Jeff Capel talked about Pitt holding on to beat Colgate, the play of John Hugley and a lot more on Thursday night.

Here's the full rundown of what he said.

Capel: Well, I’m really proud of our team. That’s a good basketball team that we beat. I thought we defended them well. To hold them - they were making 12 three’s a game - to hold them to six, we did a really, really good job there and that’s something we worked on the past couple days in preparation for this game. They were averaging close to 80 points. To hold them to 68 and 41% from the field, I thought our defense was really good.

And I thought we made plays down the stretch. We made toughness plays down the stretch. Down three, Mo makes a hard drive, strong finish through contact and gets a three-point play, we were able to get a couple stops and then John made a big-time shot. Before that, Femi contested a three from the top of the key, we were able to get the rebound to set that play up for John where he hit that shot. And then at the end, Femi did a great job on Cummings and was able to get a deflection, a blocked shot, and we came up with it.

Again, big-time win for us. It’s good to be on this side of it and we have to be ready to move forward.

In the days leading up to this game, you had talked about your defensive preparation. Given Colgate’s reliance on three’s, what specifically did you guys focus on?
Capel: It was four areas. The first one was transition. We really wanted to make sure we found guys in transition. In watching them, they got a lot of three’s in transition. The second thing was that we wanted to contain penetration. That’s another way they got a lot. They move the basketball and they assisted - I think they were averaging bout 18 assists per game. One of the tops in the country. So we really wanted to contain penetration.

The third thing was ball screen defense. We really wanted to do a good job there of making sure that we’re connected and we have our rotations down. And then the very last thing was offensive rebounds. They got three’s off of offensive rebounds, which usually is one of the best times to get three’s. So I thought we did a pretty good job in all four of those areas tonight.

Do you draw a connection between the last two games and this one?
Capel: Well, I’m surprised they missed a three at the end with 1.1 seconds left.

You know, one of the things we talked about with our team when we got back together after Virginia was “almost’s” - like, we’ve been a team the past few games of almost’s. We almost got the rebound, or we almost whatever, and one of the things we talked about, we had to get past almost. And I thought we did that tonight. At the under-four timeout or whatever it was, one of those timeouts, that’s all we talked about. Almost. We have to beat almost. We’re tired of almost. Guys went out there and did that. We talked about Mo’s three-point play and all the plays that I talked about, guys stepped up and made big-time plays for us and we were able to pull one out today.

In the timeouts, could you tell they were determined not to less this game get away?
Capel: Yeah. I could tell it all game. The thing that I - one of the things that I’m really proud of with this team and I really admire, with what we’ve been through and especially the last couple of games how we’ve lost, how they’ve continued to get off the mat. When we lost to Minnesota, that preparation for Virginia was a couple of the best days that we had. The day before we played, on Thursday before we left to fly there, I thought it was one of our best practices. I don’t think there was a coincidence with how we played. And I admire that because you just lost a heartbreaker.

And then to go and go through what we went through there and to come back and then Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, we had really good attitudes and really good practices. And it’s good for them to be rewarded with a win and be able to fight through and earn a win in the fashion that we did tonight.

Where do you think that maturity comes from with this team? Is part of it age? Is some of it just having more leadership this year? Is some of it how these guys are built?
Capel: I just think it’s experience. We are an inexperienced team together that’s having to go through difficult times. Sometimes you have to go through it. Sometimes you have to go through the valley and we’ve been through it. And I’m not saying we’re out of it, but we’re figuring out how to climb out of it.

I think we have a better understanding collectively as a group how much we need each other. That’s something that we’ve been talking about, really, since I took the job here. And just the toughness, just the determination.
And again, it’s - when you keep getting up, man, when you keep getting gut-punched like we have, it’s easy to fracture. This group, so far, has stayed together, and if we continue to do that - I’ve said this - I think we’ll start to turn the corner. Tonight was a big step, I think, for us with that.

Was Odukale not in the starting lineup tonight due to health concerns or was it because you wanted to switch it up based on previous games?
Capel: I thought we played well last game, so we went with the same lineup.

Can you speak to how Onye has stepped up in Femi’s absence offensively and defensively on Nelly Cummings tonight?
Capel: He’s been terrific. He’s been outstanding. And for me, I’m not surprised, just because I know how he works, both on and off the court, in the classroom. He’s a really unbelievable kid and he’s worked on his game since he’s been here and he’s gotten better. The guys have confidence in him, we have confidence in him, he has confidence in himself, and he’s all about Pitt. He’s all about Pitt. It’s been really cool to watch him have some really good moments this year.

Is this the most you’ve played a walk-on in your career?
Capel: No, I started a walk-on at VCU that started as a freshman after the fourth or fifth game of the year and he hit a shot that put us in the NCAA Tournament.

When Will Jeffress stepped to the line with about a second to go and you were up two, did you have any thought about maybe missing that shot?
Capel: I called the timeout after he missed the first one and that’s what I wanted us to do, was to miss it. But when I told Will that, he looked like I had four heads. He looked confused. And that’s on me. We haven’t practiced that situation. One of the reasons I wanted to do it was because, I figured they had a three-point play from out of bounds. I knew they had no timeouts. I’m pretty sure they had a play that they could go to.

But we haven’t practiced that situation so we didn’t understand that I was trying to him to miss it but make sure that you hit the rim. Once I saw the look on his face and the confusion, I just said, ‘Just go on and make it. Just go ahead and make it and make sure, Mo, you’re going to be on the ball and let’s just go from there.’

In the aftermath of a game like that given how the previous two had gone, in the locker room, how much could you - I don’t know if it’s excitement, if it’s all those things - how much could you sense that?
Capel: I think it was probably more relief. I think they were tired because we battled. Again, this is a good team and we battled, we fought, and there was excitement but I do think there was relief that we actually pulled one out.

After John got his fourth foul, were you set to bring him back at the under-4 or did you go back and forth on the options?
Capel: I was kind of going back and forth, feeling how the game was going, how close we were, did we have the lead, where we were, because I knew we were going to need him to finish the game out. The game didn’t get too far away from us, we were right there and he was able to get a break. But we need him more than 21 minutes, so hopefully this foul trouble will be a one-game thing.

When he gets into foul trouble like that, what do you tell him about approaching defense?
Capel: He still has to play defense. He still has to play defense. You know, you can play but you have to be smart. You have to be smart. I think his fourth foul came on a rotation and he went for a shot fake and got in the air. In those situations, he has to be smarter. Don’t take the shot fake; just body up and go there. But he’s played with foul trouble before with us and obviously was able to play the last four minutes that way.

How much has he adjusted now in college to being someone who’s more of a focus for the other team? How has he seemed to acclimate to that?
Capel: I think he’s been okay. I think he was a good high school player, so he had to deal with it a little bit there. Certainly, at this level is very different. He doesn’t have a lot of experience with it at all in college. Again, I’ve said this over - I look at John like a freshman all over again. And I thought he’s handled it well.

The other thing that he’s handled well is playing through physical. Like, teams are very, very physical with him. How they hit him, foul him, all these different - they’re very, very physical with him, and I think he’s done a really good job of keeping his head throughout that.