Jeff Capel’s team started the season 0-1 with a loss to St. Francis on Wednesday night. Here’s a full rundown of what Capel said after the game.

Capel: First of all, the very first thing, I’m really, really grateful to all the people that put us in the position to have an opportunity to play. It’s been a very, very long road, and we have had people that have worked tirelessly here in our Athletic Department, especially our trainer, Jennifer Brown, and her team, and people around campus that have done so much to put us where we have a chance to play. So I’m grateful for that.

The second thing is that I want to congratulate St. Francis. They were very, very ready to play. They were really good. They controlled the game from the beginning. Congrats to them, their coaching staff and their guys.

Disappointing for us. Very, very disappointing for us. We didn’t play with - especially at the start of the game, we didn’t have the energy that’s required to have a chance to become a good team. And I’m not really sure why. It took us a half to kind of get that energy. A couple things that we’ve really tried to emphasize were defense and rebounding, and we didn’t not do a good job of that. I think we panicked in the first half when we couldn’t make a shot, and when you’re playing against a team that’s won like they have and have some guys back that were part of a team that won 22 games and got to their conference championship, they can see that and they prey off of that.

So we have a lot of work to do. For me, it’s not a surprise. The outcome is a surprise and especially how we started is a surprise. It’s tough to win against anyone when you have 23 turnovers and you do not shoot the ball well and especially the way we defended in the first half. So I’m disappointed in that. We have a lot of work to do and we’ll get back to work starting tomorrow.

You said that you weren’t surprised but with things like turnovers and rebounding and defense, was there anything in there that did surprise you?
Capel: I was surprised at how we started the game. I was surprised by that. I was surprised that we didn’t have the energy right away. I mean, we talked about, we want them to feel us, we talked about how when we score, we want to pick up, and we didn’t do that. So right away, they were able to get into a rhythm offensively. We didn’t pressure, we didn’t contest, they were able to drive us so I was surprised by that. I was surprised how we didn’t come out with the energy. I thought we would have been excited, I thought that we would have been really ready to go. I don’t know if it was nerves or jitters or whatever, and then they smacked us right in the mouth and we panicked in that moment.

So again, we have a lot of growing up to do. We have a lot of growing up to do.

You talked about some of the more disappointing aspects of the game; how much had you seen some of those things in practice or can that be more of a difficult thing to judge when you’re just playing against each other?
Capel: I’ve seen it. I’ve seen it. And I think I said the other day, some days we look like we’re good and some days, we’re not. At times, it’s been difficult to judge because we are just going against us. Today we played against a team that - man, the way they cut, the way they talked to each other and communicated and made their defenses work, man and zone, for whatever reason, it just knocked us back.

That’s the main thing: it took too long. It was similar to last year where, when it starts to happen, it snowballs and instead of us maybe taking two minutes or three minutes, it’s like six, eight minutes, and it took us getting to halftime to kind of get there.

Your first three years here at Pitt, you’ve had a couple losses like this where you lose to an opponent early in the season that you maybe didn’t expect to lose to. Did you notice any common themes throughout these losses, why you guys keep dropping games like this?
Capel: Energy. Energy. Lack of energy.

Is that an easy fix, where you can tell the team and fix that quickly? Or is it more complicated than that?
Capel: I don’t think it’s an easy fix. No, it’s not. There’s nothing easy about what we do. So I don’t think it’s an easy fix, but it’s going to be something that we collectively have to work on. We have to understand. We’re not as good as we thought we were. That’s one of the main things. It’s hard for young guys to understand that when we’re just against each other. There’s a feeling that we had that we’re really good - and we have a chance to be good - but we have to understand that all of these things are required to have a chance to be good. And if you don’t have energy, it’s not going to happen. If you don’t value the basketball, I don’t care what your talent is, it’s not going to happen. That’s where we have to learn. It sucks that it took losing, maybe, for a lesson to be taught. But that’s what it is, and we have to learn from it and move on and get better.

Was there anything about the zone defense of St. Francis that was special or something that they did that made it harder for you guys? Or do you think it was more about you guys’ lack of energy and that panicking in the first half?
Capel: I’m not saying - we didn’t lose because of lack of energy. I’m not taking anything away from St. Francis. They were terrific. They were. They were ready to play, they executed, their guys did a heck of a job. So I’m not going to sit up here and - like, their zone was good, but there’s some things that we could have done better. I don’t know. I’d have to go back and look at the tape, but it’d be interesting how many shots right there at the rim that we missed, how many times we finished. That’s something that - when I said it’s not surprising - when we’ve shown feedback in practice, one of the areas that we’ve talked about is finishing. Finishing right there at the basket. So we have to be able to do that in real time when we’re playing against other people. So we have to practice it better.