Pitt suffered a bad loss to Niagara Monday night, and Jeff Capel didn’t mince words about his team’s effort or performance after the game. Here’s a full rundown of what Capel said.

Capel: First and foremost, congrats to Niagara, man. They were really good tonight and congrats to their team, their coaching staff; they were way more prepared than we were. That’s on me. I have to do a better job with our team of having us ready to play. Towns really controlled the game for them, Robb was really good inside, Tate made some big shots, that kid made two huge free throws at the end of the game to give them a two-possession game - a two-point, two-possession game to go plus-four.

We were on our heels the whole game and we didn’t defend the way we had been defending. We weren’t as connected as we have been. And again, that’s on me. I have to do a better job of that. We tried to make a push there at the end and had some opportunities, but we have to learn from them. The main thing is that we have to make sure every time we strap up and put this uniform on, that we’re ready to go. We can’t rest on the past or worry about the past or worry about what’s happened before; the present is the thing that’s most important.

Painful lesson for us, but a lesson that we needed and hopefully we’ll be better from this.

Do you think that’s what went into tonight - you talk about resting on the past a little bit?
Capel: I think they just played better than us. I think they were better prepared and I think they just played better than us.

What was your message to the guys after the game and how much of it centered on what you said about focusing on the present?
Capel: It’s exactly what I just said. That was my message.

Niagara was talking about how their game plan was to pack the paint and take away the drives; how do you feel that Xavier Johnson and other guys handled having that taken away from them?
Capel: I don’t think we handled anything well tonight. I don’t think there was anything that we handled well. And again, that’s on me and our staff. We have to do a better job. I don’t think we handled anything well that they did. They outplayed us in every facet of the game.

On Friday you talked about how pleased you were with the defensive effort you had in the first eight games; what was different tonight? Was it their execution? It looked like you were switching things up trying to find some things defensively.
Capel: There was nothing that we could do to contain them or to stop them. We had to kind of just hope that they missed. The first eight games, we had done a pretty good job defending. We didn’t tonight. And they executed very well. They made some three’s, they made some shots - some guys that hadn’t been shooting good percentages stepped up and made some shots, and that’s what can happen on a night, especially when they’re wide-open looks. But again, I just didn’t think we were as connected a group as we had been.

Do you think your guys needed a lesson like this?
Capel: I hope not. We’ve already lost one game. I hope we would have learned a lesson from there, especially with the turnovers; we had 18 turnovers. That’s something that’s really plagued us the last five halves that we played.

Just like I don’t believe in moral victories, I don’t believe that you need to lose or go through something to learn a lesson. So I personally don’t believe in that. We just got outplayed tonight. In every facet of the game.

With a pretty young team, a pretty inexperienced group and this game being sandwiched between two rivalry games, how much did a game like this worry you going into it?
Capel: Well, I worry about every game. So I wasn’t worried about West Virginia or I wasn’t worried about Duquesne; I was worried about this game, because I knew that they could have one of those nights where they’re making shots, which they did. So I was worried about this.

I’m a little bit more mature than they are. I’ve been around the road a few more times. So I understand the value and the importance of every game and being present. I didn’t do a good enough job of conveying that to our team, and we didn’t do a good enough job tonight playing. And they did. They were very present, they were excited, they were incredibly together. They’ve been through adversity with their best player being out and losing the last three games - two without him - and they’ve really responded well together. A really neat thing was watching right before tip and he huddled them - their best player, he huddled them together and got them and talked to them, and you could tell that they were all-in and so focused on this game, excited to play.

That’s the thing that we could never match through the whole game. We got it to a point where we were maybe as good emotion-wise as them when we were down and made a push, but it was never where we were in it more. That’s the thing I think we have been throughout, and for whatever reason we weren’t that tonight.

You guys have been on a strong run; maybe a little bit of hitting a wall?
Capel: I hope not. I hope not. I don’t make excuses; I just think they played better than us. We’ll get back, we’ll review this, we’ll get better from it and we’ll start getting prepared for the next one.

You used a couple lineups tonight where Au’Diese was the tallest guy out there. How much are you thinking of using those ‘small ball’ lineups?
Capel: I think every lineup that we have is ‘small ball’ that we’ve played so far this year. That was real, real ‘small ball’ when we had that. And again, we were just trying to find right combinations, just to try to get something going. That’s what tonight was about: we were trying to figure out and trying to find the right combinations where we could get some energy and we could defend and we could rebound.

Au’Diese has been our best rebounder. He had nine defensive rebounds. I think the closest next guy was three; that’s ridiculous, as far as defensive rebounds. We have to gang rebound. Everyone has to be a rebounder for us. And one of the biggest possessions of the game, we forced a miss and we didn’t grab it. We waited for it to go out of bounds and they made, I thought, the biggest play of the game. It was indicative of how bad they wanted it: the kid came over and threw it off of us and it gives them another possession. So we - I mean, that play was indicative of, to me, how the whole night was for us.

We have to learn from that, we have to get better from that and we have to demand better than that.