Capel: 'I thought their physicality made a difference'

Pitt head coach Jeff Capel met with the media following his team’s 69-62 loss to Clemson on Tuesday. Here is a complete rundown of everything he had to say.

(Credit TigerIllustrated.com for audio)

Capel: Congrats to Clemson, heck of a basketball game. Two teams that fought, you know, it was a heck of a game. I thought their physicality made a difference, especially in the second half, they ramped up how physical they were and we weren’t able to play through that. I thought my team fought, we put ourselves in a position where we had an opportunity, but they made more plays than us.

Can you talk about your guys’ failure to capitalize on some opportunities, especially early on?

Capel: Yea, I think in the first half, we missed six or seven layups, like stuff right there at the rim. We were playing against a team like them that’s really good defensively and the physicality. You have to be able to capitalize on those. We didn’t. It hurt us, especially in a close possession game like this.

In a close game like this, you guys did force a lot of turnovers…

Capel: We did. I thought we fought. I thought we were ready to go. We did a lot of good things, but we just didn’t do enough to win the basketball game.

What were they doing defensively to…

Capel: They were just really physical. That’s what it was. They were really, really physical and it knocked us off. It knocked us off of timing. It knocked us off of where we wanted to get the basketball and then we weren’t able to finish through the physicality.

Was that a surprise? Because you guys have handled physicality well.

Capel: Yea, it is, but again they’re a really good team. They have some older guys, some bigger guys that are really strong. They did a good job of knocking us off at times being really physical, like literally knocking us down. On their screens, cross-screens, there was one at the end of the game were Fede is on the ground and things like that. We have to be able to, as much as we can, fight through that.

Was Jaland injured down the stretch?

Capel: No.

Did you just like the five out there down the stretch?

Capel: Yea, we liked the five that we had in there. They were playing well.

What was so tough about the shot selection in the second half?

Capel: I don’t think it was the shot selection, we just didn’t finish. Again, we got some good looks, we just didn’t finish.

Where do you think this loss put you right now?

Capel: We’re good. We’re in a great place. We’re in a great place. We take it one game at a time. We’re in a great place. We have a really tough road game coming up against Boston College on Saturday. We’re in a good place.