Get the full rundown of everything Jeff Capel, Bub Carrington and Guillermo Diaz Graham said after Pitt's loss to UNC on Tuesday night at the Petersen Events Center.

Capel: First of all, congrats to North Carolina. They’re an outstanding basketball team, they’re old, they’re physical, they’re talented. I think Hubert has done an outstanding job with them, and I think their physicality wore us out, I thought, in the second half. In saying that, I’m really proud of my team for how we fought. I thought we fought for 40 minutes and we put ourself in position to have an opportunity to win this game. That team was averaging 87 points a game and we held them to 70, below 40 from the field, so we did some really good things on that end. It’s just offensively, we weren’t able to ever get into any sort of rhythm. I thought early in the game in the first half, we got some great looks; I mean, wide open, naked shots. And we missed them. And I thought as the game went on, we allowed those misses and our inability to make shots - I thought it turned us inward, where we’ve been so connected. And I thought some guys - I thought we put pressure on ourselves with every shot, because of their physicality and because of how they were defending. So I’m disappointed in that. But I’m really proud of the effort, because I thought we came out and we fought for 40 minutes collectively as a group.

What did they do defensively to keep you guys out of rhythm?
Carrington: Like Coach said, they were just really physical. They saw how the refs were going to let a lot of that stuff fly, so they took advantage of it. They were very physical, and I guess that kind of took us out of our rhythm a little bit. We had to adjust to it, which I feel like we did; we just missed some shots that we usually make.

Is it frustrating when your team is not hitting a lot from the outside and you know that there probably aren’t going to be as many calls as there should be if you drive to the hoop, which is typically what you do when your shots aren’t falling. Is it frustrating knowing that you’re probably not going to get some of those calls?
Carrington: I mean, yeah, of course it’s frustrating, but at the end of the day, that’s basketball. You have to do what you have to do to win, at the end of the day, no matter what’s happening, no matter the circumstances. You have to adjust. You have to do what you have to do to win, and we fell a little short in that column.

Guillermo, what was the plan for defending in the paint?
Diaz Graham: We were doing fire when the ball gets to the post, but especially it was just to work early and don’t give up any angles, and at the end, it’s just a fight: who wants it more and who wants to win that spot? So you can pin a lot, but at the end, we have to fight and we have to be strong.

Bub, what did you think of the shot selection that you guys had tonight?
Carrington: Obviously, a few of them aren’t going to be the greatest shots. But I feel like we definitely had a lot of good looks. Like I said earlier, we just missed a lot of shots we usually make. I can’t be too mad at that.

Bub, when you guys couldn’t find a rhythm in the second half, what was the communication like?
Carrington: Keep your heads. A lot. Any basketball player will know, you miss shots that you can make, you can sort of get out of your game a little bit, get out of your head. But in our huddles, we just kept trying to repeatedly tell each other, just keep your heads. You can always get it back on defense. No matter what. If offense isn’t falling, you can always get it back on defense.

Guillermo, you guys have lost three straight ACC games. There was a stretch toward the end of last year where you lost three straight games. Is there any similarities here and how do you find a way to regroup and get back on track to where you were?
Diaz Graham: What was the end of the question?

Is there any similarities to how this group might feel right now in this losing streak compared to last year’s losing streak and how do you guys get back on track?
Diaz Graham: I don’t think it’s the same, because we’re starting the ACC and we have a lot of young guys, so I feel like this is lessons we have to start taking and each of these lessons are making us better, you know? Because again, we have a lot of young guys so we’re just learning. So I don’t think it’s the same feeling, because we feel good about how we played. I feel like we played a good game today; it’s just, at the end we weren’t able to hit the shots. So I don’t think the feeling is the same and the feeling we have right now, I don’t think it’s bad.

Bub, there was an and-one that you hit, a midrange jumper and you got up and seemed excited; were you trying to energize your team or was that just kind of you in the moment being like, ‘Okay, let’s break through here’?
Carrington: Yeah, you know, just trying to be the spark plug. Sometimes we can get a little in our heads, like I said, just trying to be a spark plug, just trying to keep the game intense.

Bub, what can you say about your fellow freshman guard’s efforts today? Jaland?Carrington: Phenomenal. I feel like he played good. I feel like he handled the pressure well and kept trying to attack them. I feel like he played really good.

Does it feel like you two are getting more comfortable on the court together, kind of running things?
Carrington: Definitely. With time, I feel like, as the season goes on, I feel like we’re definitely just getting better by each game and I feel like we’re definitely going to adjust and get better by each game.

