Pitt Brings Important Lessons Home From Brooklyn

The Pitt Panthers left Brooklyn with some new, important lessons under their belts.

PITTSBURGH -- The Pitt Panthers' second trip to the Big Apple in as many years began in a similarly disappointing fashion to their first - with them being blown out in one of their first games of the season against high-major competition. 

In 2022, it was Michigan who ground down the Panthers on the floor of the Barclays Center in Brooklyn. This year it was Florida. Head coach Jeff Capel said last year's pair of losses in Brooklyn proved to be a turning point in their landmark season, and while this team doesn't appear in need of as dramatic of a turnaround, they'll once again take some important lessons away from a trip to New York. 

“I learned that we’re resilient to be able to come back less than 48 hours after that game and to play as hard as we did and to have a decisive win, to correct some of the things we talked about after Florida when we watched tape on Thanksgiving Day and to put that into practice in a real live game situation," Capel said. "I was really, really pleased with that."

Against Florida, the Panthers were outmuscled. An older, physical team beat up on a Pitt team that had yet to face a team they weren't enormously bigger, faster and stronger than and it showed. The Gators forced 14 turnovers to their own eight, scored 19 points off those turnovers and won points in the paint 44-26. It looked and felt like a complete beatdown but Capel saw Pitt's struggles contained mostly to one end. 

The Panthers did not shoot well against Florida - 35.3% from the field and 29.4% from 3-point range. Capel thought his team, when faced with a team that came with the goal of using their physicality to win, was unable to stay poised and survive the contact. It led to rushed possessions, missed shots, turnovers and subsequently some easy opportunities in transition. 

"I thought where we got in trouble was when got sped up, we took some bad shots, some quick shots and we turned it over," Capel said. "And then because of that, it wasn’t coordinated and we weren’t able to get our defense set up. I thought we got killed in transition and I thought that was the game."

The numbers back up Capel's assessment. The Panthers were outscored 44-26 on fastbreaks - an 18-point margin in a 15-point game. 

Roughly 40 hours later against Oregon State, whom the Panthers beat by 25, they held the Beavers to just four points on fast breaks and 11 points off the same number of turnovers. They blocked three shots while the Beavers blocked none, won points in the paint by 10 and outrebounded their opponent by 13. 

Oregon State is not Florida - the Beavers are expected to struggle in the Pac-12 and the Gators are all of a sudden a surprise contender in the SEC - but Pitt was able to apply the lessons a tough loss taught them. Instead of trying to make everything back alone, the Panthers worked around physicality with good passing and controlled the game with smarter control of the ball while maintaining an edge defensively. 

“It’s all about understanding who we are, understanding what teams are going to try to do to defend us," Capel said. "[Florida] was very physical in that game and we weren’t able to adjust. Instead, we just tried to put our heads down and go faster. We made a big-time adjustment against Oregon State doing that."

Capel left Brooklyn optimistic about what his team is capable of. He thinks they can be pretty good but final evaluations of just how good or not this Pitt team is can be saved for later down the line. Right now, Capel's eyes are firmly on how the Panthers approach each game and each practice. Win or lose, at this point in the season he wants to see growth more than anything else. 

This Pitt team showed some growth in Brooklyn and with three more in a row against Power 5 opponents on deck, there will be plenty of more chances to grow coming soon. 

“In what we do and what I do, the results are wins and losses but for me, I look at growth," Capel said. "Are we getting better? How are we handling situations? Are we getting better in practice? Do we have the right attitude? I think if we take care of that stuff, that helps the results take care of itself. So I’ve been pleased with that. I’ve been pleased that we got off the mat. That was the first time that we got punched and we got off the mat. That’s a really, really good sign."

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