Jeff Capel and Blake Hinson met the media after Pitt's loss to Missouri on Tuesday night. Here's video and a full rundown of what they said.

Capel: Congrats to Missouri. They are a well-coached team. Dennis had his team really ready to play. I thought they played hard throughout. We knew coming in, their style is a little bit chaotic. I think it’s different. And I thought they did a great job of executing. They changed their starting lineup, I think, to maybe be a little bit better defensively. And they got off to a great start. I thought we were ready to play. We played well early. I think in the first 12 minutes, we were up six point and I think they had 17 points, so we had done a really, really good job. But the last 7:41 of the first half, they scored 21 points and were plus-seven on the boards, and I though that’s where the game changed.

I thought we got great looks; it was just one of those nights where we couldn’t make a shot. And for the first time this season, we allowed that to impact the game. We allowed it to impact the defense. We allowed it to impact everything. So it’s a learning lesson for us. You hate to do it in a loss, but we’ll learn from it, we’ll get better from it and we’ll be ready for the next one.

Blake, what do you guys as players have to do when the shots aren’t falling and how do you create offense when you are struggling to make shots like that?
Hinson: The offense always becomes better with defense. We get in transition and a lot of times, especially for us, offense starts to get going. So that would be a good way to do it.

As an older guy, how can you help these younger guards who are struggling to find their game when they face a little more pressure?
Hinson: They’re not struggling. They’re learning. They’re learning. I mean, they’re better than me at handling the ball; let me tell you that. So they’re going to be fine. They’re just going to get these learning lessons and become the better freshmen in the conference.

What kind of things can you say or do to help them when teams are putting up a concerted effort at the top of the key to put pressure on them?
Hinson: Tell them, next play, because I already know that every time something goes wrong for them, that’s going to make them better the next play. It’s just something - they’re 18, so that’s what it is. Good. Get them now. Because they’re getting better every time.

Before you made those last two, you had only taken five three’s. On a night when some of your teammates are struggling, what were they doing to make it difficult for you to get looks or was there some other factor that kept you from shooting more?
Hinson: No, I mean, we were just running offense. Just running offense. That’s all it is.

You guys have played two SEC teams, a Pac-12 team, how did those experiences get you ready for a game like Sunday when you have to face a Clemson and get ready for a game like that?
Hinson: I love what it’s doing for our preparation. I think it’s going to have us prepared very well.

Jeff, it feels like the weak part of your team’s game right now is that end of the first half. That’s when things kind of fell apart against Florida and even in the mid-major games, that’s where you guys have had a lull. What do you think the reason behind that is?
Capel: That’s a great question. And you’re absolutely right. We have to be able to concentrate and focus the entire time we’re out there. We’ve had a tendency where we’ve had leads and then - I don’t think it’s a conscious effort or a conscious thought, I should say, of guys thinking, ‘We can take a break.’ I just think it’s human nature and learning to be tougher in those situations.

Do you think their size impacted some of your shots or altered shots?
Capel: I don’t. I mean, we had some wide open looks. I thought in the first half, we had some looks where we shot-faked and we should have driven it, and instead we took a slide-dribble three. I can think of, off the top of my head, at least three or four of those. And we talked coming into this game for the past two or three days about second penetration. We knew that they would react to shot fakes because of our shooting, and those were the ones that I thought we should have punched it and either gotten to a spot or maybe we create another opportunity. We didn’t do that. But I thought in the second half, we had some wide open shots that we normally make. We missed them and it affected us. It’s the first time all year that it’s really done that. Like, it really affected how we locked in defensively, and that’s a learning thing for us.

How do you stop that from bleeding over to your defense?
Capel: Yeah, we have to learn from it. That’s it. We have to teach it. We have to do a better job teaching it. We have to do a better job of - I have to do a better job of making sure we’re prepared and all of those things, and we’ll get better.

