Pitt Survives Florida State's Relentless Pressure

Led by their two freshmen guards, the Pitt Panthers won a game they wouldn't have earlier in the season.

PITTSBURGH -- If Florida State basketball is known for nothing else, it's their length. Good or bad, the Seminoles will have tall, long athletes that give opposing offenses hell. They did just that in the opening minutes against the Pitt Panthers, speeding them up and dragging the game down into a rock fight. 

But Pitt was the better team and eventually realized that. It took them a moment to find their footing among the long bodies of their opponents, but once they did, the Panthers looked surgical. The team - and it's two lead guards in particular - that at one point in the season would fold in the face of pressure and physicality embraced it against the Seminoles and the tougher team won the day. 

"A little bit," Pitt's Jaland Lowe said when asked if the game got chippy. "But I mean, that’s what makes the game fun."

Florida State entered the Petersen Events Center leading Division I in KenPom's "average height" metric. Despite head coach Leonard Hamilton's insistence that his "consistently inconsistent" defense hasn't been very good this season, the Seminoles still ranked 61st in America in defensive efficiency, 25th in turnover rate and 46th in block percentage. This is a good defense and it gave Pitt's freshman backcourt duo of Lowe and Bub Carrington all they could handle. 

Hamilton deployed his rangy guards and forwards up into the faces of Lowe and Carrington and the Panthers struggled to deal with the pressure. Pitt committed five turnovers as a team in the first 5:38 and Lowe and Carrington owned two of those. The team was playing with energy but perhaps too much. Carrington picked up a technical foul while pushing and shoving and jawing with Jamir Watkins with 17:51 left in the first half. As Carrington and Watkins exchanged words, Blake Hinson was behind the scrum, jumping and waving his arms to get the crowd into the game, as if he knew this was a precursor for what was to come. 

In striking contrast to how this team played at the beginning of the year, they not only survived the pressure but used it to their advantage. After turning it over five times in the first 5:38, the Panthers committed six giveaways for the rest of the game. They refused to get knocked off their spots and delivered some blows as well. Instead of absorbing physicality, the Panthers - particularly their young ball-handlers - have learned how to match it. 

"I knew that there were going to be growing pains, because it’s very difficult for a freshman, especially when you have the ball in your hands, and both of those guys were going to have the basketball in their hands," head coach Jeff Capel said. "And we took some lumps, we took some knocks, but I think the experience that they got through trial and error has really, really helped them, it’s helped them to continue to believe, they have teammates that believe in them and have been unbelievable with them throughout the season and encouraging them, and the same with us as a staff. And they’ve grown."

It helped to get a dose of force from the frontcourt as well. Federiko Federiko scored seven points, grabbed five rebounds and blocked two shots while Zack Austin added five rebounds and two blocks as well. Guillermo Diaz Graham posted five points, three rebounds and a block in his stat line, too. 

But this effort was truly made possible by the play of the young guards, in whom so much responsibility was placed before they really had a chance to get acclimated to their new environment in college. 

"These guys, I’m sure they had, early in the season, some bumps in the road," Florida State head coach Leonard Hamilton said. "But it’s obvious that they have a good relationship with the staff and each other and now that they’ve grown, they look like a very poised, mature team out there even though they are fairly young. They’re confident and I think that’s because of the synergy they have with one another.” 

Lowe and Carrington's growth into a pair of tough and poised young players has mirrored the progression of their team, who is hitting their stride at the right time. As the two freshmen have grown, the Panthers have learned how to win in multiple ways, including in a rock fight through their toughness and poise. 

"Like I said, we went through some lumps, but I knew their character and how they work and how good they want to be," Capel said. "And the thing about both of them that’s really unique for young guys is, they’re very, very quick learners. They pick up things very quickly. That’s something I thought they would do, but maybe they’ve done it faster than I even anticipated."

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