Capel on the win, individual performances and more

After Pitt beat Florida State on Wednesday, Jeff Capel addressed the media and here's the full rundown of what he said.

Capel: The very first thing is that I want to give a big-time shout-out to our crowd. I thought they were amazing, especially our student section. I thought their energy and intensity and passion really helped us and helped us push though.

It was an ugly game, but I was really proud that we fought and we found a way to win. I thought we showed a lot of toughness but we showed a lot of togetherness. I thought there were some big-time plays made. We got an amazing contribution from our bench. And I thought guys just fought and we figured out a way to win. I’m really proud of our group.

We have a quick, very, very quick turnaround with a noon game on Saturday against a team that’s pretty good, that almost won at Illinois last night. So we have to enjoy this but we have to be mature about it and be ready to move onto the next play tomorrow.

What can you say about what Terrell did in the second half after they go up by nine?
Capel: I thought Terrell was terrific. I thought it was one of his best games he played since I’ve been here. He finished around the rim, he played with energy, he had a passion, he was talking, you could hear him. He played with confidence and I thought our guys did a good job of finding him. I thought some things he did defensively were really good, too. He blocked some shots, he changed some shots down there.

I thought our bench was really good. I thought he just - and Murph - were very, very good. You look at Justin, who hadn’t - still not the instinctive athlete that he was earlier, but I thought he took a giant step in the second half. He’s a really talented player, and I thought you saw some of that in the second half.

And Muprh, you know, obviously his ability to make shots, but I think he did some stuff off the bounce today too that was really good, and we need every bit of it. So, really, really proud of those guys and their effort.

How do you get Terrell to play and look like that with that kind of confidence, that kind of intensity on a more consistent basis?
Capel: Him having success, especially in the first game against this type of opponent helps him with his confidence for him to believe. But it’s about becoming consistent, so it’s about having consistent habits in everything that you do, every day. Usually when you do that, that leads to you becoming a consistent player.

In the first half you went hard at Florida State underneath the basket; not a lot of teams would do that. What was your reasoning in doing that?
Capel: It’s what we do. We want to attack. And we feel like we have a couple of guards that can really get in the paint and create off the bounce and do some things that we know - they’re a team usually with a lot of size, but we want to challenge that and also to break the defense down. That’s who we are, it’s what we do.

What made your offense more effective in the second half than the first half?
Capel: I thought we got a little bit more movement. The ball didn’t stick as much. It still stuck a little bit too much but it didn’t do it as much. And then we made some shots. In the first half, we got some wide-open shots; we just didn’t make them. In the second half, we made some of those shots, so it looked a little bit better.

You forced Trent Forrest, a pretty steady guard, into five turnovers and two assists; what did you do defensively against him?
Capel: Well, we wanted to go under on him. We wanted to try to crowd. He hasn’t been a guy who’s been a consistent shooter from beyond the arc. Trent’s a really good player. He’s tough, he’s a really good leader; I’m a big fan of his. But the other thing is that I thought we made him a volume shooter; that’s something that we wanted to do. Certainly, them having a couple guys in foul trouble in the first half probably made him shoot it a little bit more than he’s accustomed to, but we just really tried to shrink the floor against him.

You talked about this being an ugly game; how much do you attribute that to being a unique circumstance where you’re opening up with a conference opponent and the teams aren’t close to being what they’ll be in a couple months?
Capel: I think that has a lot to do with it. I think if you watch the games in the Champions’ Classic yesterday, both of those games were ugly. I was watching a couple games on the ACC Network before our game, just sitting in the back, and I thought those games were ugly. It’s what’s to be expected, in my opinion, this time of year when you have a lot of new faces. If you’re a team that has a veteran team, maybe it’s a little bit different, but our league is very unique in that there are a lot of new faces. So, yeah, I’m not surprised by it; I’m just glad that we were able to win, find a way to win, even though we weren’t at our best.

And one of the reasons we weren’t is Florida State’s defense. They’re a very difficult team to play against. If you go back - and I try not to talk about our game against them last year that much because it’s in the past, but it was ugly last year. We just got to the line a lot. I think we shot a little bit less percentage this year than we did last year. They’re a difficult team to play against. You can’t simulate them in practice and they’re difficult, and it takes a little bit of time to get adjusted. I thought it took us awhile to get adjusted to it tonight in this game.

Is it encouraging that, getting to the line at the end, you guys made 7-of-9 to close it out?
Capel: It’s encouraging, but we still need to be better there. We need to be more consistent. We’re a team that, I think, can get to the line a lot and we have to be better there. We have to make teams pay when we get there. But I was proud that we stepped up down the stretch and guys made some big ones.

How happy were you with your rebounding?
Capel: Really happy. I thought that was the key of the game. There was a defensive rebound that we got - I think Trey got it - right around four minutes; it was a big-time rebound. He went up out of his area and he was determined to get it at that point in the game. We had talked about it in time outs right around the 10-minute mark; we were in the bonus, so any time you can go after a defensive rebound and sometimes they’ll foul you, and that gives us free throws. But that’s something we’ve tried to work on. It’s a thing that was an Achilles heel of ours last year and it’s something that we’ve really tried to work on. And it was good to see us do a pretty good job here in this game where we outrebounded this team and then, in the second half, I don’t know how many offensive rebounds they got; I think they had about six, maybe seven at halftime. So that would make us do a really good job in the second half, if I’m correct. I think it was about seven at halftime they had.

You said last year about changing the mentality with rebounding for the guards; do you think that has come a long way since last year?
Capel: I think it has. I think it’s come a long way. I think we’ve also recruited and we have some new guys in here that have a little bit different athleticism to them. I think the returning guys , they’ve heard it enough and we’ve drilled it a lot and I think they understand, that’s what wins basketball games. I think our first-shot defense last year was pretty good, but our inability to rebound really hurt us. I thought our first-shot defense tonight was pretty good and I thought in the second half especially, even though they shot 50%, I thought we did a much better job on the glass throughout the 40 minutes of the game.

You didn’t sub in the final 12 minutes; was that something you decided at some point or did it just kind of evolve?
Capel: I coach on rhythm, man. I don’t have set patterns or, going into it, ‘This guy’s going to play this amount of minutes.’ I thought we had a good group, I thought they had a good thing going and I wanted to ride with them. And they did a really, really good job. And it’s nothing against anyone else; we’re going to need all of them. If you would have told me coming into this game against Florida State that Justin would play 23 minutes and play 12 minutes straight - I don’t know if he played 12 minutes straight in practice - so for him to be able to do that and do it at a high level and make some shots and make some plays, that’s a big thing for us.

But we need them all. Guys after the first game, I hope we don’t have anyone with their head down because we need them all. And we’re going to need them at noon on Saturday.

How similar is the Ryan that we saw tonight to the one that you have seen over the last five or six months?
Capel: He’s done a good job for us. He has a talent that he can really shoot and he’s very confident. But he also knows how to play. He’s a little bit better off the bounce. He knows how to play and he has a passion for playing. I thought we missed him some tonight. I still think there are areas, especially in transition, where we can do a better job of finding him. And I think as we understand as a group, as a team, how to utilize that weapon a little bit more, I think that will help us become even better.