Another bad start, another second half push that gets Pitt close, but another loss for the Panthers continues to define their season. Pitt lost its third game in a row 76-71 to Virginia Tech at the Petersen Events Center Saturday night.
Similar to Pitt's loss to Wake Forest when the Panthers went down by 22 at halftime, Pitt came out the gates struggling against Virginia Tech. It took until the 15:10 mark of the first half for Mouhammadou Gueye to sink the team's first field goal and the Hokies went on two 6-0 runs, a 10-0 run and an 11-0 run to build a 49-22 halftime lead.
While the Hokies were shooting the lights out in the first half with 75 percent from the field and 78 percent on three-pointers, much of that came from a common theme Jeff Capel has explained that has plagued Pitt of late: low energy and no communication on defense that lead to open shots for opponents.
"Really disappointed, and to be quite frank, embarrassed with how we played in the first half," Capel said after the game. "Equally as proud of how well we fought in the second half. Our guys fought every possession and may have not have done everything right, but there was a sense of urgency. We have to understand that's what's required for 40 minutes to have a semblance of a decent team. Disappointed in the loss."
Anything the Hokies did in the first half on offense worked. If point guard Storm Murphy drove to the basket, he was going to make a layup. If Nayheim Alleyne was going to shoot a three-pointer, he made it. If Justyn Mutts was coming off a ball screen, the Hokies would get it to him and he would convert. The Panthers looked punch drunk as Murphy built his 20-point night, while Mutts scored 16 and Alleyne 14.
"I don't want to say it's our offense, but it's our offense making us have slow starts," Femi Odukale said after the game. "We don't see the ball going through the hoop when we're supposed to make those hosts and it translates to the defense. That's why Virginia Tech came out the way they did."
And then out of the locker room at halftime, a completely different Pitt team emerged.
The Panthers opened the half with a 6-3 run, then exploded for a 17-2 run where Odukale accounted for ten of those points and led a surge by the team to turn a seemingly insurmountable 25-point deficit at the half into just a 6-point deficit with Virginia Tech up 60-54 at the 8:22 mark of the second half.
Pitt's defense was back to contesting the majority of the Hokies' shots while its offense was putting up shots and hitting them. After seeing Virginia Tech favored in first half field goal percentages of 75 to Pitt's 40, the Panthers flipped the script in the second half to shoot 61 percent to the Hokies' 31 percent.
"I wish I could get into their minds and tell you what they're thinking," Capel said. "I was asked on the radio about what I said at halftime. I'm not even sure what I said, because it's February 5th, I shouldn't have to say anything. It's that time of the year where guys should know the value of every game, every possession, every minute and every second of each game. And it's disappointing that we didn't show that in the first 20 minutes."
Odukale led the Panthers with 22 of his team-high 25 points on the night coming in the second half, while Jamarius Burton scored 21 and Mouhammadou Gueye scored 13 in the game.
"We had a talk about that in the locker room," Odukale said about halftime. "Today I actually spoke up and said some words about my teammates about just playing. Sometimes we feel like robots and doing the stuff within our plays. We have to be aggressive and take the open looks."
Odukale went down hard in the middle of the second half, rolling his ankle before having to limp into the locker room. As Pitt's trainer assessed Odukale's ankle, Capel knelt over Odukale, rubbing his chest and trying to keep the sophomore from Brooklyn, N.Y. calm.
"I rolled my ankle again," Odukale said when asked what happened. "Lately I've just been rolling it all season. (Capel) came over to me and started telling me to breathe and calm down. The funny person I am, I started to think about Paul Pierce like when he came out of the tunnel in a wheelchair and started playing again, it made me think of that moment. I just got up, re-taped it, took a Tylenol and came back out. That's what Brooklyn people do, fight through it."
Odukale being known for a jokester amongst his teammates this season, did think the wheelchair would be too much for a game he knew his team head a chance to win. His return was needed, and he came back into the game after only a few minutes in the locker room.
"I told everybody I'm tired of letting everyone down," Odukale said. recalling what he told media after Pitt's loss to Wake Forest. "People said I'm struggling, so I'm just going to be aggressive, look for my teammates and tell them to look for me."
But after Odukale returned, Gueye registered his fourth foul in the game with 8:08 to go in the game, forcing Capel to sit him. Gueye's become a consistent presence on offense and defense for the Panthers with the team's fourth highest scoring at 8.8 points per game, second-highest rebounding at 6.0 per game, and team-high 43 blocks on the season. His 42 blocks coming into the game was 38th most in Division I basketball.
