A wake-up call for the young Panthers

MORE FROM THE GAME - Pitt falls to Niagara | Capel: "They outplayed us in every facet of the game"

No coach wants it to happen, but sometimes a team may need a wake-up call.

If that’s the case, Jeff Capel’s Pitt squad got one last night. The Panthers, riding high off a near-miss at Iowa and a dominating second half against Duquesne, seemed to enter their game with Niagara, a two-win team from the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference, thinking they could win by simply walking on the court.

Turns out, they can’t and they didn’t, as Pitt fell to the Purple Eagles 71-70 in a game that represented a harsh reality for the young team.

“I think, as a team we probably thought we were a little better than we were,” senior Jared Wilson-Frame said after the game. “I think we were on a little high horse because we’re looking and we’ve got wins in the win column.”

Pitt came into Monday’s game with seven in the win column, one fewer than the team finished with last season. But in game No. 9 of this season, one that should have matched last year’s win total, the Panthers were lackluster and sloppy, never matching Niagara’s energy until the Purple Eagles took a 12-point lead late in the second half.

At that point, Pitt went on a 9-0 run to make the game competitive. And the Panthers almost pulled it off, getting the ball back with six seconds to play and finding a layup opportunity for freshman Xavier Johnson, but the ball ran around the rim and bounced out.

That Pitt needed a buzzer-beater to have a chance to win the game after coming in as 16.5-point favorites says something about the Panthers’ performance over the entire 40 minutes. For Capel, it came down to energy and focus - one team had those elements locked in and the other didn’t.

“They were very present, they were excited, they were incredibly together,” Capel said after the game. He referenced the scene before tipoff, when injured Niagara star Marvin Prochet, the team’s leading scorer, huddled his teammates for a pep talk; that stood out to Capel for the impact it seemed to have on the Purple Eagles.

His team, on the other hand…

“That’s the thing that we could never match through the whole game,” he said. “We got it to a point where we were maybe as good emotion-wise as them when we were down and made a push, but it was never where we were in it more. That’s the thing I think we have been throughout, and for whatever reason we weren’t that tonight.”

Capel noticed a difference from right before the game started. Wilson-Frame said it started even earlier than that.

“Just not focused. Weren’t ready to go. Saw it from the layup lines, from before we even got onto the court. Lost this game before we even stepped onto the floor today.”

Wilson-Frame added that the loss wasn’t a one-night exclusive.

“You could see it from practice yesterday, to be honest with you. Energy was just off. Focus was just off. We thought we could just turn it on and off. Cannot do that. No basketball team can do that, and we’re definitely not the basketball team that can do that.”

The lack of energy and focus manifested in some ugly numbers for Pitt. The Panthers committed 18 turnovers in the loss and got outrebounded by seven. Pitt grabbed a season-low 31 rebounds, and only one player grabbed more than three (freshman Au’Diese Toney had 12).

But it wasn’t just the numbers. It was the overall performance, the lack of focus and energy and consistent effort that led to sloppy play and allowed Pitt to lose to a team that entered the game ranked No. 329 in the RPI.

For their parts, Wilson-Frame and Capel both took personal responsibility for the performance against Niagara. Capel said that the coaches need to do a better job of preparing the team, while Wilson-Frame said that his role as a leader requires him to make sure the rest of the team is focused.

The Panthers will need that on Saturday when they go to Morgantown for a noon tipoff against West Virginia. The Mountaineers are 5-2 this season with losses to Buffalo and Western Kentucky, but after Monday night, Pitt’s young roster will likely have a renewed approach to each game.

“We’ve got to get back to being us,” Wilson-Frame said. “Our identity is not what we showed on the court tonight; it’s what we showed in those games that we did win when we played good defense and we played hard and we played together. We have to get back to that. If not, then stuff like this will happen a lot.”