“Well, that’s the way we drew that up.”
The sarcasm flowed freely from Jeff Capel as he took the podium following Pitt's 74-72 victory over Boston College Wednesday evening at Petersen Events Center. Because in this one, even Salvador Dali might've stepped back and said, 'Hey, let's do things a little more traditionally, eh?'
But this 2019-20 Pitt Panthers squad doesn't do normal. Or easy. They induce stress for Capel and his staff at every turn, a point illustrated in a few quick bullets:
• Boston College — 10-point underdogs coming in — jumped out to a 14-point lead with 3:21 remaining in the first half
• Pitt cut that lead to five by halftime, then re-took the lead just three minutes into the second half
• Boston College took it back midway through the half, only for Pitt to go back up by one on the ensuing possession
• Pitt went up 10, 65-55, with 4:22 to go in the game ...
• ... but Boston College tied it at 72 with 12 seconds to go
If you're begging them to just color inside the lines right now, nobody would blame you. The lead changed eight times throughout and was tied four other instances. There was nothing easy or relaxing about this win. Or about this team in general. It's stress and chaos, fans on their feet inside the Pete — and then:
That's some sweet relief, courtesy of a pull-up jumper from Ryan Murphy. Murphy kicks off the sequence with the ball, locked at 72 with under 10 seconds to go, and he's immediately trapped by Derryck Thornton and Jairus Hamilton. He dishes to Justin Champagnie, who takes two dribbles and gathers past halfcourt, only to give it right back to Murphy hustling upcourt.
Dribble. Dribble.
Bang.
You better believe I was asking him about that sequence:
“We gotta score," Murphy responded when I asked what was going through his head in those final seconds. "Just gotta get a good shot, and I work on that shot about every day. So I just felt comfortable. Justin gave me a good pass, the big man kept backing up, and I was just like, ‘Shoot it.’ ”
And then?
"I knew it was going in once it left my hand.”
With a flick of the wrist, that's consecutive ACC wins for Pitt for the first time since February of 2017, when they beat Boston College and Syracuse in back-to-back contests. The team is now 13-6 overall, including a 4-4 mark in conference play, and it's all adding up to that grander picture Capel's so fond of referencing.
Like when he said this after Wednesday's win:
"First time we’ve won two in a row in this program in a while," Capel began. "I don’t know the exact date or when it was, but I know it hasn’t been in a couple years, maybe a few years. So I’m pleased about that, and we look forward to going on the road.”
And tempting as it is to get hung up on that brutal start from Pitt, it's easy to explain. Boston College made shots in the first half — 48 percent of 'em, to be exact, including 6 of 11 (55 percent) from beyond the arc.
No, really. That's it. This Golden Eagles team averaged 40 percent from the field and 29 percent from deep coming in. It was an uncharacteristically strong showing in those first 20 minutes.
“We were making shots," Boston College coach Jim Christian was saying of that first half spent abusing Pitt's zone. "We played against Georgia Tech, we played against Syracuse and we shot like, I don’t know, six for 1,000. We made shots, man. When guys make shots, you look a lot better against a zone. It’s not rocket science sometimes."
“Give them credit, Boston College," Capel added. "They were a team that has not been shooting the ball well from three, and they stepped up and made six threes in the first half. I think they made 10 for the game. And some guys that we didn’t initially mind shooting stepped up and made some big-time threes for them."
Make shots, put points on the board. It really is that simple. Unsurprisingly, Boston College regressed to its mean, making just 4 of 13 (31 percent) threes in the second half, while Pitt caught fire, shooting 62 percent overall from the field and 57 percent from deep.
Things become more complicated, however, once Pitt snags that lead. For a young, growing program, the dynamic of playing from ahead hasn't quite settled in just yet.
"Our tendency is to relax," Capel was saying. "I think we had a 10-point lead and we gave up an offensive rebound basket and then at another point we had a 10-point lead, actually got a stop and a rebound, and we had someone in transition, but we threw the ball away and they hit a three."
Here, Capel takes full blame — and he's already devising a way to correct the issue.
"We have to work on that more in practice," he said. "That’s something that I have to spend a little bit more time on, game situations ... As a staff, we need to do a better job of helping our guys in those situations. We worked on game situations a lot early in the season. We haven’t done it in a little bit, so that’s something that — because obviously showing it on tape, watching it on tape, doing it, which we do every day, coming back from film session after every game, I should say … That’s not working. So we need to get in the gym and do some more of those situations.”
That is huge. Pitt's blown leads — notably against Wake Forest and Louisville at home — and they've generally shown a "panic" in clutch situations this season. But not tonight. If Capel and company can figure out a way to capture that spark, nourish it and help it grow, this team won't stop at just four or five conference wins this season.
