Syracuse zones out Pitt, Boeheims light up Panthers

Pitt's bread and butter was taken away by Syracuse and the Panthers had no recourse to keep up at the Carrier Dome in a 77-61 loss to the Orangemen at the Carrier Dome Tuesday night.

The Panthers looked comfortable attacking Syracuse's zone in the opening minutes as Pitt displayed solid offense in the first half. Between hitting jump shots and finding good looks underneath, the Panthers made 50 percent of their field goals in the first half when they were neck-and-neck with Syracuse down 35-34 on the road at halftime. It appeared that Jeff Capel's team, many of which were facing Syracuse for the first time like John Hugley IV, Jamarius Burton and Mouhammadou Gueye, might have a solid understanding of how to break Jim Boeheim's legendary 2-3 zone defense that's been deployed by the Orangemen since he started coaching the program in 1976.

Both Burton and Femi Odukale led the Panthers by each of them scoring ten points in the first half, both hitting two three-pointers and helping with an assist from each of them. The Panthers looked like they might be able to handle Syracuse as the team's leading scorer, Hugley only had four points in the first half as the Orangemen continued to double-team him and invest considerable effort to deny him the ball, opening up scoring chances for other players.

But once the second half began, Pitt could not replicate its first half success against the zone. It took until 10:44 was left in the second half for Gueye to hit a jump shot that would be the Panthers' first field goal of the second half. Pitt shot 23.8 percent from the field in the second half, with the most points put up by any single player being Gueye's five points after halftime. As Pitt's shots stopped falling, the confidence to take more shots and stick to the attack plan that worked in the first half also faded, leading to several breakdowns on both sides of the ball.

"Their zone packs the defense in," Capel said after the game. "There's not a lot of space in there and with our inability to shoot the basketball and make shots form out there, they packed it in a bit more. The zone can be difficult for post guys to get touches near the basket and the zone forces it go to to the shooters. When you don't have shooters, it makes that zone even tighter."

The Panthers have been the worst scoring and shooting team in the ACC all season with an average of 62.3 points per game and a 41.2 shooting percentage on the season. It's been a struggle the Panthers have been able to mitigate with tough defense and physical offense in the paint to make all of their previous ACC games come down to a single possession. But Syracuse's zone defense took that away and Pitt couldn't keep up its first half pace at shooting.

"The zone in the second half made us hesitant," Capel said. "That's what this zone does, it makes you stand. That affects you defensively too because it's a slower pace. Then you're spending time moving the basketball side to side, trying to get it inside and out. The biggest disappointment was what we did the last 23 minutes of the game defensively. We've been pretty good most of this year defensively, and they have scorers, but we didn't do a good job there. We ran into screens, our switches weren't on time, the communication wasn't good, and then we didn't box out well. It was all those things and you can't do that and beat a good team."

"Sometimes it's hard to make the right pass," Gueye said of Syracuse's zone defense. "Especially with big guys with the wingspans they have, even if someone's open it's hard to make the right pass. Their length messes up the vision, but we still try our best to get the ball down low to John because he's a big help."

Pitt finished with 13 turnovers to Syracuse's 9, and when Pitt tried to work the ball to Hugley he couldn't get looks underneath the basket clean enough for his physicality to come into play. Hugley finished with eight points, his fourth-lowest total of the season and only played 28 minutes as he sat on the bench a lot longer in the game while he had four fouls. Without the big man in the middle of the paint, Pitt couldn't generate any consistent offense.

"I'll speak for myself, a big thing our coaches preached was to be patient in the high post," Gueye said when asked about Pitt's struggles against the zone defense. "In the first half we were patient there, made good passes and either got the good shot or crashed and got the offensive rebound. But in the second half we sped things up too much and made bad decisions to force shots we didn't need. I'm kind of disgusted by what we did in that second half."

Pitt drew up plays on offense to get other players worked into the game, but without success. William Jeffress missed all five of his shots from the field, four of which were from beyond the arc as he finished with three points strictly from free throws. He would eventually be replaced by freshman Nate Santos, whose ten three-pointers on the season are fourth-most on the team. Santos made 2 of 3 on his three-pointers during his nine minutes of game time, but Capel indicated after the game that Santos has to do more during the week than just make some shots during games to earn more time.

"He always has a chance to work his way into the rotation," Capel said of Santos. "We have practices every day and things like that. We think Nate's a good player and he'll help us move forward. But those things are earned on what you do in practice on a day-to-day basis, not just because he made two shots today. He's a really good shooter and I think he'll be an outstanding player. I love him and glad he's in our program, but he's got a chance every day to help us."

However you slice it, Pitt's offense struggled mightily and the lack of effective slashers and outside shooters played right into Syracuse's hands.

Syracuse, on the other hand, dominated the paint, outscoring Pitt 32-16 in that area. That was sparked by both the head coach's sons Buddy Boeheim and Jimmy Boeheim, who were the Orangemen's top scorers. Buddy led Syracuse with 24 points, hitting 5 of 8 three-pointers and forcing Pitt's defense to space out more to aggressively defend his range. Jimmy led the charge for Syracuse scoring inside the perimeter with 18 points, followed by Jesse Edwards' 12 points and Cole Swider scoring ten.

"We've got to play better defense," Capel said. "We can't let what we do offensively affect what we do defensively. We can't allow one part of the game to affect the whole part of the game. That's where we have to be more mature. Usually when you play good defense, that leads to good offense. It goes hand in hand."

Maturity against Syracuse's defense was definitely part of the problem for Pitt. Last year the Panthers swept the Orangemen with Justin Champagnie and Xavier Johnson going off in those games, one of which included a 96-point performance from the Panthers. But this year's team is mostly new to that challenge, and it was obvious it had to relearn how to efficiently attack Syracuse's zone.

"We were a very different team last year," Capel said. "We executed well the first half, shot fifty percent, got the ball to the high post and owned the offensive glass. But the last 3:51 of the first half and then the entire second half, we had some of the same looks and didn't make them. That deflated us. I didn't think we were as together as we needed to be. We did it well for a while but we weren't able to sustain it."

While the Panthers' shooting problems have been evident this season, defense hadn't been as much a problem. The Panthers allowed 65.7 points per game for the fifth-best mark in the ACC while allowing a field goal percentage of 41.9, both of which were bested by Notre Dame's 77 points scored and 51 percent from the field. That's the third-most points and the highest shooting percentage allowed by Pitt this season.

"We just didn't play hard enough," Gueye said of Pitt's defense. "I'll take responsibility for that. There were some plays when I let the offensive part our game determine the defensive part of my game. We knew they could go on some runs and hit some threes, but we can't let that determine the game."

Gueye seemed confident after the game that Pitt could be able to play its style of basketball that made for a highly competitive first half, as was Capel. But Pitt's lack of effective scorers showed what will happen in a game when the Panthers fail to play very good defense, lose the rebound battle like they did 30-29 to Syracuse, and can't work the ball inside to Hugley.

In a season that's already had plenty of teachable moments for a young team, Capel has to use this loss as another lesson on how to deal with a defensive scheme that's been a staple for a key rival of Pitt's for decades.

Pitt plays its next game as a rematch against Louisville at the Petersen Events Center, Saturday, Jan. 15 at 4 p.m.