SOUTH BEND, Ind. -- Five is greater than two.
Look, I literally switched my major as a junior in college from pre-chem to journalism because I hated science and math (bye, Calc IV!) course work. That said, I'm pretty sure five is indeed greater than two.
And I'm also pretty sure Notre Dame stamped that fact all over these Pitt Panthers throughout the Fighting Irish's 80-72 victory Wednesday night at Purcell Pavillon inside the Joyce Center.
Watch for yourself:
That's John Mooney finishing off a pretty spin move in the lane to kick off the gif. Then there's T.J. Gibbs knocking down a three, Prentiss Hubb drilling a triple at the first-half buzzer and Rex Pflueger connecting with Juwan Durham on an alley-oop to ice the win.
It was a total team effort, the kind of thing Jeff Capel often references when he explains what did — or didn't — go right for his own squad.
Tonight, it was more of that "didn't" stuff.
Notre Dame shot 54 percent (7 for 13) from deep in the first half, getting out to a nine-point halftime lead, while Pitt floundered throughout, shooting just 42 percent from the field — a number inflated after Pitt finished 8 for 11 from the field in garbage time.
"They backed off of us," Capel was saying after this one. "They dared us to shoot."
You know who doesn't dare you to shoot? A team that respects your shooting ability.
OK, Coach. Continue.
"And so we got good, clean looks, and in the second half we were able to knock some threes down."
What came next from Capel, though, was crucial. After talking about knocking "some threes down," which they did, going 4 for 10 in the final 20 minutes, Capel immediately reversed course and focused his attention on the opponent. Because Wednesday night, it was all about the home team.
“This was a different game for us," Capel elaborated. "This was a different type of team to defend. Everyone that we’ve played up to this point has at least one guy that you can kind of relax off of, that you don’t have to go out to, you don’t have to close to. Most of them have more than one guy — that we’ve played so far.
"So this one was different, especially when they put [Nate Laszweski], when they put [number] 14 at the five. It made it even [harder] — and same with Mooney. When they go with that lineup, they’re a little bit difficult to defend and your communication really has to be high, very high. And we didn’t do a good job of that.”
It's all right there. Capel singled out Laszewski because he scored 23 points on 6 for 9 from three last year against the Panthers and he chipped in with 11 again tonight. But Notre Dame went five-plus deep, and Pitt showed up in glimpses only, with Justin Champagnie leading the way with 20 points and 11 rebounds (this, despite a four-point first half) and Xavier Johnson contributing 17 points, five rebounds and four assists in perhaps his most efficient front-to-back performance of the year.
And yet ... It wasn't enough. Not even close — because five is greater than two.
I had to ask Gibbs about all those clean looks from deep after this one — his team attempted 27 triples in all — to help find some answers:
You hearing that?
"Just letting my teammates do the work for me," Gibbs was saying. "I think that's the beauty about our offense is that it's a constant, moving offense. Everybody's going to get a shot. Everybody's going to get a look. And just be ready to step in and knock it down. That's something that Coach has always preached since I've been here. And just sticking to that and just kind of letting everybody else do the work."
It might not be verbatim, but could that any more closely echo what Capel said?
Notre Dame has a foundation, a history, a level of experience and trust in place, and it all played out beautifully throughout these 40 minutes. Their starting five tonight: Graduate student, senior, sophomore, senior, senior.
Compare that to Pitt — sophomore, sophomore, sophomore, freshman, graduate student — and the picture becomes clear.
From Notre Dame's threes to the work on the offensive glass — where they collected 15 of their 40 boards — to those late alley-oops, the Fighting Irish showcased everything that makes a team complete, that chemistry born through experience that adds up to crucial wins in ACC play.
"It's just hard, even their five man, Mooney, when he plays the five, he can shoot threes, so it was like we really couldn't sag off [anybody]," Champagnie was saying.
Kinda fitting that he was reference their five man, eh?
Because five is — yeah, yeah, you get it by now ...
• Notre Dame's campus is gorgeous. It's the first college campus I've stepped on this year that made me want to take a walk around. The snowy setting certainly helped, but this place just oozes life and energy and history. When you take a stroll here, you'll catch yourself gazing place to place, building to building, and it all has a somewhat uniform architecture and look/feel that pulls it together.
