Jeff Capel met the media after Pitt's win over N.C. State on Saturday, and here's the full rundown of what he said.

Capel: Well, a big-time gutty win for us, for our group. I’m really proud of our guys. This has been an incredibly busy week with Saturday-Monday-Wednesday-Saturday, and to be at our best during the last two, really proud of our guys for that. We did not play a good first half all the things that we talked about that we did at Florida State, playing with force, being selfless, making the extra pass, or the play that’s in front of you I didn’t think we did a good job of that and I think it hurt us on both ends, offensively and defensively and so at halftime that’s all we talked about. Playing with force, playing together, making the play that’s in front of you and if we do that, we’ll win the game. And our guys did a heck of job of that. Some really good individual performances, John, not just the scoring but more importantly the six assists with three turnovers and being 13 of 15 at the line and making two, huge ones down the stretch. I thought Ithiel made some big-time plays against the pressure, to take it coast-to-coast and go in and lay it up and then to make big free throws. JB made some big plays. I thought Will got some big-time rebounds for us. And the way we executed the fouling down the stretch, really, really pleased with that. So, good win for us. Have a day off tomorrow, thank goodness. We can hopefully catch our breath a little bit and get away from basketball and get back together on Monday.

Jeff, you were talking about John there, how as coach, especially with a younger player like that, how do you approach him or talk him through some of those struggles that he was having in previous games?
Capel: Well, you teach that’s the thing. All of this, this time of year is new for John. He didn’t get past December last year and so January, especially late January and February are always difficult times especially for freshman and that’s basically what he is. You normally hit a wall. You’ve never gone through the intensity of practice or games. How the games come at you with him even more with how physical teams are with him. The different looks that he’s getting and trying to figure these things out. And so you talk with him, you watch a lot of tape with him, you work with him in practice, you show him the things that are open, and then you hope that he’s able to figure it out, you hope that he’s receptive and doesn’t get too down on himself and things like that, which he’s been. He’s been receptive, he’s been down on himself, but trying help him get out of it. But he did a really good job this afternoon.

Ithiel and John talked about how the chemistry has been good all season. How have they been able to maintain that chemistry this season?
Capel: Well, it’s been interesting because it’s been such a disjointed year for us with the injuries and the suspension and who’s playing this night and things like that. It’s been a pretty good group with that though. We’ve had moments, and you can see it in games where it doesn’t seem like we’re as together as we need to be and things like that. But for the most, I just think that they enjoy being around each other. It doesn’t seem like there’s any jealously or anyone is unhappy if someone plays well. So that’s been refreshing.

How did John take practices leading into this game? I know you guys had a long stretch of a lot of games played so it was tough to get refocused, but did you see this coming?
Capel: Well, I thought he was different after, at Virginia Tech and we got together Tuesday and basically all we did was walk-through and I thought he was better then, and he’s been better since then. Since that game, how he was on Tuesday at our walk-through at our shoot around on Wednesday I thought he played well against Florida State. Again, after the game, Coach Ham (Hamilton) talked about how their thing was to take him out the game, but I thought he impacted the game in a lot of different ways. And then the past couple of days he’s been good. The big thing with him is just the disciple to do it every day. That’s the biggest thing, one of the biggest learning curves with him.

Jeff, the final four or five minutes there were some mistakes, there was one turnover with Femi, John’s pass to out to Ithiel, how do you process those, those are obviously things that you want your team to avoid, but where mentally your team is able to not have them bog down.
Capel: We have to be better in those situations. We have to. We get a good defensive play, and this is where becoming more mature and understanding, there are so many ways in our game that you can lose. So, we get a great stop and we come up with the basketball, but we want to talk trash to their bench or one of their guys and they come up and take it from us. And they get the ball even though we’ve talked about in scouting, when teams scout us, we have to be stronger when we rebound. That’s one of the things that’s in the scouting report, you can come up from behind and take the basketball from them. We have to understand that in those situations. The play with John, we have two timeouts to be able in that situation, and that one I can help him a little more, I should have to be in the officials’ ear and called a timeout in that situation. We talked about no three’s, no fouls, we can’t go for a fake from Hellems and back up like if he dribbles it and drives it and we make him take a contested two, that’s good for us. Instead, we took the bait and he’s able to get in rhythm and make a three. We make a free throw and instead of getting back we try to sneak up and steal the ball in the back court, now they have numbers and they get a three. Those are the things that we have to be better at those situations.

Does it say something to you at all that you’re able to overcome those? Or, how has this team performed better in close, this is your second straight win both of them have been by five or so, do you think your team has gotten better in these close games?
Capel: I think we’ve won, I think we’ve been able to make plays, we’ve made big-time free throws this afternoon. We were able to attack the pressure and get to the basket and make a layup. We were able to do that. I’d like to think that we’re getting better at doing that, but we can’t continue to make those mistakes like that.

Jeff, you talked after Florida State about how Femi did a better job controlling the possessions even though he only scored three points. How do you feel about his performance today with four points but nine rebounds, was getting involved in the blocks, and seemed like he was helping in a lot of different ways too?
Capel: Yeah, I think he had a solid game he did some good things. There are some things that he can do, like all of us, to improve on. But I thought he did some good things today.

You guys have needed Mo a lot of times in big moments, and he fouled out with a lot of time on the clock. What was the energy, or what did you see from your guys in losing such an important player?
Capel: I think guys stepped up, Will stepped up and some big plays for us, five rebounds, did a really good job defensively. And other guys stepped up. Mo is very important for us, we’d rather have him in the game but if he’s out we’ve learned how to adjust and to do some different things.

Heading into this game Jeff, what was the plan defensively against Seabron and Smith?
Capel: One of the biggest things we wanted to do was make them a half court team, so to really get back in transition. I think that Seabron is dynamic in transition, not good, I think he’s dynamic. So, we really wanted to do that to try to shrink the court in transition and take away some of their three’s. And with Smith we just wanted to make him into a contested shooter. That was the biggest thing. We wanted to be there, really be there in the ball screens to try and be a little bit physical with him, but to really try to make him take tough, contested shots. We know he can get and make those shots. But we also know he cannot. Like last game against Wake Forest, he didn’t make those shots. And so fortunately for us, he didn’t make a lot of shots tonight.

I don’t know if this is something that people like us fixate on, but having two straight wins here, having some sense of momentum, what significance if any does that have for you guys?
Capel: I mean it’s two wins, it’s great. It’s two wins in a row in conference, we haven’t won two in a row in awhile. So it’s good but we have to get back to the drawing board and get better. It doesn’t get easier in this league; we are getting ready to to go on the road on Wednesday. So again, it’s good, we’re happy about it, but we’re really going enjoy this day off the rest of the day today and tomorrow and we’ll get back together on Monday and get to work.