GREENSBORO, N.C. -- For Justin Champagnie, this one was personal.
"I just came out here to do this because I felt disrespected about not making the ACC Freshman team," Champagnie was telling me after this game, an 81-72 Pitt victory over Wake Forest to propel the Panthers into the second round of the ACC Tournament here at Greensboro Coliseum. "I just came out here to show people that I deserved to be on that team.
"That's about it."
"About it" for Champagnie included the following:
- A career-high 31 points — two points off the all-time Pitt freshman record set by Trey McGowens last year
- 13-for-19 (68 percent) shooting, including 3 for 7 (43 percent) from three
- Six rebounds
- two blocks
- a steal
- one turnover
It's not like it came out of nowhere, either. Champagnie hit 30 in Pitt's most recent win before this one, way back in early February over Georgia Tech at the Pete. He also led Pitt in scoring (12.2 points per game) and rebounds (7.2 per game) through the regular season and was thrice named the ACC Freshman of the Week. If that's not enough, add in a National Freshman of the Week distinction to paint the full picture of Champagnie's standout freshman campaign.
“That [Champagnie didn't make the ACC All-Freshman team] hurt me, to be honest," Xavier Johnson, who had 10 points on 50 percent shooting, five rebounds, eight assists and three turnovers in this one, was saying of his teammate after the game. "I think he earned it. He’s been killing teams for the last couple games. I think he averaged the most points on our team. He proved it tonight that he should’ve been on it.”
The dude can play — and this might just be the beginning.
“He’s pretty under-appreciated but not down about [not being named to the ACC All-Freshman team] because he’s just going to go out there next year and just compete for more," Johnson continued. "I’m pretty sure he wants more than All-ACC Freshman.”
In Champagnie's case, it's not just the total points, either. It's how he's getting it done. There's a polish and refinement to his game not often seen from an 18-year-old player in the ACC or elsewhere. The nine points from long range boost his output significantly, but Champagnie's game is unique, built around finding open spaces and filling them. He'll work along the short corner, analyze a defense, pick his spots, take the pass, then make a play.
Tonight, that play looked like this: Baseline cut, receive the feed from Johnson or McGowens, reverse layup.
That last part — the reverse layup — intrigued me. It's a smart play along the baseline if you can finish it because it's nearly impossible to block. With the 7-foot Olivier Sarr looming in the back of Wake Forest's zone, it was an intelligent read from Champagnie to help negate his opponent's shot-blocking abilities. If Sarr cheated and played the reverse, it's an easy baseline dunk on the near-side. If he played the sequence straight-up, however, Champagnie could go to the reverse and finish.
Champagnie, playing beyond his years, recognized all that and explained when I asked him about it.
"Sarr is very, like, athletic and long," Champagnie was saying. "I just felt like if I go for a reverse layup, nobody's going to really get it. I can go high off off the glass, just put it right in the basket, so I feel like that was a go-to move for me tonight."
That's a basketball player, ladies and gentlemen — an All-ACC Freshman, even if the votes don't show it. And that point isn't lost on Johnson, who realizes exactly what Champagnie brings each and every night he takes the floor for this Pitt program. To be clear here: With Champagnie, it's not just about this year, however much longer it lasts. It's about the future, that sense of building and growing Jeff Capel always mentions. Champagnie figures to play a huge part in that, and Johnson couldn't be happier about it.
"It’s good seeing him grow," Johnson said when I asked him about playing alongside a budding freshman like Champagnie. "Seeing him do that? That right there, that’s what me and Trey did, and I love it. Love to see it from him. Love it.”
Yeah, but what about the bigger picture here, man? That's not just a teammate now, that's a guy to build around, right?
“It feels great," Johnson said of the future. "It feels great. Even [Karim], ‘rim did a good job today coming off the bench.”
That's Adoul Karim Coulibaly Johnson name-dropped there, and for good reason. The freshman from Mali, West Africa, put up 10 points and seven rebounds in 15 minutes, helping fuel Pitt's run, especially in the second half, when Capel turned to him and Eric Hamilton exclusively, leaving Terrell Brown on the bench.
"Two of our freshmen — Justin, obviously, and Karim — for those guys in this stage, their first game in the ACC Tournament, to come and have the performances that they had is remarkable," Capel was saying after the game. "So I'm proud of them. Proud of all of our guys."
Perfect example:
It's the kind of performance from two newcomers that can make a seven-game losing streak feel distant. Next up: Round 2, North Carolina State, Wednesday at 2 p.m.
• Yeah, about that next game ... The thing with Pitt this season is this: They'll win a big game then come back to earth during the next one.
I had to ask Johnson about that dynamic following Tuesday's big victory:
“I mean, we’ve been battling that all year," Johnson began. "We have good wins, then we come down — it started at the beginning of the season. You remember? We went and beat Florida State, lost to Nicholls State. It started just like that. I guess that’s been our spell the whole year. But tomorrow we gotta bring it. Just like we broke our losing streak spell today, we gotta bring it tomorrow.”
Working in Pitt's favor, in Johnson's opinion, is this: North Carolina State received that first-round bye and could possibly be a little rusty at first.
"I’m not going to say they won’t be ready but they’ll probably come out a little slow and nervous," he said. "That’s where we gotta take advantage.”
• Hats off to Trey McGowens in this one, too. After struggling through Pitt's losing streak, failing to eclipse 10 points in any of those losses, he put up 14 on 6-for-13 shooting Tuesday against Wake Forest, adding four assists against two turnovers as well.
