Jeff Capel talked to the media about Pitt being 9-3, turning defense into offense and more after the Panthers’ win over Binghamton Friday night. Here’s the full rundown of what he said.

Capel: It was a good win for us heading into the holiday. I thought we did some good things in this game. We played, I would assume, 38 minutes against the zone, so we got a chance to work against zone. I liked some of the things that we did. I thought after the first four minutes of the first half, I thought we were really good for the rest of the half. I think at the under-16 timeout we had two turnovers; we had two at halftime, so we valued the ball, we got into a better rhythm offensively, we were able to create some offense from our defense. We got off to slow starts in both halves; that’s one thing that I’m disappointed about. But I thought it was a lot of good stuff.

So I’m happy for it. We’re 9-3 headed into the break against a challenging schedule for where we are as a program right now. And I’m proud of our guys; this is a great break for us to get away for a few days to hopefully get refreshed and ready to come back and tackle this last nonconference game, attack it and then get ready for conference play.

Is it about where you hoped you’d be at this point, or preseason expectations not even matter at this point?
Capel: Yeah, it doesn’t. We’ve just tried to get better each day. I think we have. I don’t know what my expectations were. I don’t know if I went into it thinking, ‘Okay, at Christmas I want to be this.’ I wanted to be undefeated. So I didn’t have a number because I never think about us losing. But where we are, as far as how we’ve progressed, I like where we are. We still have a ways to go. That’s exciting to me. We haven’t hit a ceiling yet and hopefully we can attack this and continue to get better.

You missed the first six shots; did something change? What happened that they were able to have so much success after that?
Capel: I just think we started making shots. I think we started moving the ball a little bit more against the zone. I think one of the things a zone can do is it can slow you down and make you think, and we had worked really against the zone for two days in anticipation of them playing a lot, and I thought in the first four minutes, we were very tentative against it. I thought we just started playing instinctive and the ball started moving, we started moving and again, when you see the ball go in the basket, it gives you a little bit of juice. We saw it go in, so it got us going. I think that helped our defense.

I thought we did a good job defensively. In the first half, we had some great close-outs. One of our big things was to run them off the three-point line, and I thought we did a really good job of doing that. They still got up 30 three’s; they average about 28.5, but I didn’t think the quality of their three-point shots were very good.

Justin was 6-of-13 tonight; shooting-wise it was kind of a breakthrough for him because he had been struggling the last few games. How much have you been seeing from him as far as how he was trying to deal with that?
Capel: I thought the last game was really big for him, especially in the second half, to see the ball go through the basket. He had had two games prior to that with no field goals, and that’s after winning the MVP down in Florida. For any player, but especially a freshman, that can mess with you. His teammates do a good job of giving him confidence, he’s worked, do extra stuff with him, but I really think having a couple of plays like he had at the end of the Northern Illinois game was huge for him. I knew it then and I think that carried over.

He’s also good against a zone, because he can get in that middle and short corner and make some plays from there.

Was his work against the zone something you knew when you were recruiting him? Or is this a development?
Capel: It’s something that we thought. It’s something that we thought he would be good at. Justin, in high school, was more of a midrange, around-the-basket slasher; that’s who he was. We’ve tried to expand and get him to play a little more on the perimeter and be comfortable shooting three’s. We need to get him where he’s making three’s consistently. But putting the ball on the floor - I loved in the first half when he was trailing the break, we hit him, there was no hesitation; he went up and shot it. That’s a shot that he needs to be able to make on a consistent basis.

Back to the defense, are you seeing progress?
Capel: I think we’ve been pretty good defensively all year. I don’t have the numbers in front of me, but I think teams are under 40% against us. I think we’ve turned teams over quite a bit. The past two games, tonight and Northern Illinois, we’ve played a little bit more zone. I don’t know what we’ll do going forward - the game will give us the solution for that, of what we’re going to do. I thought our zone was good today. I thought it was active. I thought it broke their rhythm a little bit. It took us out of having to defend ball screens and scrambling as much. But I think our defense has been good. Where we can take a jump is we have to defensive rebound; that’s big, because if we do that, you take away some second shots. Usually second shots lead to something easy for them, because it’s a broken play, whether it’s a basket right there or a wide open three-pointer. So we have to do a better job of rebounding.

