for a lot of people in our program," he said the unwavering confidence stemmed from the very top - Capel and the rest of the coaching staff. For Elliot, it was a particularly difficult period. He wasn't hitting shots - the primary reason Capel recruited him to Pitt - but his coach encouraged him to keep pulling and his persistence paid off.

"He gave us nothing but confidence," Elliot said. "That was around the time I wasn’t really hitting shots at that point. He never told me not to shoot and none of my teammates did either. He gave everybody confidence, the utmost confidence honestly, in their game and what we had going on and that was exactly what we needed at that time. … And our play picked up on the court.”

That confidence trickled down to the rest of the team. Capel had an instinct that his struggling team needed love - not tough love, but a voice in their ear reminding them that they have been there and done that and their collective track records would shine through a cold streak. That makes it tough to get down on yourself, according to Elliot. 

"Knowing that our coach is going to have confidence in us no matter what - it’s crazy not to have confidence in yourself if you know that the head guy is telling you ‘Do what you do best. You’re at this level for a reason so don’t ever not have that confidence in yourself.’"

Pitt has one more non-conference game against North Florida before they kick off the bulk of their ACC schedule against Syracuse and they'll enter those games as confident as ever. 

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