"Trey made some really big-time plays," Capel said. "Big-time pull-up jump shot, big-time pass to Justin cutting on the baseline and had some really good moments."
• Pitt's 3-0 in neutral-site games this year and 2-0 when scoring at least 80. They're 7-1 all-time under Capel when scoring at that clip.
• Champagnie, McGowens, Johnson, Au'Diese Toney (10) and Coulibaly all scored in double digits today, marking the first time since Dec. 30 against Canisius that Pitt put five 10-plus scorers on the stat sheet.
• Despite shooting a season-best 62.1 percent in the first half, Pitt trailed at intermission, 41-40. Isaiah Mucius went for 17 points on the other side in those first 20 minutes, and Sarr got going too, putting Pitt's defense on its heels early and often.
"I didn't think we defended well [early]," Capel said. "But I think that's because both teams were really ready to play."
• That All-Freshman team Champagnie didn't make, for the record:
Vernon Carey Jr., Duke
Cole Anthony, North Carolina
Landers Nolley II, Virginia Tech
Cassius Stanley, Duke
Patrick Williams, Florida State
• Winning cures all. There were so many fun postgame moments after this one, starting with an interaction between Capel and Champagnie at the podium. Champagnie was asked if he watched much ACC basketball growing up [he's from Brooklyn, N.Y.] and Capel immediately looked at him and smiled, saying, "Tell the truth. Tell the truth."
"I never really watched it," Champagnie said. "That's the truth. But I used to watch St. John's because my dad went there. But it means a lot to come out here and to get the opportunity to play on a stage like this."
Then, there was this:
That's Champagnie first distracting Johnson with some shenanigans after the game, then Johnson returning the favor.
Yeah, these dudes like each other. There's a real friendship among them. Any reports to the contrary can be put to rest.
• Pitt was genuinely tired down the stretch of the regular season. Capel talked all about it down here before the Wake Forest game, and while that sounded like an excuse to a degree, it becomes more difficult to disagree after Pitt puts up 81 points on 52 percent shooting in an all-around inspired effort following a full week of rest.
"It was most evident that we were hanging with teams and then all of a sudden, one bad play, we would just get down on ourselves," Johnson said. "And it shows on defense, just giving up assignments, easy layups in transition, no talking and, I mean, I'm glad we had that week off, honestly."
Champagnie, who Capel said felt "the wall" more than anybody on the team, echoed that statement.
"Rest," Champagnie fired back when asked how he spent his days off. "I just, coach always tells us when you have days off, just get away from basketball completely. Try and just stay at home, don’t really do too much. I just stayed in my bed all day, called my parents, my brother [and] rested all day.
"We were tired. We were drained as a team, mentally and physically. So those two days off helped us gain back our focus, I think."
• Toney went down in the second half, grabbing at his left foot/ankle, after passing to McGowens for a huge dunk in transition to give Pitt the lead late. The referees did not immediately blow the play dead following Wake Forest's inbounds pass, though, forcing Johnson to commit a foul on Brandon Childress to stop the play and to give his teammate time to sub out and tend to his injury.
Johnson was clearly frustrated after the sequence, thinking there should have been a mandatory stoppage.
“I ain’t trippin’ though, because we still won," he said.
Toney returned to the game after getting checked out by the team's athletic trainers and appeared to be OK — if slightly hobbled at times — from there. Keep an eye on that moving forward.
• Full disclosure: I don't feel like typing all of Champagnie's milestones in this one. They're kind of ridiculous. Here ya go, straight from our inbox from Pitt's communications team post-game: 
• Johnson's eight assists were a Pitt ACC Tournament record.
• The only player who didn't play well for Pitt today was Brown. He appeared uninspired throughout, playing three minutes and recording zero points, zero assists, zero blocks and zero rebounds. It's like he wasn't even there, and Pitt flourished by turning to Coulibaly to fill in the gaps behind the starter Hamilton.
• Sarr went for 20 and 13 on the other side, showcasing Pitt's need for a real-deal big man, both offensively and defensively. Sarr's length was a problem, and even when defended well, he hit jump-hook after jump-hook over Hamilton, in particular. Incoming 2020 freshman John Hugley or Max Amadasun might just be the answer for the Sarr's of the ACC world.
• This, friends, has bugged me all season, and I finally seized the opportunity to ask the man himself.
Champagnie's listed at 6-foot-6, but he just seems taller, especially when standing right next to him. Is it the hair? Is he still growing? I asked him to clear the air up there after the game.
"I'm like 6-[foot]-7, but, you know, I don't really care about that. I'm just trying to play basketball," he said before thanking me for setting the record straight.
There ya go.
• I couldn't let this one go after the game, either. Good as Champagnie was, there was one less-than-perfect play from him, a would-be easy two-handed baseline slam that went awry ... then went well again. Watch for yourself (and if you're feeling froggy, pay close attention to that feed from Johnson):
Did Champagnie think he blew it there for a moment?
"No, no," he replied. "When I missed that, I knew it was going to drop back in just by the spin of the ball, but I should’ve made the first 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 Danny Manning's Demon Deacons:
Brandon Childress, guard
Jahcobi Neath, guard
Chaundee Brown, guard
Isaiah Mucius, forward
Olivier Sarr, center
THE SCHEDULE
Pitt advances to play North Carolina State in Round 2 of the ACC Tournament. Here's how their last game went, Pitt leading almost all the way before falling late down in Raleigh, N.C. Tipoff's at 2 p.m. I'll be there for all the coverage.
THE COVERAGE
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