Jeff Capel met with the media following Pitt’s 78-54 loss to Notre Dame on Saturday. The Panthers end the season with an 11-20 record, and will begin the ACC Tournament on Tuesday. Here is a complete rundown of Capel’s postgame remarks.
Capel: Congrats to Notre Dame. They’re an outstanding basketball team, that’s why they are one of the better teams in our league. I think that they finished in second place. They were outstanding shooting the basketball tonight, we knew that was a strength of their team and they really shot the ball well: 14 3’s, 56% from the floor. A lot of that was their shooting, some of that was our defense. But again, congrats to them. We didn’t play well. We got in early foul trouble. John picking up in the first 2 1/2 minutes and having to sit and with Mo and Noah and JB with two fouls in the first half. We were playing with lineups we really haven’t practiced with, but again they played outstanding. We didn’t play well and we’ll move on now to the next part of our season, which is the ACC Tournament. We’ll figure it out who we play and who we’re playing and we’ll start getting prepared for that.
You obviously struggled from outside tonight, what do you think led to that.
Capel: Some of that was there defense, some of it was we just missed shots. We had some open looks that were open and we just didn’t make the shots.
Not putting Hugley back in the first half, was that just a product of the game being called tight and not wanting to risk him picking up a third?
Capel: Yes. With the way the game being called, I didn’t want to risk that. We just didn’t want to risk it. We had a lot of guys in foul trouble.
What went into bringing Femi off the bench today?
Capel: He was late for a meeting.
We talked earlier in the year about some of the close losses and more recently they have been more lopsided. Do you still see the same fight from maybe earlier in the season?
Capel: Well I still see fight. The last three games we’ve played have been very lopsided, but we’ve played three of the best teams in the league. One of them is one of the best and most talented teams in the country. Some of that goes into effect. Obviously the game against Virginia Tech at Virginia Tech was that way. But again, during that time we’ve had some good moments and so I do think our guys have stopped fighting, we just haven’t been on the right side in these games lately.
You guys have struggled lately defensively, do you think it is because of tired legs or what goes into that?
Capel: I just think it’s a lot. I think it’s tiredness, fatigue has a little bit to do with it. Not communicating as well as we need to on the court in real live situations. Communicating what we’re doing, switching, help side hasn’t been as active as we need to be. So it’s all those things.
As the regular season winds down, how do you assess the last four seasons?
Capel: Right now it’s hard for me to think about that because we still are in a season. We still have a little bit left, so I’ve not thought about it. I haven’t thought about anything with that. I’ve been concentrating on how to figure out what to do against Notre Dame. Now my focus will shift on Brooklyn and figure out who we play here in a few minutes and move onto that. When our season’s over with I can maybe assess that after some time, but when you’re in it you’re not looking behind and not looking ahead.
You guys prided yourself at your better times this season on being a better defensive team. How do you get back to being that way after some of these recent performances?
Capel: Well we have to or our season will be over Tuesday. So it’s not a matter of — I shouldn’t have to trick anyone. We have to understand it, and we have to go out and execute it.
How do you quickly change the message to get ready so on Tuesday?
Capel: Easy. We do it all year. You move on to the next game. That’s not difficult.
With the foul trouble, how do you get your players to acclimate to change the way they do things, if at all?
Capel: Well obviously we didn’t do it. Again, with the way they move the basketball with all the slipping and cutting and ball screens and the things like that, we just didn’t — let me take that back, I didn’t think it was a smart decision in those moments to put them back in. We thought the game was within relative striking distance. It was at 10, for the most of the part it was at 10 and we got off in the first half, maybe at 14, but we thought that we kept it in striking distance where it 10. They only had 31 points at the half, I say only, but still they only had 31 points. The problem was that we didn’t shoot the ball well. We were 1-for-13 from three with some wide open looks. We were 29% from the floor and we probably missed about three shots, layups right there at the basket. So again as a coach I was looking at it like we’re still in striking distance. We didn’t get too far away from them. So I thought it would be better to keep those guys there on the bench, especially John because his was earlier, then hopefully be able to play him the whole second half.
You guys shot 23 three attempts tonight, did you think you were maybe shooting too often from behind the arc?
Capel: It was 26, and they gave us a lot of zone. We got some good looks. We had actually been shooting the basketball better coming into this game from three. Certainly throughout the year we have not been a great shooting team, maybe even a good shooting team. But we do want to take shots when they’re there.
Did the message get through to Femi?
Capel: I don’t know if there was a message, there is just a standard. If you’re late you don’t start. Or if you’re not a starter there are different types of things that we deal with, but I wasn’t trying to send a message. There are standards in our program that everyone has to do, if you don’t there are consequences.
