Pitt channels Capel's message, breaks Syracuse's zone defense

Pitt needed a rebound in the biggest of ways after back-to-back disappointing performances in losses to Virginia and Clemson over the past week. Jeff Capel's Panthers delivered with a 65-53 win over Syracuse at the Petersen Events Center Tuesday night, notching the team's third ACC win of the season.

The Panthers struggled to maintain their identity as a physical defensive team against Syracuse in their first meeting at the Carrier Dome on Jan. 11 when the Panthers lost 77-61. At the time, it was the team's largest losing margin of the season and sat between two ACC wins against Boston College and Louisville. 

But this time, the Panthers tied their best defensive performance against an ACC opponent (Louisville) by limiting the Orangemen to 53 points, and flipped Jim Boeheim's team from a 51 percent field goal percentage on Jan. 11, the highest allowed by Pitt this season, to 30.2 percent, the lowest allowed to an ACC opponent by Pitt.

"We responded in a big-time fashion from last game," Capel said of his team's effort after the game. "The thing I'm probably most proud of is the first half. When we could not make a shot and we did not allow that to affect our defense and that's something we've been preaching all year and we haven't done it all the time. But we did it at a very, very high level today that allowed us to stay in the game with how well we defended in the first half."

Pitt struggled early and allowed itself to fall into an offensive lull that allowed Syracuse to build a ten-point lead with 6:16 to go in the first half when the Panthers were shooting 22 percent from the floor. Capel had preached all season to Pitt about the importance of maintaining disciplined and attentive defense despite a lack of an offense, which had plagued the Panthers in several of their losses.

But Pitt's defense held Syracuse in check in the first half and allowed the Panthers' offense to diminish the deficit to 28-24 by halftime. Coming out of the locker room, Pitt took the court with confidence and found a way to break Boeheim's famous 2-3 zone defense to shoot 50 percent from the floor and on three-pointers. It was as if Capel's message to his players had finally clicked, and their consistent defensive success bled into offensive success on the other end of the court.

"In the second half we were able to make some shots," Capel said. "We were able to move against the zone, had great movement but we still continued to defend at a high level. I thought our guys were incredibly tough. Thought we were together, had 15 assists on 20 field goals. I thought we shared the basketball well. Big-time strong performances from everyone."

Pitt's starters represented every single point of the victory, as Jamarius Burton led the team with 21 points and five assists, Mouhammadou Gueye brought 19 points, three blocks and ten rebounds, John Hugley IV scored 11 with a career-high 18 rebounds. But it was walk-on Onyebuchi Ezeakudo who delivered an career-high of 11 important points, including shooting 3 of 4 on three-pointers and recording three steals, who made a huge difference.

Pitt had been used to seeing Hugley, Burton and Gueye lead the team. But seeing Ezeakudo, who was only recently put on scholarship, get major baskets against an ACC opponent was a huge lift.

"‘O’ (Ezeakudo) probably had his best game and the thing he did best was defend," Capel said of Ezeakudo. "He really made the night hard on (Joe) Girard. He was strong enough that they couldn't bump him off or get under him. He knocked some basketballs away from them, made some timely three-pointers, penetrated their zone. He was huge for us."

Gueye brought significant energy to the Panthers on both ends of the court as a defensive presence who challenged shooters on the perimeter and in the paint with his three blocked shots and consistently putting himself in the right position to cut off Syracuse's offensive rhythm. When Pitt got going offensively, Gueye was finding the soft spots of the 2-3 zone for when Burton and Hugley would attract attention in the paint or at the free throw line to open up space to score.

"Mo [Gueye] obviously was terrific," Capel said. "As he settled into the game and found spaces against the zone, I thought that, oddly, made for one of John's best games. And one of the reasons for that we talked to him about this when we played at Syracuse and I told him you could have significant impact on the game without scoring. Because it's going to be difficult and what you could do is score late. But he didn't do that there. He really did it today with how we set the tone with rebounding the basketball, playing at the high pulse, making good passes having patients there and then late in the game, he was able to get some baskets so just really proud of our guys proud of the performance."

The Panthers only had two days of preparation before the game after their loss to Clemson Saturday, and only one of those days were a full practice as they treated Sunday as a film day with a light practice on the court. But what the team reviewed proved helpful in figuring out their mistakes against Syracuse in their previous encounter.

"Us knowing the personnel a little bit better, seeing that zone for the second time," Burton said when asked what made the difference for Pitt's offense. "I think there’s only maybe two or three of us, not including myself, maybe two people on the team who have seen that zone. So, for us getting a second look at it, being able to watch it on film and see what we can take advantage of this time around.”

Echoing Capel's notion that Pitt needed to change the tone physically from the previous loss against Syracuse, Burton 

“The first time we played Syracuse, I think that one thing we saw was that they were way too comfortable," Burton said. "They were getting anything they wanted. Offensively they are getting anywhere they want. I think our biggest goal for this game was to make them uncomfortable. We know they can hit tough shots but we just wanted to make it as hard for them as possible.”

Syracuse's leading scorer with 25 points, Buddy Boeheim, looked like he was doing everything he wanted in the first half, even with Pitt's defense holding the Orangemen to 28 points. He led Syracuse with 14 points in the half, 12 of which came on him shooting 4 of 10 on three-pointers during the half. But Boeheim eventually cooled off and the Panthers made sure none of his teammates would replace his scoring efforts as no other player on the Orangemen scored in the double-digits on the night.

“I feel like that first time when we played them, they did not necessarily feel our presence," Gueye said. "This game we kind of turned around and we knew we had to really have an impact on the defensive end. Not let them feel comfortable like JB (Burton) said. We dissected our own film, we watched trying to find the dead spots and the holes that we can attack. Just being comfortable out there, not playing in our head. I think that was a big thing that really helped with our success.”

The win was the first winning example for many of Pitt's players on how to beat Boeheim's staple 2-3 zone defense. That's something that Pitt's team did last year when it swept Syracuse, but with Justin Champagnie headed to the NBA and five players transferring out of the program, few were on the team who had in-game experience breaking it. Now, there's some confidence in the team's offense moving forward.

It also furthered the message Capel has delivered all season long about the importance of defense and how this Panthers team has to win games by dragging teams into the mud with them. Pitt's the worst scoring team in the ACC averaging 64.9 points per game, but Syracuse was the third-highest scoring team in the conference averaging 77.7 points per game.

Boeheim, who's made five Final Fours and won a National Championship, was emphatic about how poorly his team has played of late. 

"Do you see anything that resembles a tournament team out there?" Boeheim said when asked about the NCAA Tournament. "I mean, we're just trying to win a game. Forget the tournament, just one game."

While disappointment for a 77-year old coach with plenty of success over decades of coaching his program was the message from Syracuse's coach, Pitt's coach in Capel was also focused on just winning one game at a time, but from a different perspective.

"We need to come back and have a really good practice on Thursday," Capel said. "We need to be mentally focused on Boston College. We need to be mentally focused and can't have a hangover from today. We can't come back thinking we're really good now and stack good days so we can be worthy of winning. I thought we were really worthy of winning tonight."

If Pitt can prove it's worthy of winning against Boston College Saturday in Boston, it would be the first back-to-back ACC wins for the program since the Panthers beat Duke on Jan. 19, 2021.