Winless in ACC, Pitt men seek better point production
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Jeff Capel was proud of the effort his team displayed in Pitt’s 70-57 loss to No. 8 North Carolina on Tuesday.
He repeatedly has praised his players’ attitude and togetherness, hoping those three traits eventually will lead to victories in the ACC.
So far, however, Pitt (9-5 overall) has lost all three of its conference games.
There is plenty of time to recover and make a run for the NCAA Tournament. Seventeen games remain, starting Saturday at Louisville (5-8, 0-2), a loser in five of its past six outings.
That sounds like a good place to start. But the 0-3 ACC record is distressing, considering Pitt started 4-0 in the conference last season on its way to the tournament.
This is a different Pitt team — talented but less experienced than the Panthers of 2023 who ended up winning 24 games.
Capel has settled into a nine-man rotation, with only one scholarship senior, Blake Hinson. But he is currently fighting a three-game shooting slump (9 for 38, 23.6%). Worse, his 3-point shooting, which can prop up the team when other options are struggling, is down to 13.6% (3 of 22) in the same time frame.
Even when Hinson’s shots are falling, he can’t do it alone.
“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,” Capel said.
Freshman guards Bub Carrington and Jaland Lowe were in high school in Baltimore and Missouri City, Texas, at this time last year, but Pitt would be in deeper trouble without them.
They played significant minutes against North Carolina, with Carrington scoring a season-high 20 points in more than 36 minutes and Lowe coming off the bench to record 10 points, two assists and a steal in a season-high 24½ minutes.
They committed only two turnovers each, an impressive effort against an athletic group of Tar Heels. Overall, Pitt protected the ball much better than it did at Syracuse on Saturday (eight turnovers, compared to 15).
When Capel references “a lot of guys” experiencing ACC competition for the first time, he’s also talking about transfers Ishmael Leggett and Zack Austin.
At this point in the 2022-23 season (Jan. 4), Leggett was playing for Rhode Island against Fordham. He scored 17 points. On the same day, Austin scored two for High Point against UNC Asheville.
Leggett has been a valuable member of the Pitt team, starting every game and averaging 12.5 points and a team-high 6.2 rebounds, including 17 points against No. 16 Clemson last month. He scored five at Syracuse and four in 32-plus minutes against North Carolina.
“No excuse,” Capel said, “but he really hasn’t practiced since Syracuse. He hurt his shoulder in that game when he got tackled on a drive that was a non-call in the second half.”
Capel said Leggett couldn’t lift his arm Monday, but he recovered sufficiently to start Tuesday when he attempted only six shots.
Losing Leggett’s offense — he is Pitt’s third-leading scorer — was a problem on a night when Hinson was 4 for 16 from the field and Pitt continued to have little inside scoring presence. Federiko Federiko (6-foot-11) totaled only 13 points in the past three games. Seven-footer Guillermo Diaz Graham scored 10 points with four rebounds against North Carolina, but six of his 11 shot attempts were 3-pointers (he made one).
The total of 57 points Tuesday was Pitt’s lowest since an 81-56 loss at West Virginia on Nov. 11, 2022.
“We have to get better,” Capel said. “We have to be able to execute through physicality.
“We have to have great attitudes, which we’ve had. We’re going to continue to fight and get this thing turned around.”