SYRACUSE, N.Y. -- Elijah Hughes struts along the baseline at the Dome, locking eyes with the crowd and waving his arms in the classic "Let's get loud" gesture. A yell of "come on" follows from Syracuse's star forward, sending the thousands of citrus heads in attendance into a frenzy.
It's loud. I can't see the court unless I stand like the rest of 'em. The press table shakes, threatening to spill the coffee immediately to my left.
And, my goodness, will Pitt ever score again?
"I thought we were a little bit shell-shocked by the zone, just the size and length of it," Jeff Capel was saying during his post-game press conference.
That's one way to put it.
When Hughes played cheerleader in that scene up there, though — up 20, 30-10, with 4:51 left in the first half — it was worse than shell-shock for these Panthers. It was a beatdown the likes of which they hadn't experienced this season.
Buddy Boheim transplanted straight from NBA Jam onto the hardwood, putting up 18 first-half points and getting them any way he wanted. It was cartoonish. Three from beyond the arc. A couple free throws. Three more. A couple turnaround jumpers over Xavier Johnson. After one three-pointer, his third and final of the half, Boeheim literally beamed a toothy grin while trotting downcourt to get back on defense. He wasn't pumped up and rowdy. He was calmly laughing at how perfect and easy it all was.
Oh, my. He's on fire.
"I thought Buddy was incredible in the first half, really got them off to a great start," Capel was saying in his post-game press conference.
But then a funnier thing happened in this one, a — spoiler alert — 69-61 Pitt loss that dropped them to 13-7 overall and 4-5 in ACC play.
Pitt started to score. And to defend. And all that hype and bravado from Syracuse started to wither.
"I loved how we fought. I loved how we competed. I loved how we kept coming," Capel would say.
And there was indeed plenty for Capel to love.
Hughes — the ACC's leading scorer at 19.7 points per game coming into this one — didn't score until the second half, finishing with 10 points on 31 percent shooting, including an 0-for-4 showing from deep. He also added four turnovers — tied with Boeheim for the team-high.
“Just basically sit on him, make it uncomfortable for him," Justin Champagnie was saying of the team's strategy in slowing Hughes. "We felt like nobody pressured him. A lot of teams don’t give pressure, so I felt like if we just bring heat he’d start coughing the ball up. First half, he did. Second half, they went more of like an iso."
Hughes didn't torture the Panthers in that first frame, but there was plenty of pain for the visitors nonetheless. They never snagged the lead at any point. The game was tied once — at 5-5 — for all of 22 seconds before Boeheim knocked down a jumper for two to give Syracuse the lead for good.
Pitt shot 23 percent in those first 20 minutes — 6 for 26 — including an 18-percent performance from beyond the arc. They were out-rebounded, 27-16. They did snag the edge in turnovers, forcing seven while committing just five, but Syracuse scored six points off their opportunities, while Pitt could only convert for five of their own.
And that "shell-shocked" reaction to the zone Capel mentioned?
"It’s hard for us to simulate that in practice, especially in a day and a half," he would add.
The players felt it, too.
"They’re a bigger team than us, height-wise," Champagnie said. "So it was kind of more spread-out [than what we could simulate in practice]. They do a good job of it. That’s, like, the main thing here. Everybody knows [their] zone."
Little by little, though, Pitt started to crack the code, beginning late in the first half. Champagnie drilled a jumper. Au'Diese Toney added three more. Johnson got in on the action from behind the arc.
In all, Pitt cut the 20-point deficit to 11, silencing the crowd just a touch along the way. It all felt familiar for this 2019-20 Pitt squad, the same team that came back on the road in Chapel Hill, N.C., to win and that has been wildly streaky throughout the season.
So what's the mindset when you look up and see a 20-point hole just 15 minutes into the game?
"Stay focused, stay together," Champagnie recited as if reading from a golden slate of Capel's Commandments when I asked him. "We don't want to break apart and splinter apart, so we just gotta stay together and just stay the course and fight on."
And then when that starts paying off ...
"The momentum coming from the first half, end of the first half, it kind of gave us the feeling that we could actually come back and win, so that momentum just carried us through the rest of the game, basically," he finished.
Besides the idea itself, there's something important in that video with Champagnie. You'll hear a team official scoot behind us and joke that Champagnie needs to get tougher — "Tell him to get tougher before this next question" — drawing a smile from the freshman standout.
He wasn't down on himself after this one — and nobody in that locker room was. Even with Capel, the team's toughest critic, there wasn't the usual disappointment or sense of "walking on eggshells" with questions in the presser. Nobody was happy about the loss, don't get it twisted. But everyone involved understood what happened, too.
Pitt showed they could hang with Syracuse, enduring their worst start of the year to outscore the home team, 51-39, over the final 25 minutes of play.
Think that matters?
"Now we know exactly what we gotta prepare for," Champagnie said. "It’s just a matter of us executing plays and executing what we gotta do.”
Capel had a different twist on it.
"I don't even know when it is that we play them again," Capel said. "I know we do, but I'm moved on to Tuesday."
