Pitt Sparks Comeback With New Defensive Look

The Pitt Panthers reached into their bag of tricks to spark a turnaround against Canisius.

PITTSBURGH -- At halftime, the Pitt Panthers were locked in a battle with Canisius that they wanted no part of. An emotional win over West Virginia got them back on track after consecutive losses, but a loss to a mid-major looked possible, if not likely by the intermission of their next contest. 

The Golden Griffins entered the Petersen Events Center averaging north of 78 points per game and Division I's 19th-best 3-point percentage and they knocked down 42% of their 3-pointers in the opening period, on the way to a 41-40 advantage at halftime. That's when Pitt head coach Jeff Capel reached into his bag of tricks. 

"We went to a zone, something we had been working on in practice," Capel said following an eventual win over Canisius. "We’ve played maybe a couple of possessions all year, but that stopped and kind of negated their movement a little bit and we were finally able to get some stops and come down and continue to score."

For most of the second half, the Panthers opened defensive possessions in a 1-2-2 zone press running the length of the court and fell back into a 3-2 zone look in the halfcourt. They used Jorge Diaz Graham, the 6'11 sophomore with arms as long as you'll find at any level of basketball, at the top of key to disrupt passing lanes and the Panthers were able to trap Griffin players along the sidelines with the ball stuck on one side of the floor.   

Not only did the Panthers surrender 11 fewer points in the second half than they did the first half, but they held Canisius to just 28.6% shooting from 3-point distance in the second half and forced six turnovers and score seven points off those turnovers. 

There were schematic reasons why the zone worked but Pitt point guard Bub Carrington said he believed the zone look also served as a wake-up call. They defended with some more pride in the second half and were able to run away with a hard-earned, 11-point win. 

“It definitely slowed them down," Carrington said. "It wasn’t just the zone, but it was us kind of keep preaching more force, more harder, more aggressive and the zone definitely helped us with the mind switch to stop the bleeding.”

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