Ithiel Horton exploded for 25 points in his first start of the season for Pitt, leading the Panthers to a 56-51 win over Florida State Wednesday night at the Donald L. Tucker Civic Center in Tallahassee, Fla. It's the first road ACC win for Pitt since it beat Syracuse 13 months ago on Jan. 6, 2021.
It was also Horton's first start of the season, as he missed 19 games while he was suspended. In his five other contests he came off the bench to average 6.4 points and hit a total of seven three-pointers. He doubled that total he hit 7 of 13 three-pointers Wednesday. As Pitt was playing its third game in the past five days, Jeff Capel noted that didn't leave much time for Pitt to practice, but that after watching tape from Pitt's Monday loss to Virginia Tech, he thought Wednesday was the right time to get Horton his first start.
"We really haven't been able to practice over the past few days," Capel said. "It's just been tough with three games in five days, but watching tape I just talked it over with my staff and I felt like it was time. If nothing would've happened, Ithiel would've been a starter from the beginning of the year. I just felt like it was time to go back to what would be our best lineup and get our best guys on the court. It wasn't anything we saw in practice, it was a gut decision I felt would be best for us. We knew they would pressure the basketball and I wanted a ballhandler off the bench. So we wanted to bring O (Onyebuchi Ezeakudo) off the bench."
"It felt good to be in rhythm," Horton said. "Felt really good to have confidence on the floor and be back to myself. I've had a tough year this year, and it felt good to just go out there and break out. I knew I was due for a night like this. I put the work in and I felt like I was due for one. I've been working to stay mentally strong."
Horton had been working off his rust of not being able to be around the team for months during his suspension, and that he felt like this performance was what he expected. After each made three-pointer, Horton maintained an emotionless face and quickly went to his defensive assignment instead of expressing emotion or excitement each time he made a big shot. That's a big contrast from his attitude last year when he was the team's leading three-point shooter.
"It's about trusting myself and trusting my teammates," Horton said. "I have to know I hit shots and I can't be surprised when I make threes. When I really lock in on the defensive end and not worry about the offensive part. Things just went really well. This phrase coach stuck in my head before the game, 'throw your fastball.' My fastball is my shot, my aggression on defensive. I'm going to keep throwing that. We'll see what happens next."
"He's capable of doing that," Jamarius Burton said of Horton. "He's dangerous on three-pointers on the catch and shoot. He did that tonight and was big for us. The foul trouble that me and Mo experienced in the first half, he was able to carry us. We're just grateful to have him back as he's finding his rhythm. I tell him to trust his work. Me and him were roommates the past few games. It was great staying in his head, staying positive and I knew he was going to have a big game tonight."
Horton's 25 points not only led the team, but his eight points carried the Panthers to a 21-20 lead at halftime. The combined 41 points between two teams was the lowest scoring half of any ACC game this season. But those early points by Horton were huge as the Panthers only made 7 of 28 shots and Florida State made 5 of 28 shots in the first half. Those shooting percentages of 25 and 17.8 were abysmal, but the pace that Capel had preached to his Panthers to be prepared to overcome all season as they've been the ACC's worst shooting team.
"One of the things we talked about coming in was having poise in the midst of chaos," Capel said. "Any time you play Florida State the game can be chaotic because the way they defend is different from everyone else. They're up on you, they switch everything, they take everything away. So we wanted to simplify what we wanted to do offensively and take advantage of their switches. I liked our poise. Even when they hit a three-pointer to tie it up, we still had poise and guys stepped up for big plays."
The Panthers certainly kept their poise and eventually found the hot hands in the second half when Horton made five three pointers and Burton scored 11 of his 13 points on the night after being scoreless in Pitt's Monday loss to Virginia Tech. Each of those 11 points in the second half came in the final five minutes of the game, when Burton shot 4 of 4 from the field and 2 of 2 on free throws, accounting for 11 of Pitt's final 15 points to close out Florida State. Burton's resilience from a rough game Monday wasn't a surprise to Capel.
"He had a bad game last game," Capel said of Burton. "He got in foul trouble in the first half of this game and we were able to keep a lead without him in the first half. He's a mature guy and an older guy with a lot of experience playing college basketball at a high level. He stepped up and made some big shots. I was happy he took the three, that was something he's been hesitant to do. In our previous three games he'd only taken one three. He made a huge one for us tonight. One of the things he loves to do is to get in mid-range. But we told him when he had those threes, he had to shoot them. He made good plays and he made big free throws and did a good job on defense."