There were a lot of times when they would press Bub and he would kind of get a screen up top, but coming off it, it seemed like he would put his head down and try to make a play on his own. What can you guys do to try to help him and Jaland and Ish kind of find their way through that?
Capel: Yeah, well, again, we have to learn and get better. We have to go back and watch it and - again, their style is very different. They’ll switch a lot and at times today when we did drive, they didn’t rotate as much. They stayed connected, so they made you play a little bit of one-on-one against their size. But again, I thought we, for the most part, generated good shots. We didn’t make some good decisions, where we had 11 turnovers, so we have to be better there. We thought coming in if we had 10 or less, we would be in a great position. 11’s not bad, but man, when you can’t make a shot - I think we went an eight-minute stretch where we couldn’t make a shot. And there were some - a lot - during that time that were wide open. So again, that’s just how it goes sometimes.

Coming into this one, did you imagine this would be the first team to out-rebound you guys?
Capel: No, I didn’t. I didn’t. But I knew that they were going to play really hard. I knew that they were going to fight. I knew that they were going to do that. But I thought that’s where we could have an advantage, but we didn’t.

They sent you to the line 31 times tonight. How would you assess your team’s physicality?
Capel: Our physicality was okay. I mean, when you get to the line 31 times, that’s a pretty good thing. We knew coming in that we would get there a lot because of the way they play. And we made 25. Now, we missed some key front ends of some one-and-one’s that would have maybe kept it a little bit closer during that stretch. We have to be better in those moments.

Do you feel like you guys could have defended the rim better today?
Capel: I feel like we could have done a lot of things better today. That’s one of them. Again, I thought we allowed our inability to make a shot, I thought we allowed that to affect our defense. It’s the first time all year. In our last game against Oregon State, we didn’t shoot the ball well but it didn’t affect what we did defensively. Today, I thought it did.

You finished the game Guillermo on the floor. What did you like about what he brought tonight?
Capel: We were just trying to get spacing. Guillermo’s a guy that can make a shot. We weren’t really getting anything at the rim with Fede. And also, just the fear of fouling and him getting to the line. We struggled there a little bit with him today. But Guillermo can stretch the floor, he can make a shot. They had Vanover in, seven-foot-five guy, so we thought if we got some penetration, if G is in, at least maybe he takes Vanover away or if Vanover’s in there, we kick it to him and perhaps he can make a shot.

In the last two games, you guys have shot 81.8% from the stripe; before that it was 63.6%. What have you guys done to try to get better there?
Capel: Just practice it. I mean, that’s really it. But it wasn’t like we weren’t practicing it earlier. We just made shots. We shoot the ball every day. We normally shoot the ball better from the floor; today was just one of those days that we didn’t.

I know last year you talked about the losses to Michigan and VCU as turning points for your team. When you look at a game like today and what happened against Florida last week, does that same theory apply with Clemson coming up and West Virginia coming up?
Capel: Yeah. I mean, look, we have to get better. We’ll have some time to prepare for Clemson. They’re really good. I thought before the season, in the offseason, I thought they would be one of the better teams in our league, with what they have back, who they added. I think they’re a really, really good basketball team, and I know they’ll be ready to play. They’re a very physical team. They’re a very experienced team. They’re an older team. They’re very good defensively. They have one of the best players in the country in P.J. Hall. But we’ll be ready. We’ll be excited. We’ll be anxious. We’ll have almost a week - what is it, four or five days to prepare and we’ll be ready Sunday afternoon.

You’re playing a bunch of power conference teams in a row here. How is Bub handling that on-the-job training?
Capel: He’s handling it well. He’s learning. We knew that this would be a learning experience for him.

You’ve called this loss a learning experience. Blake has as well. What have you seen from the young guys, Bub and Jaland, and even the sophomores that indicates that they’re taking these as learning experiences and not getting too down about these losses?
Capel: Well, we should be down about it. We should be down. I want us to be down. But that can’t last. When we get back together, we’ve moved on. We flush it, win or lose, the next day. You live with it, you learn from it, when we get back together, we’ll have some film, we’ll talk to them collectively as a group, we’ll talk to them individually and we’ll get better. I mean, what’s the alternative? You know what I mean? The biggest thing is that we have to stay together. We can’t point fingers. I was pleased after Florida we didn’t do that and we got off the mat and we played really, really well, especially defensively, against Oregon State. I anticipate us getting off the mat again and playing well on Sunday.