Then you see something like this, the world's cutest little firetruck, that just makes you chuckle:
But look at that! It's all branded and perfectly placed next to the Purcell Pavillon and ready to roll. What's it going to extinguish, a match? A candle at the most?
I'm really not sure what the point of this bullet is. Just go visit Notre Dame sometime if you can. It's so pretty, and literally every authority figure I approached was polite and helpful.
Back to basketball, I suppose ...
• My game ball for Pitt goes to ... Johnson.
Johnson played his best first half of the season before faltering a little in the final 20 minutes. He wound up with 17 points on 5-for-9 shooting (2 for 3 from deep) but the primary reason he gets the game ball is that I saw much, much, much less of that "hero ball" that's plagued his season in this one. He's coming off his best finish of the year in the team's win over Miami, and now he's building upon it. I'm not ready to say Johnson "turned a corner" or anything definitive like that, but his play tonight in this loss was encouraging.
I didn't ask Capel about Johnson's performance for one reason: Capel hates singling out individuals, especially after a loss.
Guarantee he would've said:
"I thought he did some good things. He did some good things for us, but I thought all of us needed to be better. It's not just one guy. It's about all of us. So he did shoot the ball better and show some good things, but we all need to be better next time."
There you go. It's a fake quote, but it's accurate and you can hear Capel's voice, right?
• This game wasn't as tight as the final score indicates. Not at all.
Notre Dame led by nine at the half after shooting 50 percent from the field and 54 percent from three, and while their shooting cooled off, they were able to mount a 19-point lead with 7:18 left in the game. Perhaps worse than that, though, is the fact they just kept. getting. clean. looks. from. three.
"Every last one of them can shoot," Champagnie said.
Against Duke, a similar problem occurred, but that was almost singlehandedly attributed to the fact that Pitt had to sag into the post to double Vernon Carey every time he touched the ball. I asked Capel if the same was happening Wednesday against Mooney and Durham:
So yeah, not really. Had Notre Dame maintained that 54 percent clip from deep, this game would've been a 25-point loss for Pitt, legitimately. Instead, Notre Dame wound up shooting just 37 percent (10 for 27) from deep in the game, giving Pitt a little room to narrow the gap — which they did.
Kudos on the scrappy (raise your hand if you've heard that word in reference to this year's Pitt team before) finish.
• Champagnie's basketball IQ has impressed me throughout this entire season, and there was a particular set of plays that stood out in this one.
In the first half, Mooney was trapped in the far corner of the court, and he elevated, throwing a ball cross-court to his teammate at the extended elbow. Champagnie, playing in the key, could have swiped that pass had he been fully aware and ready to pounce. But he didn't. He was slow to recognize it, and the play continued.
In the second half, however, a similar situation unfolded, and Champagnie rocketed out of the gates, getting the steal and drawing the foul in transition as a result. I asked him all about that:
Just another game for Champagnie. You can tell he knows exactly what I'm referencing, and he even has a reason why the first sequence didn't bring a similar result — he was sitting on the smart play instead of gambling early in the game.
I mean, you don't teach that. He does credit Capel's work with the film, but this is just another example in a lengthy list of Champagnie's basketball instincts. He gets it.
• On the other side, Notre Dame put four scorers in double digits, with Gibbs leading the way thanks to a 5-for-8 effort beyond the arc and 21 points in all. Mooney had 17 and 10 rebounds, Durham had 11 and Laszewski had 11 to round out the double-digit fun.
• Pitt's now 14-9 and 5-7 in ACC play this year with eight games remaining.
• Ryan Murphy missed his second straight game with a concussion, while Onyebuchi Ezeakudo left the game early after going down hard in transition and seeming to grab at his right knee. He eventually walked off gingerly with the support of his teammates.
Capel had no updates for the availability of either player moving forward after this one.
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 Brey's Fighting Irish:
Rex Pflueger, guard
Prentiss Hubb, guard
T.J. Gibbs, guard
Juwan Durham, forward
John Mooney, forward
THE SCHEDULE
Pitt will host Georgia Tech at the Pete Saturday. Tipoff's set for 2 p.m., and I'll be there for all the coverage.
THE COVERAGE
Visit our team page for everything.