"Regardless if I'm playing well or not, I encourage myself mentally," Burton said. "I talk to myself, recite scriptures and do everything I can to stay locked in. I could tell he was locked in because he was listening to the right things."
While Horton and Burton were the only Panthers to score in the double-digits, others found ways to contribute in different ways. Mouhammadou Gueye finished with only six points and six rebounds, but he also had eight blocks on the night. That's the most blocks he's had in a game during his career, bringing his total to 55 on the season and an average of 2.2 per game, fourth-highest in the ACC.
"He's our eraser," Burton said of Gueye. "It puts us in great standing because he erases our mistakes. Blow-byes and post-ups, he's coming help side to clean up. Even in transition he's getting back and blocking shots. If he didn't do that tonight, he's done that in several games past."
"It was huge," Capel said of Gueye's eight blocks. "A lot of the shots he blocked came from off the basketball. Just to have that guy there who can erase some mistakes if we get beat is big. I thought he had a good game and could've had a great game, he missed a lot of open shots that he's been making. But he didn't allow that to affect his effort and played really good defense."
Gueye's energy charged a Pitt defense that held Florida State to shoot 28.6 percent from the floor, the worst shooting performance by a Pitt opponent this season. Capel acknowledged the game plan was to force Leonard Hamilton's Seminoles to hit shots from outside and take away their lanes to the basket, and that his players followed the plan.
"I thought we were terrific defensively," Capel said. "We were up on ball screens. John did that, which was very good. We tried to plug the gaps because we knew Florida State had not been a good three-point shooting team. We really wanted to make them a half court team and keep them out of our paint. I thought we did a good job of that."
Capel has repeatedly expressed in postgame interviews that he's preached to his players that they'll need to win ugly to pull of victories this season. This was certainly one of those ugly wins, and even if some of the analogies offered from the 46-year old head coach didn't make complete sense to his players, they got the gist.
"Coach always tells us to keep it like a rock fight," Horton said. "I really don't know what that means, but it's stuck in my head. We're just being comfortable playing in the 50s and 60s."
Pitt's two leading scorers on the season in Femi Odukale and John Hugley IV were the quietest as Odukale only scored three points on free throws and Hugley finished with seven points. The low scoring night for Odukale was a break from his pace of late, as he had scored ten or more points in 9 of his last 10 games. But after each of those game when asked about Odukale's performance, Capel seemed unimpressed and shrugged off those successes as simply making shots and being hot in the moment. Instead, Capel was most impressed with Odukales' seven rebounds and six assists on the night, both of which were season highs for him.
"You know it's interesting seeing that Femi was 0-8 and 3-7 from the free throw line," Capel said of Odukale. "I actually thought it was one of his best games from the floor. I thought he controlled the game for us. He made good decisions, got the switches, attacked and made good passes. Had seven rebounds and played good defense."
Hugley had better moments on defense at times and finished at the rim better than he had after scoring just two points in each of Pitt's last two games against Virginia Tech. But he still showed he had plenty of growing to do with a flagrant foul for not going for the ball and a technical foul for slapping the backboard after a big dunk in the second half.
"Those weren't smart plays," Capel said of Hugley's fouls. "We took him out to talk to him a little bit, then he came back in and did some good stuff for us. He's important for us and a really good player. But he hasn't gone through this time of the year yet, so all of these moments are learning experiences. He's a really good kid. He didn't do some things well for us, but he god eight rebounds for us and drew eight fouls. The play where he got the dunk was a big time play and a big time finish. And he had no turnovers for us, which was huge."
Capel even got some key minutes from his bench as William Jeffress played ten minutes when Gueye and Burton were in first half foul trouble. Jeffress only scored off two free throws, but he had a steal and six rebounds while communicating and keeping up Pitt's defensive game plan.
"They were huge," Capel said of Jeffress' ten minutes played. "To get six rebounds in those ten minutes and make two big free throws for us were important. He had an opportunity right there at the basket but he missed it. We have confidence he'll make those. He made an extra pass off rotation that was a really smart play that led to us getting to the free throws."
The win snaps a four-game losing streak for Pitt, and a 12-game losing streak in ACC road games. Now, Capel's Panthers get a few days to rest after playing three games in five days before taking on N.C. State at the Petersen Events Center Saturday, Feb. 12. Pitt now sits with a 4-10 conference record, slightly ahead of the Wolfpack's 3-11 ACC record. A win would be the first back-to-back ACC wins for the Panthers since a three-game win streak against Syracuse (twice) and Duke on Jan. 19, 2021.
