Pitt pairs up poor shooting, lax effort in loss at Notre Dame taken in South Bend, Ind. (Pitt)

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Nelly Cummings defends during Pitt's game against Notre Dame Wednesday at the at Purcell Pavilion at the Joyce Center in South Bend, Ind.

Pitt

Pitt pairs up poor shooting, lax effort in loss at Notre Dame

By Corey Crisan

Mar 1, 2023 • 10:35 pm

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SOUTH BEND, Ind. -- No. 25 Pitt had a golden opportunity in front of it.

After failing to pounce on that opportunity, the final week-and-a-half leading up to Selection Sunday just became much more of a cart ride on gravel as opposed to a cruise down I-79 South.

Two days after at last earning an Associated Press Top 25 ranking for the first time in seven years and with the chance to clinch at least a share of the regular-season ACC championship, Pitt played down to competition from the bottom of its league.

That is said because the Panthers succumbed to an early onslaught from Notre Dame and broke down from much of the hustle and style which has identified this team throughout the course of the season in their 88-81 loss to the Fighting Irish Wednesday inside Purcell Pavilion at The Joyce Center in Mike Brey's final home game as their coach.

As a result, the Panthers' avenues to earn an outright regular-season title are shrunk to just one, but the bigger picture issue affects the optics of Pitt's perceived shaky candidacy as an NCAA Tournament team based on analytics with one game to play at Miami and the ACC Tournament to follow beginning next week.

"They were terrific this evening," Jeff Capel said of Notre Dame. "I knew they would come out and be really inspired and emotional with this being, them having five seniors, I think four graduates and a senior, and this obviously being he last game for coach Brey. They shot the ball extremely well. They played terrific, so you give them all the credit. I thought we fought. I knew we were ready to play. We just didn't play as well. We had an off night, which you could tell by, we've been a really good free-throw shooting team all year, and we didn't do that well. There's a lot of things we didn't do well."

While Pitt showed signs of life when it absolutely had to towards the end of the game -- but not so often in times before -- it did not play, as Capel said following Saturday's win over Syracuse, "connected" basketball on Wednesday. Notre Dame was the benefactor of hot shooting from the field at a 49% rate, but that only marked a fraction of where Pitt started to appear and react to being completely out of sorts.

Pitt's Achilles' heel came at the free-throw line, where it had regularly been good throughout these latter stages of the season. Pitt made 20 of 36 (56%) from the stripe after entering Wednesday by making a combined 38 of 42 in two games prior. Couple that with making just 7 of 22 from 3, and the difference on paper can be antiquated.

For a team which prides itself on being the underdog and a disrespected group of veterans, its largest enemy to overcome Wednesday was itself. Sure, there was life and fight in the final 10 minutes (maybe fewer) of the game, but the hole had already been dug too deep for the Panthers to climb out of.

"Defensively we didn't do what we needed to do," Nelly Cummings said. "Besides that, I mean, we missed shots. We played hard, but defensively we didn't do what we needed to do. ... I think we were ready for the game the same way we've been ready for every game, but they came out inspired, and we didn't match the intensity."

But, the thing is, a team which has aspirations to prove they are NCAA Tournament worthy and has the chip on its shoulder from being slighted in preseason polls should not have had to try to match the intensity which Notre Dame brought. The chance to clinch at least a share of the ACC championship and inch closer to the No. 1 seed in the ACC Tournament and potentially earn a really good NCAA Tournament seed should have been enough organic fuel for motivation.

Now, those goals just became that much more difficult to attain, and only with a win Saturday at Miami can those goals remain afloat.

The only pathway Pitt has to an outright ACC championship is a win at Miami and a Virginia loss Saturday against Louisville.

To that effort on Wednesday, Pitt scored 14 points off of nine Notre Dame turnovers, and put in just 12 second-chance points off of 16 offensive rebounds while scoring just four points in transition. Understandable that Notre Dame made nearly half of its shots to limit transition opportunities, but Pitt still struggled in parts to run the halfcourt offense and control any part of the paint with its forwards. Federiko Federiko, Jorge Diaz Graham, and Guillermo Diaz Graham combined for seven points -- all scored by Federiko -- on 2-of-5 shooting, and Federiko was the lone post player to attempt a free throw.

The point is, even a fringe NCAA Tournament team should not lay an egg like this, but that is exactly the direction Pitt trended Wednesday.

MORE FROM THE GAME

• Brey is stepping away from Notre Dame after 23 seasons on the bench, and while the pregame ceremony and the subsequent energy from the crowd in and of themselves were not rowdy by any stretch, it was still touching to an extent:

While it was undoubtedly emotional for Notre Dame's players, Cummings said Pitt focused on itself and tried to block it out:

"Every game we've been playing recently has been emotional and had different types of challenges," Cummings said. "This game was no different. Had a different challenge. We wanted to ignite and do what we can do."

I asked Capel if this night -- one in which his former coach at Duke was stepping away from this Notre Dame program -- was emotional for him, he answered:

"It wasn't. I mean, I certainly -- I love coach Brey. He's been a big part of my life since I was about 17 years old. I don't necessarily like how it all happened here, but he seems happy. I knew that they would be inspired."

• Pitt struggled mightily in the first half in its shooting, but the real story of the opening 20 was the absolutely mirrored effort from what was shown Saturday in the blowout win over Syracuse in the home finale to begin the team's unraveling. Pitt scored five second-chance points off of seven offensive rebounds while scoring just seven points off of five Fighting Irish turnovers to begin. Pitt was out-rebounded on the defensive end, 19-11, in the first half, as Notre Dame shot 51.9% from the field to Pitt's 35.3%.

Notre Dame closed the first half on an 11-0 run as Pitt missed each of its final seven shots and was held scoreless in the final 3:57.

"Just one of those nights," Cummings said.

• Pitt made it a game within the final 3:05 by outscoring Notre Dame 19-12. Cummings scored 14 of his 19 points during that stretch. Pitt made 8 of 13 from the field over the final 4:49, while Notre Dame made 2-for-5.

"I love the fight that we had in the second half to have it at a two-possession game," Capel said. "We just needed a couple of things to go our way right there, and they didn't. So, again, congrats to them. I thought we played hard, but we got beat by a team that played inspired basketball today."

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