What can you say about the defensive plan that you guys had and your team’s willingness to stick to it even while the shots weren’t falling tonight?
Capel: We wanted to limit transition; they’re playing much faster, like the old Carolina teams from a few years ago. I thought we did a pretty good job there. We wanted to play post defense early. And then we wanted to, especially with Guillermo in the game, we were going to double Bacot when he caught the ball. I thought we did a pretty good job of that. I thought G did a really good job of defending early before he caught the ball, not letting him get deep position. And then we wanted to have an awareness for RJ Davis. He came in leading the league in scoring; over the last four games, he was 24 points a game on 48% from the field, 47 from three, 95 from the foul line. So I thought we did a pretty good job in those three areas, and that’s how we gave ourselves an opportunity. We had some mistakes, but they weren’t mistakes of non-effort; it was just youth and, you know, them being good players, North Carolina, and those guys making some big-time plays.

Is it what defenses are doing to Blake? Is it one of those funks?
Capel: I don’t know. I don’t know. I thought in the first half, I thought he got some good looks, I thought we generated some good looks for him. Just didn’t go in. I thought he pressed some, but you guys around here, you’ve seen - those are the shots that, he makes one and it gets him going and it gets us going, so you live with it. But I thought he got some really good looks early in the game. In the second half, we ran a couple things for him, got some open looks; he just didn’t make him.

Do you feel like Ish needs to shoot the basketball more?
Capel: I just think we need to be able to take what the defense gives us. Obviously, Ish is one of our better players. No excuse, but he really hasn’t practiced since Syracuse; he hurt his shoulder in that game when he got tackled on the drive that was a non-call in the second half. We weren’t quite sure if he would be able to go. He tried a little bit yesterday, but he really couldn’t shoot the basketball because he couldn’t lift. We saw today that he was able to go, and he gave us a great effort out there.

Carolina didn’t score for the first six-plus minutes; how much do you think your team’s failure to capitalize more affected the final outcome?
Capel: That early - like I said, we really defended well. For them to have 31 points at the half and they hit a three right at the buzzer with a mistake that we made and RJ, who’s an outstanding player, made a big-time shot. But I thought in the first half, especially the way we started defensively, we had some opportunities to be up a lot, but we didn’t. And that was during that time where I thought we got some really wide open shots, some clean shots. They just didn’t go in for us.

What do you have to do as a team when you’re in a game like this where shots just aren’t falling, is there anything you guys can do to adjust to get better looks inside -
Capel: Well, we’re not a team - we’re not built where we’re going to throw the ball inside. That’s just - we just don’t have that. We have to be able to drive, we have to be able to play through physicality, we have to be able to, when we get to the free throw line, knock in free throws, especially front ends of one-and-ones. We have to be able to do that to stop a run, to extend a run from us and to put points on the board. And then we have to be able to execute through physicality.

Just one second-chance point and minus-two on the offensive rebounding margin; how do you explain the deficiencies in those kinds of hustle categories?
Capel: It’s not hustle. We hustle. It’s not hustle. So don’t put that out there.

Look, they’re a really good team. They’re big. They’re athletic. They’re old. And they crash the glass. We tried to crash; we didn’t get them. But it had nothing to do with hustle.

You mentioned the physicality a lot after Saturday’s loss. How did you think your team did as far as toughness and physicality?
Capel: I thought we were tough. I thought we played hard. I thought we competed. The game was very physical. They knocked us off-path at times. These off-balls - when we’re moving off the ball and cutting, you know, we have to be able to fight through it. We have to be able to adjust to how the game is being officiated and we have to be able to fight through stuff and play through it. We have to be able to adjust with how the game is being officiated.

On the note of officiating, you’ve got your older guys going through shooting slumps and you’ve got your younger guys facing North Carolina for the first time and they’re also having to deal with some inconsistencies maybe in that department.
Capel: it has nothing to do with inconsistencies. It had to do with, North Carolina’s a really good team. They were physical. And we just couldn’t execute through that. We do have a lot of guys that this is their first time at this level; whether they’re freshmen or whether they’re transfers, this is their first time at this level. And again, it’s no excuse; we have to get better, we have to have great attitudes, which we’ve had, and we’re going to continue to fight and get this thing turned around.

Is that physicality the crux of the challenge that your team is facing right now that could open more things up for you guys?
Capel: That’s part of it. We have to be able to execute throughout whatever’s happening. We have to fight for the full 40 minutes; I’m proud that we did that today. And we have to able to continue to be outward if things aren’t going our way. We can’t turn inward. We have to be outward and continue to give great energy, positive energy, if it’s not going our way individually.