RALEIGH, N.C. -- PNC Arena can predict the future. At least, it did on this sunny, 34-degree afternoon here, where Pitt lost, 77-73, to North Carolina State, and all of it was foretold.
You just had to follow the signs.
No, literally. These signs to be exact, all piled up outside the entrance to court-level:
Those gems are provided to the band and to the student section sitting behind the basket, alternating halves depending on which side the away team will face when shooting free throws. It works like this:
Step 1: A Pitt player steps to the line.
Step 2: Fans hold those meme signs — LeBron James face, Grumpy Cat, Drake, mocking SpongeBob — flailing them wildly.
Step 3: Loud noises.
Step 4: The Pitt player misses.
At least, that was the progression on this Saturday, when the Panthers went 15 for 27 (56 percent) from the free-throw line. The charity, apparently, doesn't accept donations on weekends.
"We have to do a better job of making free throws," Jeff Capel was saying at the postgame podium after the game.
Brutally as Pitt's shot the basketball this year — last place in the ACC in field goal percentage (40.3 percent), second to last in three-point percentage (28.9 percent, just ahead of North Carolina's 28.8-percent clip) coming into this one — the team has not struggled from the line. They entered the game in Raleigh shooting 71 percent there, good for eighth in the ACC and tied with ... North Carolina State, right in the middle of the 15-team pack.
"We’ve been a good free-throw shooting team all year, and if you look at the stats, that’s really kinda what the game came down to, is they were able to make their free throws and we missed ours," Capel said.
Who likes math? Yeah, I don't, either. But check this out:
Pitt shot 15 for 27 from the free-throw line Saturday. North Carolina State shot 20 for 27. So rarely does life work out this perfectly, but my goodness, they took the exact same number of shots from the charity stripe. Had Pitt matched North Carolina State — as they have throughout this season, as evidenced by that identical 71.2-percent mark — they'd have won the game by one. Sure, butterfly effect and variables and all that fun stuff, but the fact remains: Pitt underperformed and North Carolina State held steady. Free throws are routine and constant and, well, free. That opportunity — no defense, just you and the basket — is a rarity in sports. The extra-point in football is probably the closest analogy. North Carolina State dotted their "I's" today. Pitt did not.
And that made all the difference.
"We have to be able to step up in those situations and to knock ‘em down," Capel concluded.
Digging deeper, take a look at who missed the freebies: Trey McGowens clanged two off the rim with 42 seconds left in the game. Justin Champagnie missed a pair with 2:25 remaining. Xavier Johnson missed one with 34 seconds to go. So in the last 2:30 of the game, crunch time, Pitt missed five free throws, spread out across a collection of their best offensive players.
These are the guys Pitt counts on to make a play when they need one.
Instead, the story of the game played out in a picture I took before the game ever started. You see which prop is out front, standing tall and proud up there, right?
PNC Arena, man. The game was written before it began.
• Shoutout to North Carolina State in this one. Not the team (I mean, the team too) — but the crowd in particular. I've followed Pitt everywhere this year, and the atmosphere today was the most passionate, the loudest and the most reactionary of any crowd I've encountered thus far.
For the game, Pitt was called for 24 fouls plus a technical, while North Carolina State rang up 23 fouls. Despite this, the crowd was positive the refs were out to get them. It was hysterical. At one point, a 30-ish-year-old man sitting in front of me, courtside, shouted: "EIGHT ON FIVE AIN'T FAIR, REF!"
This is what makes college basketball amazing. These fans lost their minds for two hours, becoming fully wrapped up in supporting their squad. It was cool to see, cool to experience, even when it made absolutely no sense. Wait, especially when it made no sense. That's fanaticism at its best.
• Johnson, before laying an egg in the second half, played perhaps his best half of basketball this season, scoring 10 points on 4-for-8 shooting with two assists and no turnovers in the first 20 minutes. He did this, too:
I missed this dunk in real-time, but my goodness, Xavier Johnson. That will do.
Video via @RoddBaxley #dkps #unleash pic.twitter.com/7axBvxY0Vs
— Hunter Alek Homistek (@HunterAHomistek) February 29, 2020
Problem is, he jacked up unnecessary threes, forced passes and played outside the offense down the stretch, when he was needed most. It was a tale of two halves for him, but it's not quite that easy. More on this in an upcoming article. For now, know he flashed serious promise ... then made everyone wonder if that was just a mirage.
