What stood out in Pitt's 22-point win over Fairleigh Dickinson on Tuesday night? Here are three notable items.
Perfection works
We’ll give some credit to Jeff Capel here: he sat down at his post-game press conference Tuesday night, minutes after his team made every two-point basket it attempted in the second half an 83-61 win over Fairleigh Dickinson, and he started talking about defense before he finished his first sentence.
“I’m really proud of our team for how we played and more importantly, how we defended.”
That’s how Capel opened his post-game press conference, and while he finally made mention of how his team “got going offensively.” But his focus was on the defense, which is fine.
We’ll focus on the offense.
Look, I don't think any of us has ever seen a team shoot 17-of-17 inside the arc in a half before. If you have, then you have a better claim to having seen it all than the rest of us, because that was a new one to me. But it wasn’t like some fluke thing; Pitt made 17-of-17 because the players figured out that the ball is allowed to go past the three-point line. They attempted 16 three-pointers in the first half - a full 50% of their total field goal attempts - seemingly unwilling or unable to even try for penetration. But with John Hugley (4-of-4) and Jamarius Burton (5-of-5) leading the charge, Pitt’s two-point game was perfect after halftime, and that performance came from good shots and working the ball inside.
They should try to do that more often.
Shortened rotation
At one point midway through the second half, I sent a text message:
“Are 25, 33 and 5 suspended or something?”
That would be Guillermo Diaz Graham, Federiko Federiko and Nate Santos. All three have been regular rotational pieces: Federiko averaged 20 minutes per game through the first five; Santos averaged 15.8; and Diaz Graham averaged 11.6. On Tuesday night, those three didn’t play until the final two minutes, and while they did eventually see the court - debunking any conspiracy theories about suspensions - their extended absences were curious.
That’s especially true with the two bigs, Federiko and Diaz Graham. Some of their early playing time this season could be attributed to Hugley’s slow progress back, and as he gets more minutes on the court each game - he played 19 on Tuesday night, primarily due to foul trouble - the opportunities for Diaz Graham and Federiko will decrease.
Additionally, Capel said after the game that the matchup wasn’t ideal for big post players like Diaz Graham and Federiko. He said that the emphasis on switching on ball screens and stopping penetration wasn’t ideal for those two, at least at this point in their careers. So maybe that’s part of it, too.
Interestingly, Jorge Diaz Graham did play. A lot. 24 minutes and 30 seconds, and while Capel continues to insist that Jorge is a “wing-guard,” there were times when he played without Hugley on the court; strategically, that could be a deployment that still doesn’t involve him as a center, but there was no other center to speak of, so…
An emerging core
Capel had one other interesting quote that I’ll highlight here:
“For us, we’re still trying to figure out who we are. This is the second game we’ve played where we’ve had all the guys that are healthy enough to play. So we’re trying to figure out who we are as a basketball team, what combinations work best together.”
To me, the really interesting part is the second sentence - the one about how Tuesday night was the second time when Pitt has basically had its full healthy roster available. The biggest piece of that puzzle is Hugley, who has been coming back from a knee injury he suffered in September. But as he has gotten more time on the court, the core of this team has emerged:
Hugley, Burton, Blake Hinson and Nelly Cummings.
Right now, those four are the guys making plays. They’re the ones who can make a big shot when Pitt needs one. On Sunday, when the Panthers were down 12 and in serious jeopardy of falling completely apart, Hinson and Hugley combined to score 11 points as part of a 13-4 run heading into halftime, including an and-1 from each guy.
That was the trend again on Tuesday night, with each of those four players making a handful of big plays to help pull away from Fairleigh Dickinson.
The season is still early for this team, of course, and the competition is going to get tougher as Pitt heads into December. But the core crew of Cummings, Burton, Hinson and Hugley has looked like it just might be able to drag this year’s Panthers into games that they might have fallen out of in previous years.
We’ll see how many wins it translates to, but this core looks strong.
