Pitt Raced Past Georgia Tech Behind Key Defensive Adjustment

A mid-game tweak to their ball screen defense helped the Pitt Panthers pull away from Georgia Tech.

GREENSBORO -- The Pitt Panthers were on the ropes. Once leading by 13, they had surrendered a healthy advantage and fallen behind by a bucket to 12 seed Georgia Tech. More than just a trip to the ACC Tournament quarterfinals was on the line - the program's first NCAA Tournament bid was in jeopardy as well. 

It was plain to see that Pitt was making shots but like has been the case all season, this team's defense paved the path back to a key win. But that wasn't the case for the whole game. It took a focused defensive effort and a midgame adjustment to get the Panthers back in the fight. 

Georgia Tech opened the second half hot. They were forcing Pitt into ugly turnovers that ended in easy buckets on the other end. The first step was to cut down on turnovers and Pitt did that. After turning the ball over four times in the first five minutes of the second half, they committed just one giveaway in the final 15 minutes of the game. 

But when Federiko Federiko - one of the better paint defenders in the conference who had also scored 17 points and grabbed seven rebounds to that point - picked up his third foul with 12:55 left in the game and his fourth with 9:45 to play, the Panthers struggled to play the same strong defense they did in the first half, when Georgia Tech managed just a 36.7% shooting mark from the field. 

Yellow Jacket guards were able to take advantage of mismatches, using ball screens to get their guards open lanes going downhill. Pitt's bigs were coming up so hard to hedge on shooters that the guards could easily navigate around the overextended defense and drive to the rim. But one small adjustment helped Federiko and his sub - Guillermo Diaz Graham - make things harder on their opponents.

"We had a difficult time when Federiko went out with our ball screen coverage and we made one adjustment late and Guillermo did a heck of a job," head coach Jeff Capel said after the game.

But Federiko and Diaz Graham began to play the ball screens harder. Instead of trying to cut off the dribble completely with a flat hedge, the Panther bigs employed a flat hedge. When they had to pick up a guard on a brief switch, they played with their chest parallel to the baseline, stringing their man out along the perimeter before the primary defender could recover. 

"Instead of Fede coming out and being parallel to the sideline, he's going parallel to the baseline, so he's flat instead of sideways," point guard Nelly Cummings said. "If they turn the corner, when he's not flat, and they turn the corner, he's beat. If he's flat, he can kind of contain the ball."

The adjustments yielded results. Their outstanding guards were able to get downhill less easily and their shooting percentages suffered. From the 12:55 mark on, Georgia Tech attempted just seven layups and made only three of them. With offense having to come almost exclusively from the outside, the Yellow Jackets went scoreless for the next three minutes while they reclaimed the lead. They made eight of 14 shots to open the second half and just 10 of their final 21 attempts. 

Pitt went on to win the game convincingly, 89-81, thanks in large part to what they were able to do on the defensive end. It was not a perfect defensive performance, but a timely one, and it propelled the Panthers into the ACC Tournament quarterfinals. 

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