• It's time to worry about McGowens. It wasn't just the two missed free throws late. He scored seven points on 3-for-5 shooting alongside five assists, four fouls and two turnovers in this one. And unlike Johnson, he never had that strong half of consistent, impactful play to help him out. He was just another guy out there, and Pitt can't have that from one of its two supposed stars.
McGowens hasn't scored over eight points in any of Pitt's six straight losses. He's hit eight three times, seven Saturday, seven against Clemson at Petersen Events Center and three against Florida State down in Tallahassee, Fla. The team needs him. It's no coincidence his poor performance has coincided with the Panthers' skid. This team is that much easier to defend when he's not firing. And he's been dormant for too long.
• Champagnie put up 10 points and five rebounds, fouling out after playing nearly the entire 40 minutes and adding a technical foul to the mix. This was, by far, the most animated and chippy I've seen Champagnie in a game all year. He picked up a technical after Jericole Hellems baited him after a foul call.
"I was just playing basketball," Hellems said after the game, smile plastered all over his face.
This is layered. First, Champagnie has to be smarter. After Hellems placed the ball on Champagnie's shoulder in an attempt to get a reaction, he ... got a reaction. Champagnie pushed him with both hands in the chest during the dead ball, and the referee was all over it. Easy technical.
But Hellems absolutely deserved a call for taunting as well. This is the classic case of "They always see the second guy," a phrase you hear across sports in situations like these. It's unfortunate for Champagnie, but this is exactly the type of moment and game he can learn from moving forward.
Given his trajectory this year, it's safe to say he'll do just that.
• On the other side, Hellems wasn't just an agitator, he went 6 for 6, including 2 for 2 from three for 16 points before fouling out in 17 minutes of play. He came off the bench and provided exactly the jolt his team needed. He stirred the pot, he made shots and he injected life into a team that trailed the vast majority of the game. For Pitt fans, his mean-mugging, over-the-top expressions and outbursts were probably tough to watch.
But for his own team? Well, you saw the final score. Pretty sure they're OK with it.
• Pitt's now 8-9 in games decided by 10 points or fewer and 2-8 on the road.
• Pitt led all the way in this one, right from the opening tip, until North Carolina State took a 62-61 lead with 6:55 in the game. Pitt took the lead back briefly, but then North Carolina State snagged it again, this time for good.
And while the finish wasn't what the team wanted, that result, coming into a tough game on the road off a five-game losing streak, contained some positives. I asked Au’Diese Toney about that after the game:
• And uhh ... Toney was superb in this game: 24 points and six rebounds on 69 percent shooting. Besides that, he provided his usual hustle and disruption on defense, snagging two steals as well. Solidly as he played, Capel had a more sobering assessment:
“The bottom line is that we have to win basketball games," Capel was saying. "And Au’Diese played well, but we lost. Just like last year, Xavier played well, [but] we were 3-15. Bottom line is that we have to win. It doesn’t need to be about what one person did or what one person didn’t do or anything like that. When we win, it’s about Pitt. When we lose, it’s about Pitt. And he had a good game, but we lost.”
Hey, I'm not looking too far into this, but notice how Capel didn't say "Xavier and Trey played well last year" but instead just name-dropped Xavier? Those two were inseparable coming into the season, the star sophomores destined to take Pitt to the next level.
Has that duo already been reduced to one? McGowens has to show up again. Just has to.
• Eric Hamilton saw an increase in playing time tonight, getting 20 minutes in a 10-point, 10-rebound double-double. After the game, Hamilton told us he's been playing through an ankle injury sustained against Clemson (which everybody saw) as well as sprained knees sustained in Florida (which nobody noticed).
I asked him about that balance after the game:
• Oh, hey, not to rub salt in the wound, but you know how I made a big deal about the free-throw shooting up there? North Carolina's 20 made freebies were a season-high allowed by Pitt. Those. Shots. Matter.
• Pitt's now 15-15 and 6-13 in ACC play this year with one game remaining before the ACC Tournament.
THE ESSENTIALS
• Boxscore
THE STARTING LINEUPS
For Capel's Panthers:
Xavier Johnson, guard
Trey McGowens, guard
Au'Diese Toney, guard
Justin Champagnie, forward
Terrell Brown, forward
And for Kevin Keatts' Wolfpack:
Markell Johnson, guard
C.J. Bryce, guard
Devon Daniels, forward
DJ Funderburk, forward
Manny Bates, forward
THE SCHEDULE
Pitt closes out the season before the ACC tournament with one more road game, this one against Georgia Tech, March 4 in Atlanta. I'll be on the coverage for that.
THE COVERAGE
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