Wanna read a choose-your-own-adventure book of frustrating, baffling basketball?
Cool, because Jeff Capel's Pitt Panthers authored one Saturday at Petersen Events Center, losing, 69-65, to Wake Forest in the official conference-play opener. Let's turn the front cover and dig in.
Chapter 1: Pitt's up, 22-6, with 10:48 to go in the half. This could not be going better for the home team. Ryan Murphy is lighting it up with 12 points, and Pitt's shooting 9 for 16 (56 percent) overall. Better yet, they have just one turnover as a team.
Chapter 2: Pitt closes the first half up three, 30-27, shooting 1 for 10 from the field and racking up four of their five first-half turnovers in the process. Wake Forest has not only narrowed the deficit — they've gained confidence in a crucial moment.
"I thought they showed a toughness today," Jeff Capel was saying of Danny Manning's Wake Forest squad after the game. " ... I thought from about the 10-minute mark of the first half, I thought we became incredibly stagnant offensively ... So I thought the way we finished the half gave them momentum and even more confidence going into the second half."
Chapter 3: Trey McGowens puts Pitt on top, 49-47, with 11: 40 to play. Wake Forest's Ismael Massoud then ties the game with a layup but airballs a three on the next possession, giving Pitt momentum ... only the "rebound" clangs off McGowens' hands and out of bounds instead. Justin Champagnie throws his arms in the air in full frustration. Both he and McGowens immediately understand a prime opportunity just went bouncing into the first row.
Chapter 4: Massoud drills a three off the inbound on the ensuing play, putting Wake up, 52-49 ... then adds another triple one possession later. The Pete falls silent as the Panthers fall behind by six with under 10 minutes to go.
Chapter 5: Xavier Johnson and McGowens engage "hero ball mode" down the stretch, forcing shots and slashing to the rim with no Plan B in mind. It's their turn to take over ... only they go a combined 1 for 5 in the final five minutes, with McGowens missing a crucial pair of free throws that could've given Pitt a lead with 2:43 to go.
"Our last few possessions, we didn't get the shots that we really wanted," Capel said. "That's on all of us. We have to do a better job in those situations knowing where we want to get the shots from and making sure we execute to do that. We can't panic."
Chapter 6: Capel's frustration reaches its season peak as Johnson dribbles into trouble and forces a contested, no-good, absolutely terrible jumper that results in a brick off the glass. Capel grabs a water bottle from the scorer's table and swings his arm in a throwing motion. While he has the presence of mind to, you know, not actually throw it, his body language says it all. He calmly places the water back on the table and regroups.
"It wasn't a good shot. That's what I was upset about," Capel said. "It wasn't a good shot ... In hindsight, yeah, we should've called a timeout."
Chapter 7: Last chance for Pitt. McGowens with the ball, down two, with just over six seconds to go. He gets to the rim ...
Oof. It's clean. The book is done.
"I thought Trey had a really good take," Murphy, who was clearly wanting the ball to make it his way there, was saying of McGowens' final possession. "I thought he had a good look at it. I actually thought he was going to try to dunk it, because Trey's really athletic. I thought he had a good look at it and the guy just blocked it. That's basketball. Last minute, tensions are high, guys are trying to make the right play, and we lost."
Look, you can point fingers all over the place in this one. We could add more chapters to the book with Pitt's early foul trouble or their lackluster effort in closing out on threes in the second half from their zone defense.
But the problem here was that, down the stretch, when Pitt needed baskets and leadership the most, both Johnson and McGowens did more harm than good. These two players were expected to take steps forward in 2019-20, and while we've seen it on occasion throughout the year, Saturday's effort was a stark reminder of the work that needs to be done.
You can explain it, as Capel did after the game when our Dejan Kovacevic asked him about Pitt's shot selection:
"I thought we panicked and in some ways ... it comes from a good place at times, like, 'I have to make a play. I have to make a play,'" Capel said. "And it can never be that. It has to be 'We have to do it.'"
Credit Capel for reeling it in and placing the burden on the entire team, but the results were obvious in this one. In the final three minutes, either McGowens or Johnson took four of Pitt's five shot attempts (Hamilton took the other, a miss from 18 feet). They made none of them, including that pair of free throws mentioned above that could've tied or put Pitt on top in crunch time.
If these are Pitt's stars — and all indications through 14 games still confirm they are — they have to be better than this. Even bigger, they have to be more composed and calmer under pressure. For all the talk about their experience in ACC play last year paying dividends this year, the opposite was true.
They panicked, and Pitt couldn't hang on for the home win.