• A loss is a loss, just so we're doubly clear here. Small wins don't add up to a "plus one" in the win column where the standings are concerned. But there was an undeniably different vibe after this loss, and rightly so with how these Panthers adjusted and started stringing together positive results over the past half-and-change.
• Today's game ball for Pitt goes to ... Yeah, it's Champagnie.
Terrell Brown made a push for it with his 11 points, seven boards and one block, but Champagnie posted team-highs with 14 points and nine rebounds, this despite playing reduced minutes due to early foul trouble.
Champagnie picked up his first foul just 33 seconds into the game and added a second less than two minutes later.
"I felt very upset," Champagnie said of the foul trouble. "I felt like one of them was a foul, but the other one, I don't think it was a foul because the ball was loose and we were both fighting for the ball."
Bigger than that, though, Pitt needed Champagnie to help carve up Syracuse's defense. He plays a vital role for the team, flashing along the baseline and offering an athletic target for alley-oops behind the zone, and as the roster's currently constructed, nobody could quite replace him when he had to take a seat.
"I thought, when he came back in, I thought he did a really good job of playing with two fouls, but that certainly hurt us," Capel said. "Justin has been one of our better offensive players, and he’s been our best rebounder all year. So that hurt. I thought we got really hurt on the glass in the first half.”
Champagnie scored 10 of his 14 during Pitt's run with under six minutes to go. Oh, and Pitt out-rebounded Syracuse, 17-12, in the second half, too.
It's no coincidence. Good things happen for this Pitt team when Champagnie's on the court.
• After his 18-point first half, Boeheim settled down in the second half, hitting just one three to finish with 21 on the day. I asked Capel about their halftime adjustments:
“I thought, number one, I thought they made a conscious effort in the second half to try to get Elijah going, so Buddy kind of turned off a little bit and they tried to get Elijah going," Capel said. "Second thing, we made a switching matchup, we put Au’Diese on Buddy — a little bit bigger to try to bother him a little bit. His size, he was just backing us down a couple times and just getting to spots and shooting over us because of his size. But I thought our defense picked up in the second half.
"Again, I thought we did some good things. If we can just rebound the basketball a little bit better, maybe it’s a different story.”
"Second half, we really couldn't get him a shot," Jim Boeheim was saying of Pitt's defense on Buddy in the second frame.
• All the attention falls on Hughes — the ACC's leading scorer at 19.7 points per contest coming in — and Boeheim and Joseph Girard III when you think about Syracuse, but I left most impressed by Marek Dolezaj and Quincy Guerrier after this one. The 6-foot-10 Dolezaj showed off some polished moves in the low post, finishing with 17 points and seven rebounds with a perfect 7-for-7 performance at the charity stripe.
Particularly as Pitt made its late charge, Dolezaj seemed always just right there for an equalizer or a big rebound or some stout defense to keep his team ahead.
Ditto for Guerrier, who posted a tough and-one over Brown early and contributed with crucial, gritty offensive rebounds and "hustle" plays time and again down the stretch, finishing with 10 points and eight rebounds in all.
“I thought those two guys were terrific for them," Capel acknowledged in his presser. "I think Dolezaj is very underrated because of how good Buddy and Elijah have been playing … He’s a perfect complement — and I mean that in the best way — he’s a perfect complement to Buddy and to Elijah, because he’s a guy that, he’s going to be efficient. He can really pass … and he doesn’t want all the attention. He understands that those two guys are the guys that make everything go.”
• It's a little concerning to see Xavier Johnson (nine points, seven assists and one turnover) and Trey McGowens (seven points, three assists, zero turnovers) nowhere near the meat of the game report for Pitt, but at the same time, they didn't exacerbate things for Pitt, either.
These two didn't have their best games, but as driving, slashing guards who create primarily off the dribble, that was never going to happen against Syracuse's zone. For the most part, Pitt's sophomore guard duo played under control and within the offense. Each of them forced the issue at times, and their combined shooting (5 for 21, 24 percent) was atrocious, but I saw maturity and improvement in terms of decision making from these two Saturday.
• Brown's block today moved him into fourth all-time at Pitt with 144 in his career.
• Toney matched a career-high with four steals while adding eight points and five rebounds in addition to helping clamp down on Boeheim in the second half.
• The win was Syracuse's fifth straight. They're hot right now.
THE ESSENTIALS
• Boxscore
THE STARTING LINEUPS
For Capel's Panthers:
Xavier Johnson, guard
Trey McGowens, guard
Au'Diese Toney, guard
Justin Champagnie, forward
Eric Hamilton, forward
And for Boeheim's squad:
Joseph Girard III, guard
Buddy Boeheim, guard
Elijah Hughes, forward
Marek Dolezaj, forward
Bourama Sidibe, forward
THE SCHEDULE
Pitt will try to carry some of that late momentum from this one down to Durham, N.C., to face the No. 8 Duke Blue Devils on Tuesday. Tipoff's set for 9 p.m. I'll be there for all the coverage.
THE COVERAGE
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