Pitt Pleased with Shot Selection Despite Results
PITTSBURGH -- The Pitt Panthers' lack of shot-making held them back in their loss against the Missouri Tigers. In spite of the results, however, they don't believe it was a result of subpar looks or opportunities.
Pitt finished the game with 64 points on a shooting percentage of 34% from the field, their lowest total of the season, and 28% from three. The Panthers' numbers in that department have been on a steady decline, which wasn't totally unexpected as their competition has stiffened, but it's concerning nonetheless.
Still, Jeff Capel isn't sounding the alarms. The roster holds players capable of hitting shots on a regular basis, and Capel believes the team earned good looks all night. He did add, however, that he wasn't overly pleased with the way the Panthers let their misses take a toll on other areas of the game.
"I thought we got great looks, it was just one of those nights where we couldn’t make a shot,” Capel said. “For the first time this season, we allowed that to impact the game. We allowed it to impact the defense, we allowed it to impact everything, and so it’s a learning lesson for us. You hate to do it in a loss, but we’ll learn from it, we’ll get better from it and we’ll be ready for the next one.”
The Panthers are of the mindset that improving on the defensive end and turning their success on that end into offense can help them get into a rhythm and shoot better.
“The offense always becomes better with defense," Blake Hinson said. "We get in transition then a lot of times, especially for us, our offense starts to get going so that would be a good way to do it.”
Missouri's size overwhelmed the Panthers in certain aspects of the contest, but Capel was quick to dispel the notion that it impacted his team's ability to knock down open shots when asked.
"I mean we had some wide-open looks," Capel said. "I thought in the first half, we had some looks where we shot-faked and we should’ve driven it, and instead we took a slide-dribble three. I can think of, off the top of my head, at least three or four of those. We talked, coming into this game for the past two, three days, about second penetration. We knew that they would react to shot fakes because of our shooting, and those were the ones that I thought we should’ve punched it and either gotten to a spot or maybe we create another opportunity."
Capel was more concerned with how the mounting number of misses affected the rest of his team's play and how it spilled over onto the defensive end. He's still confident this team can and will learn from this loss as they take four days to rest before welcoming Clemson to the Petersen Events Center for the ACC opener.
"We didn’t do that, but I thought in the second half we had some wide-open shots that we normally make. We missed them, and it affected us. It’s the first time all year that it’s really done that, like it really affected how we locked in defensively, and again that’s a learning thing for us.”
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