Is it, in some ways, encouraging to have four players in double digits and X isn’t one of them. Is that encouraging for him to know that he doesn’t have to do it all?
Capel: One of the things that we’ve talked to he and Trey especially about is that you need these other guys. There’s a lot of attention on them, because of what they did last year and their reputations as players, and that reputation was earned by how they played last year. So if you look at our first 12 games, every game we’ve played, there’s a lot of attention on those guys. A lot of times when they drive, the court just shrinks. You know, people are running at them. So that’s where a lot of our turnovers have come from in the first 12 games.

We need everybody to step up and be able to make a play, make a shot, drive it, not turn it over. So I do think that that helps, these past two games, for other guys to be able to step up, for us to be able to score 79 points tonight without him being in double figures. It certainly was good to see Ryan Murphy make some shots in the second half. So again, we’re going to keep working, we’re going to keep plugging away at this thing. Our guys have had really, really good attitudes up to this point. Like I mentioned, this break will be good for us, and hopefully we can come back refreshed and ready to tackle the second part of the season.

With those two guys, X and Trey, how have they adjusted or acclimated to the increased attention they’ve gotten, and how much have they been willing to take pressure off themselves to feel the need to do so much?
Capel: Well, it’s an adjustment. It’s also an adjustment when there are expectations, and these are guys - you know, they are not like some guys that I’ve coached before where they’re used to it. Like, Tatum was used to it. Bagley, Blake Griffin, these guys, because they have been highly-touted for a long time, so they were used to the pressure that comes with expectations. None of our guys have that, or had that. X and Trey had it coming into this season, and so it’s new. They don’t have a reference point like some of these guys have, because they’ve been used to being the guy nationally, so it’s been an adjustment for them. At times, they’ve been frustrated. But they understand how much they need their teammates and they need these guys to step up and make plays and they have to trust them to do that. That’s what I’ve seen over the past couple of games; hopefully as we move forward, we continue to see that.

How do you guys as a coaching staff try to work them through that process?
Capel: Talk to them about it. Talk to them. Show them tape. Watch a lot of tape with them. Talk to them. Talk to them about working with guys: “You guys are in the gym; get another guy in the gym with you. You need them taking extra shots, because if they’re making them, that helps you. That helps you be able to get to the basket.”

One of the things in the Florida State game, that’s the one pops in my mind all the time because we had talked about it, talked about it, Justin makes a couple of three’s and now all of a sudden, when we got the basket that kind of gave us the win, you know, the lead for good, Xavier drove it, and because Justin had made two three’s, the guy stunted and went back to Justin and it opened the floor up for X to get a layup. We need that.

So we talk to them about it, we show tape, watch, study and I think they’re getting a better feel for it.

Good to get walk-ons some playing time?
Capel: Yeah, it’s always good. Those guys do a heck of a job for us. A heck of a job in practice, especially these past two games because we’ve faced two guys in German from Northern Illinois and then Sessoms tonight that are very unique scorers. For us to be able to have -we have a guy in practice that can do that. Ithiel can do that. He’s really good, and he’s gotten better from playing against X and Trey, in particular, every day. But it’s good for those guys with how hard they work - KJ, Ant, Curt - those guys to get in the game and then tonight for Chayce to be able to get in and get some run, that was really good that we were in a position to do that tonight.

You guys forced 27 turnovers and scored 32 on those; how important is efficiency off of those created extra opportunities?
Capel: It’s huge. It’s huge. It’s huge. Obviously, we’ve struggled to score. That’s something that I know. I don’t need any metric or anything - I know it. And any time we can get easy baskets, that helps, because one of the things - we get easy baskets, then you see the ball go through the basket, then all of a sudden a guy may feel a little bit more confident and he may not hesitate on a jumper, on a three, if he has seen it go through the basket. Where we can continue to get better is if we can defense rebound better, because that will give us more opportunities to get out in transition.

So we’ll work on that when we get back and hopefully we’ll be better at it as we play Canisius.

Have to ask the obligatory Drumgoole injury update.
Capel: He’s still not, obviously, ready to play. He’s able to do a little bit on the court. No contact. But he’s been able to get in some of our drills, some of our shooting, some of our 5-on-0. So my hope is that he’s ready by the 30th, but we’ll see.