"It impacts a lot," Odukale said of Gueye having to sit in the second half. "He can space out the court with shooting it, change shots and stuff like that. Lately he's gotten in foul trouble and we have to prevent that. We have to start helping with that. Most of his fouls come from the post or from backdoor cuts. As a team we have to come together to help him."
When Gueye went to the bench, Pitt's offense stalled in the second half, allowing the Hokies to catch their breath and regain control of the game. The Panthers eventually got their deficit down to three points with eight seconds left in the game, but couldn't force the turnover on the Hokies' final inbound.
But the game wasn't lost because of failing to close late. It was lost because the Panthers, once again, looked clueless in the first half on both ends of the court. For a second game in a row, Pitt was down by more than 20 at halftime and had to work too hard just to get back into the game.
"I don't know why we didn't play well in the first half," Capel said. "I don't know why we didn't defend to the level that we did in the second half. I'm not really sure. There was no energy on our part and it was embarrassing. As embarrassing as it was, I was really proud of how we were in the second half. It was like Jekyll and Hyde, it was a switch and it became contagious. We have to be able to do that. We have to understand who we are and what's required to have a chance to beat someone."
"He preaches to us every day about our defense," Odukale said of Pitt's early defensive struggles. "We watch a lot of film to show us that. I don't know why we're not clicking."
Capel sounded as flabbergasted about Pitt's struggles as much as his players looked clueless in trying to figure out what was wrong in the first half. Even when talking about the comeback effort in the second half, Capel couldn't put his finger on what exactly his players didn't understand about his message that they had to play for a full 40 minutes of game time.
"No, I didn't know what I was going to get," Capel said when asked if he saw the second half surge coming. "We need to play better, plain and simple. There needs to be a sense of urgency to start the game, there needs to be a sense of urgency out of the first media timeout, at the ten-minute mark, and there needs to be a sense of urgency every second of the game."
The one player who looked to have the least sense of urgency was John Hugley IV, who scored only two points and registered only four rebounds on the night, both were the second-lowest performances he's had for each stat in a game this season. Virginia Tech did what Wake Forest did Saturday and what several opponents have done to defend Hugley each game: double-team him every time he touched the ball.
In this game, Hugley committed four turnovers and looked lost almost every time the double-team came his way. He's gotten progressively worse with now two of his last three games scoring less than ten points when at times this season he was averaging close to 20 points through stretches over November and December.
In addition to his lack of scoring, Hugley wasn't much help on defense or on the boards either, which led to Capel only playing him 29 minutes and deploying some sets with four guards and only a single forward in the second half.
"He's got to do everything better," Capel said of Hugley. "He's got to understand that he can impact the game in more ways than just scoring. At times, he's done that. He's got to talk defensively, be up on screens, be in a stance, defend the ball screen, protect the basket and rebound. On offense, if you're not scoring, screen, roll hard, and make decisions when you're doubled so you don't turn the ball over. But you have to play every possession. It's unfortunate he didn't do that, but we didn't do that, I'm not singling him out. We didn't do it for 20 minutes then we id it for 20 minutes."
Hugley, a sophomore, was the pillar that held Pitt up in its wins earlier this season and still leads the team with 14.7 points per game, but especially of late, his confidence that made him one of the biggest bullies in the ACC has dissipated. Odukale said as a teammate, he sees him putting too much on himself when he makes mistakes.
"His positivity," Odukale said of Hugley's biggest obstacle. "He's always got to have his head up even though it's not his night. Even if he's turning it over and not scoring, he's got to keep being the person we know that brings energy, smiles and brightens the room and be the good teammate that he is. He puts too much pressure on himself and gets frustrated when he turns over the ball."
Now sitting at 8-15, 3-9 in the ACC, Pitt has to turn around and play Virginia Tech Monday evening in Blacksburg, Va. for a game that was rescheduled from earlier in the season. With so little time to prepare for a rematch and Pitt having lost nine straight games on the road, Odukale said he was going to take charge over the next 48 hours to make sure Pitt's doesn't start slow again.
"I'm going to talk to everybody as a group before the game starts," Odukale said. "We're going to be together and I'm going to tell them what it is. It's going to have to play out like that. I feel like we have to come back out and get the win. We've been struggling. I feel like we can beat this team. We just have to do the little things to win."
Odukale's progress as a player on the court and a leader could be the biggest thing to Pitt can claim as a success this season, but it needs more. Specifically, Capel needs more. Hugley's regression and struggles could all just be part of ebb and flow of his first full season playing in the ACC, but Capel needs his star forward to finish the season strong along with Odukale so that he can have a solid core to build around in the coming seasons.
If both aren't ready to be real leaders for the team by next year, or at least look like they can take those roles by the end of this season, it could mean Pitt hitting the reset button on the program, again, sooner rather than later.