And it might even feel like coloring inside the lines along the way.
• My game ball for this one goes to ... Justin Champagnie.
Murphy's the easy pick with that game-winner, and I'd certainly have no problem choosing his 11-point effort on a perfect 3 for 3 from deep and 4 for 5 overall.
"We had the wherewithal to get it in, to push it up and got Murph on a pull-up jump shot," Capel was saying of that little smear of icing. "It takes guts to want to be in that moment and to take that shot. And we’re incredibly grateful for him to have the guts to do that and, obviously, to step up and make it."
It was big — game ball-worthy, even — but I can't ignore Champagnie's team-leading 17 points or his team-leading 10 rebounds. He also added a block and this game-clinching, Minkah Fitzpatrick-esque interception:
It wasn't just the double-double or that final steal with Champagnie, though. It was the fact that he registered six of those 17 points in the final 1:24 of the first half, draining three straight buckets to help his team stay in the game and to carry some momentum into the locker room in the process. He was hustling everywhere — his four offensive vs. six defensive rebounds prove that — and he was doing it all in a smart, efficient manner.
Once again I ask: Are we sure this guy's a freshman?
• We saw Murphy ice the game, but what we didn't see in that gif up there was Thornton tying the game with a layup moments before ... and Capel opting to let the game play itself out vs. calling a timeout to draw up a final play.
Why'd he choose that route?
“I didn’t want them to set their defense," Capel said. "And I thought they were scattered. They didn’t know the matchup. The matchups were off. They were odd. And in situations like that, I think you get a chance to get a better shot. We did the same thing against Kansas State, [and] it worked. We did a similar thing against Wake Forest, and it didn’t work.”
Fair enough, coach.
• Christian dropped this line after the game, and I couldn't help but smile in the context of Pitt's season.
“We got down 10 because I thought we came a little bit out of character and guys tried to take the game over by themself and took ridiculous shots," he said. "You can’t do that in a possession-by-possession game, and that’s what it was up until that point."
Sound familiar?
• ... Right, I'm talking about Xavier Johnson and Trey McGowens here. They've been both the best and the worst players for Pitt at various times this season, but there's no doubt the offense runs through them.
So how did we get this far through the game report without mentioning them? Well, they were just ... eh.
Johnson went 3 for 10 for nine points — but he bolstered that with 10 assists, four rebounds, a block and a steal against five turnovers. McGowens, meanwhile, had 13 points on 5 for 14 shooting alongside two rebounds, three assists, two steals and two turnovers.
The duo forced shots early and committed mistakes before settling in and doing some stuff like this:
“Trey’s aggressive," Murphy was saying. "He’s crazy athletic, and he’s tough to guard when he’s going downhill. When he gets that little dunk or that steal or whatever to get him going, then that just helps us.”
It might not seem like much, but this is big. Johnson and McGowens have relatively quiet and inefficient nights, and the team still wins in conference play? That's a sure sign of growth for the program.
But you don't have to take it from me.
“Last year, no … I wouldn’t think we would’ve won it last year because it was just, we were trying to figure out each other," Au'Diese Toney was saying after the game. "But now, this team, we know each other more than we did last year, so I feel [more] comfortable this year than last year.”
• That steal from McGowens was notable in a bigger-picture sense, too, as it gave him 100 in his career. He added another to make it 101, becoming the 32nd player in Pitt history to top the century mark there.
• Johnson's 10 assists matched a career-high, and while his nine points weren't much, they were enough to move him past Demetrius Gore and into ninth place at Pitt in scoring through a sophomore campaign.
• Toney flashed some serious offensive efficiency, scoring nine first-half points on 4 for 5 shooting before finishing with 16 points on 7 for 9 overall. That marked a season-high for him.
• With two more blocks in this one, Terrell Brown is now tied with Isaac Hawkins for fourth all-time at Pitt, swatting 143 shots in all.
THE ESSENTIALS
• Boxscore
THE STARTING LINEUPS
For Capel's Panthers:
Xavier Johnson, guard
Trey McGowens, guard
Au'Diese Toney, guard
Justin Champagnie, forward
Eric Hamilton, forward
And for Christian's Golden Eagles:
Derryck Thornton, guard
Jay Heath, guard
Steffon Mitchell, forward
Jairus Hamilton, forward
CJ Felder, forward
THE SCHEDULE
Can Pitt get greedy and make it three straight conference victories? Standing in their way is Syracuse, a team that currently sits at 12-7 overall and 5-3 in the ACC, two spots above Pitt in the standings. That one tips off Saturday at noon, and I'll head north for all the coverage.
THE COVERAGE
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