"We can't panic in that situation and just throw something up or try to throw something up and flop like we were getting fouled," Capel said. "You have to be strong. You have to be strong throughout a game, and that's not just physically strong, you have to be mentally sharp, and we have to continue to grow in that area."
It doesn't get any easier from here as ACC play continues. Buckle up, and keep your hands inside the car while the roller-coaster's in motion.
• Give it up for Murphy in this one:
He paced the Panthers with 18 points on 7 for 12 shooting overall (4 for 6 from three), adding four rebounds, four assists, two steals, one foul and no turnovers. It was clear Murphy was feeling it immediately in this one, so I followed up with him after the game to ask how a hot start like that inspires his entire game:
And good as Murphy was, Wake Forest contained him in the second half, when he scored just six points and was forced off the three-point line time and again.
"Usually, I would get a little freedom off a bump, like off a little screen," Murphy was saying. "But instead I felt, like, the arm or the guy's hand still there. So yeah [they tightened things up on me]."
All this said, that's now Murphy's third consecutive game scoring in double figures and his ninth overall. Whatever rust was holding him down prior to this run seems sufficiently scraped away.
• Wake Forest's standout point guard and leader Brandon Childress was relatively quiet in this one, scoring just eight points on 2 for 4 shooting. But don't try to tell Manning he had a bad game. The reality is different.
"I thought he had a terrific floor game," Manning said of Childress. "I think whenever your point guard gets six assists, two turnovers and ices a game down the stretch with free throws, he's doing his job."
"Coming into this game, Brandon Childress had taken probably 60 more shots than anybody on their team, then the next guy," Capel said. " ... He took four tonight and was happy with that. He didn't try to force ... He did a great job of letting the game come to him and trusting other guys to make plays."
See the difference?
"You're talking about a senior," Capel added. "A guy that's been through wars, a guy that's been through and understands it. Maybe he doesn't make those same plays. Maybe he tries to force them as a sophomore, as a freshman."
• Eric Hamilton bounced back after a brutal, four-minute performance against Canisius on Monday, finishing with eight points on 50 percent (3 for 6) shooting, eight rebounds and a block in 26 minutes. I asked Capel about his contributions, and he quickly turned it into an issue of we, not he:
"We didn't do good things," Capel said. "That's the bottom line. For me, it's never about an individual. It's 'we.' It's 'us.' It's 'our.' We didn't do what was required for us to win a basketball game today, and that's incredibly disappointing."
• Au'Diese Toney, a key contributor for Pitt this season, missed the game with an elbow injury sustained during practice.
"It was a big-time, I mean, we knew it, I knew it coming in that it was going to be a big thing for us because of rotation, with how we like to play," Capel said. " ... Don't know when he's going to be back. We have to get adjusted to it. Hopefully it's soon, but not really sure when he's going to be back for us."
"They missed Toney tonight," Manning said with a nod. "Because he's a nightmare matchup in terms of what he brings effort- and energy-wise."
• In a rare, lighthearted and funny moment post-game, Murphy delivered this:
Solid.
• What did Capel have for his team after this heartbreaker?
"We gotta win," Murphy said of Capel's message. "We should've won that game, played defense, talked more. We'll get back after it."
• Wake Forest scored 18 fast-break points to Pitt's four, a point of emphasis coming into this one.
• Pitt scored 18 points to Wake Forest's six off turnovers and won the turnover battle, 14-8, overall.
• Wake Forest shot 6 for 12 (50 percent) from three in the second half, but the groundwork was there, as they went 3 for 11 (27 percent) in the first half. The looks were there all along, they just didn't convert in the first half. They did late, and that made all the difference.
• Pitt's 15-0 run in the first half matched a season-best.
THE ESSENTIALS
• Boxscore
THE STARTING LINEUPS
For Capel's Panthers:
Xavier Johnson, guard
Trey McGowens, guard
Ryan Murphy, guard
Justin Champagnie, forward
Eric Hamilton, forward
And for Manning's Demon Deacons:
Brandon Childress, guard
Chaundee Brown, guard
Andrien White, guard
Ody Oguama, forward
Isaiah Mucius, forward
THE SCHEDULE
Pitt hits the road to take on the University of North Carolina Tar Heels Wednesday, Jan. 8, at 7 p.m. I'm loading up for that road trip and will head south for all the coverage from Chapel Hill, N.C.
THE COVERAGE
Visit our team page for everything.
MATT SUNDAY GALLERY
Pitt vs. Wake Forest, Petersen Events Center, Jan. 4, 2020 -- MATT SUNDAY / DKPS