Pitt pounds Louisville, 91-57, moves into a tie for 1st in ACC
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Pitt’s 91-57 victory against Louisville on Tuesday night was a milestone moment for the Panthers, who moved into a three-way tie for first place in the ACC.
It was Pitt’s largest margin of victory in 10 years playing against ACC competition, but coach Jeff Capel knows the real score.
Pitt (17-7, 10-3) only shares first place with Clemson and Virginia. The goal should be exclusive rights to the top spot.
And look at the calendar. It’s not even mid-February, and there are seven games left in the regular season before the ACC Tournament next month.
Capel answered with a definitive “nope” when asked if he cared that he coaches a first-place team.
“I care that we won this game, and we did some really good things,” he said. “I’ll go evaluate the tape, and then we have to go play Florida State (on Saturday). They beat us here. That’s all I’ll allow myself to focus on.”
In Capel’s mind, there is so much more to accomplish, but Louisville coach Kenny Payne apparently has seen enough.
After watching Louisville’s most decisive loss in a season full of them — the Cardinals are 3-21, 1-12 in the ACC — Payne had this to say about the team that crushed his own before a crowd of 7,577.
“We played a lot of teams in this conference,” the former NBA first-round draft choice said. “Probably the most complete, the toughest team we faced in this conference is Pittsburgh. Out of all the teams we’ve played, none better than Pittsburgh.
“I want my guys to be tough like that, to fight like that, to be one like that. It was a fight, and we didn’t show up. I blame myself for that.”
When reminded that El Ellis, perhaps the Cardinals’ best player, scored only seven points, Payne said, “El is probably like me. He’s embarrassed.
“At the end of the day, they brought the fight. We didn’t.”
Then, Payne took his praise for Pitt two steps further.
“They have a chance to win this conference. They are the type of team that can go far in the NCAA Tournament.”
Payne speaks from the vantage point of experience. Pitt has double-digit ACC victories for the first time since 2013-2014 — the Panthers’ first season in the ACC — and two of them are against Louisville by a total margin of 55 points.
Capel loved almost everything about the victory — the season-high 23 assists on 28 made baskets, the 54.9 shooting percentage (28 of 51), the 3-point shooting (17 of 31) and the 13 blocks (five by freshman Jorge Diaz Graham and four by his twin brother Guillermo). Pitt also hit 18 of 20 free throws.
How dominant was the victory? Louisville recorded only three more baskets (16) than Pitt had blocks.
Nine Pitt players scored at least six points, led by Nike Sibande, who had 15 in a reserve role. Greg Elliott added 14, and Nelly Cummings, Blake Hinson and Guillermo Diaz Graham had 11 each. The only stat that bothered Capel were the 14 turnovers, but he was willing to let that go — at least until the next practice.
“I’d like to have fewer turnovers than we had,” he said, “but the 23 assists were great. We played the right way. We shared the ball. The ball had energy.”
The twins, who came to Pitt from the Canary Islands, were part of a 41-point effort by four players who weren’t in the starting lineup.
Jorge Diaz Graham scored eight points, but he was more pleased by his two assists — one setting up his brother for a 3-pointer.
”It was very fun. I gave him the 3. He made it. That’s almost like a dream you have, playing with your brother, making plays in front of an awesome crowd,” he said. “The assist is more fun. A bucket makes happy one person. An assist makes happy two persons. Being my brother, more happy.”
The twins have assimilated into the team more smoothly than anyone should expect from freshmen who grew up abroad. Jorge Diaz Graham said his teammates made it easy.
“Honestly, since I came to America, I was worried about selfish players,” he said. “That’s what you see overseas, players playing one-on-one every time.
“Coming here to Pitt, having these teammates, they are so happy to share the ball. It reflects how we move the ball, how we care for each other.”
Capel said he was concerned before the game because Pitt had a six-day break since its most recent outing. The team was a bit rusty on defense at the outset. But a 24-3 run from a 14-14 tie in the first half smoothed out the rough spots.
“For us, where we are right now,” Capel said, “we can’t have a lot of competition in practice. We have guys who are banged up. I was proud that after the first four minutes, we were able to get back in that (competitive) mode, getting stops and executing.”
Guillermo Diaz Graham appreciated the two days off after the victory at North Carolina last week. But he knows February is no time to relax.
“When you come back,” he said, “you have to come back with extra energy to recover the two days you were just laying in bed.”