Jeff Capel needed defining wins for his third season to show he's got Pitt's program headed in the right direction.
Beating Duke and his former coach Mike Krzyzewski 79-73 in a well contested game on national television is a good way to add to the list of such games this season as the Panthers jump out to an 8-2 record, 4-1 in the ACC. It was Capel's first win over Krzyzewski as Pitt's head coach and the first win over Duke since Feb. 2016.
Regardless of Duke's standing as the Blue Devils drop to 5-4, Pitt winning the way it did against a true blue blood program is a great sign for the program.
"Really proud of our team because I think we beat them when they were different," Capel said when asked about the significance of beating Duke. "I know everyone's made a big deal about them falling out of the top 25, but they were a very different team today because I thought we played Jalen Johnson at his best. He's a kid projected as a high draft pick and highly touted out of high school. They're a very different team when he plays like he did today."
Duke's Johnson finished with 24 points and 15 rebounds before fouling out in the second half. But it was Pitt's big three of Justin Champagnie, Au'Diese Toney and Xavier Johnson that carried the night.
Champagnie was on fire with a season-high of 31 points, coupled with 14 rebounds and five blocks. Toney also recorded a double-double with 22 points and 11 rebounds, while Johnson fell just short of a double-double with nine points and eleven assists.
But what was the best sign of Pitt's win wasn't the final stat line, it was the Panthers' resilience as Duke fought to make a comeback in the second half.
And wait a second; it was Duke having to make a comeback, not Pitt, who typically comes out shooting ice cold to start games and has to battle back in the second half. Instead, Pitt jumped out to a fast start for the first time this season, hitting shots and converting defensive stops early to develop an 8-0 lead before Duke scored its first points a little more than two and half minutes into the game.
"I know we were ready to play and we were juiced," Capel said. "We were able to get some stops and get out in transition. They played a defense I hadn't seen them play all year. It was more of a 3-2 or a 1-2-2 zone. I hadn't seen that from them and that caught us off-guard a little bit. We had to take some time to adjust to it. They really played it the whole game and they really only played 3-4 possessions of man. It's the first time in a long time we got off to a good start. Hopefully that's a good sign moving forward."
Here's one of those quick transitions that Pitt converted early. You can see Ithiel Horton cut into a passing lane for Duke and get the turnover before passing it to Johnson on the fast break. Johnson easily finds Toney who finishes with a dunk:
It got Pitt going.
"It was very important," Champagnie said of Pitt getting an early lead. "They're a very good team. Getting out to that lead and suppressing them in the beginning, it helped us out in the long run. They didn't have any crazy runs, then in the second half we got up 15 and that's when they made their run. It gave us an edge and a step up on them."
What kept Pitt going throughout the game was the Panthers' working the ball around for good shots and solid possessions.
"21 assists on 24 made field goals, I thought that was key for us," Capel said. "We were able to be aggressive and get to the line. Xavier's 11 assists was big and also Femi (Odukale) with three assists and no turnovers."
"I feel like as a team we like to feed whoever has the hot hand," Champagnie said. "X had ten assists today and he played really well off the ball and finding the open man. That gets us going when you get the good pass or an extra pass to knock a shot down, get a dunk or a layup and get easy buckets. It keeps the game going and gets us more momentum."
One of Johnson's fanciest assists came on this bounce pass off a spin move to Champagnie for an easy bucket:
But Pitt had to weather plenty of storms against a program like Duke, even with an early lead.
Duke would push with several runs in the game, one for eight points in the first half, then runs of seven, four and five in the second half. But each time, Pitt would respond.
"We told them it was going to be a 40-minute fight and we had to keep pushing," Capel said. "We were tired and fatigued and we didn't do a good job getting back in transition. They were all over the boards against us, but we were able to sustain our lead. We were able to make some pushes, when they got it to three, we pushed it to six or seven."
These were the big moments in this game where Pitt showed it could rise against a talented team with an illustrious reputation like Duke and make big plays to stop the momentum the Blue Devils were building.
"We said we had to guard our yard and stay poised," Champagnie said. "Basketball is a game of runs and we can't get down on ourselves when the other team is going on a little run. I feel like we stuck together and pulled it out."
And Pitt leaned on its stars to step up in those moments. Watch this transition after a turnover forced by Abdoul Karim Coulibaly playing solid defense, where Johnson settles down after getting the ball down the court quickly before hitting Champagnie at the top of the key for an open 3-pointer:
Pitt kept responding in each of these moments down to the last minutes.
Champagnie also admitted he had added motivation to the game going against Duke's forward Matthew Hurt, whose 19.6 points per game coming into Tuesday was the highest average in the ACC, just ahead of Champagnie's 18.7 points per game.
After Pitt's win, Hurt's averaged dipped to 18.9, while Champagnie's rose to 20.3, which now leads the ACC.
"It definitely was," Champagnie said when asked if wanting to outplay Hurt was motivation. "Before the game I kept saying to myself I don't think he's better than me. I went out there and I proved it."
Talk about confidence from a star player, that's certainly bold talk, but he backed it up.
As did his teammates when the game got into crunch time. Johnson had struggled with four turnovers and only five points going into the final two minutes, but stepped up with huge plays to finish the game. It started with Duke being just two points behind and Johnson driving past two defenders before hitting a layup over a third in the paint:
The very next possession he would build off that play.
Johnson with a drive to the same part of the court draws the double team, but this time he finds Toney wide open under the basket for the authoritative dunk:
Johnson would also make two free throws down the final stretch, making himself part of all of Pitt's final six points that closed out a six-point victory.
"A good player, I've always felt, has to have convenient amnesia," Capel said when asked about Johnson's late surge. "You have to always be ready to move onto the next play. One of the great things about Xavier is he has such a great competitive spirit. But at times, it can be a bad thing for him and it's finding the right balance."
"There's times when he's so excited and so geared up that he gets himself in trouble," Capel continued. "But he's matured as a player where even in situations that I still want the ball in his hands and I trust him to make the right decisions. And down the stretch, the free throws, the basket, the pass to Au'Diese, the defense, he made huge plays for us."
The win was more than just a Tuesday night victory on ESPN, it was a show of resilience to both Duke's runs and some questionable calls that went against Pitt at several critical points down the stretch. You could see the dismay on the faces of Toney and other Pitt players as Coulibaly fouled out with 3:12 left in the game for a blocking foul when the replay showed both his feet were set and he should've been awarded the charge.
But Champagnie's response when asked about those moments was, like his performance most of this season, perfect.
"We said, 'it's Duke,'" Champagnie described when asked how Pitt responded after disagreeing with certain calls. "The calls always go their way, it's Duke. We just had to fight through all that. We can't complain, we can't show up the refs, we just have to go through and fight. That's what we did, we came up with a W."
That's the attitude you want from your superstar player; not just going into the game with the attitude to outshine the ACC's leading scorer, but the fortitude to stay focused even when facing controversial decisions by referees.
It's that kind of attitude that has Pitt going in the right direction.
"Pitt is back," Champagnie said. "We are going to continue to keep this up, try our best and work hard. We're going to take everything that's not given to us. We feel like we're not given a lot of credit in this league and we wanted to go out there and show why we deserve that credit."
Pitt has yet to receive a single vote to be in the Associated Press' Top 25 poll, and that's going to be hard with only three ACC teams currently ranked, and the highest being Virginia at No. 13. But that won't matter if Pitt keeps racking up wins and fighting back in the toughest of moments. The Panthers will earn the respect they'll deserve.
