Pitt Hoops Game Preview: Pitt vs. Northwestern

The Panthers face off against the Northwestern Wildcats tonight at 8:30 p.m. in the championship game for the Fort Myers Tip-Off in Fort Myers, Fla.

Pitt (5-2) advanced to the tournament finale by narrowly holding on to beat Kansas State 63-59 in a game that was both thrilling and sloppy at times, a combination that is quickly becoming a trademark for the 2019-20 Panthers squad.

Northwestern (3-2) beat Bradley 78-51 to punch their own ticket to the final game of the tournament, though it has not been an easy start to the season for the Wildcats–Northwestern has lost already to Merrimack (KenPom no. 267) and Radford (KenPom no. 141) in the early part of the season. Pitt also has a bad loss on its record, though, having lost to Nicholls State (KenPom no. 236).

Fast Facts

• Today’s game marks the fifth matchup between Pitt and Northwestern, with the most recent coming on Dec. 28, 1996. Pitt holds the series advantage with three wins, while Northwestern has beaten the Panthers just once, all the way back in 1962.
• Following its win over Kansas State, Pitt now has two wins over opponents ranked more highly than them by KenPom’s rankings (Florida State at no. 17, K-State at no. 63). Northwestern, by comparison, has one: a win over no. 34 Providence.
• Kansas State enters the 2019-20 season coming off of three consecutive NCAA Tournament appearances, including an Elite Eight run in 2017-18, followed by a first-round exit last season as the no. 4 seed Wildcats were upset by no. 13 UC-Irvine.
• Northwestern is led by head coach Chris Collins, now in his sixth season with the program. Collins has 104 wins and 98 losses with the Wildcats, and he led them to their first and only ever NCAA Tournament appearance following a 24-win season in 2016-17.
• Northwestern is currently ranked no. 98 in the KenPom rankings, while Pitt sits at no. 80 in the ranking sya ten.

Northwestern Preview

Northwestern has earned significant scoring contributions from several players through their first five games this season, as four of their five starters are averaging greater than 10 points per game

The Wildcats are led by 2018 top-100 recruit and sophomore forward Pete Nance, who averages 13.6 points and 8.6 rebounds per game. He’s joined in the frontcourt by freshman center Ryan Young, who is averaging 11.8 points and 7.4 rebounds per game.

Nance and Young, who both stand at 6-feet 10-inches, spend a lot of time on the court together and pose a potentially significant mismatch with Pitt’s interior defenders.

Northwestern has struggled to shoot the basketball from deep this year, hitting just 28 percent of their three-point attempts. Their best long-distance shooter this year has been sophomore Miller Kopp, averaging 12 points per game and making 38.1 percent of his threes.

The Wildcats also do pretty well on the boards, collecting 52 offensive rebounds through five games, with Nance and Young snatching up 25 of those offensive boards. The Wildcats are out-rebounding opponents by four rebounds per game total.

Finally, Northwestern has been better at protecting the basketball than Pitt. With 62 turnovers through five games, the Wildcats average 12.4 per game compared to Pitt’s 13.9. On the defensive end, they’ve accumulated 24 steals.

Pitt Preview

 

Pitt enters tonight’s contest as the victors in what is becoming a characteristically sloppy fashion. Just as we have seen with Pitt football this year though, playing a lot of close games can be a dangerous way to live. For instance, Pitt shot 18 of 21 from the free throw line, while Kansas State made just three of 13 attempts from the charity stripe. On the year, Pitt is a 71 percent free-throw shooting team, and Kansas State shoots 62 percent from the line.

Since Pitt over-performed from the line and Kansas State brutally under-performed, it should come as no surprise that free throws had a big impact on the outcome of Monday’s game. But Pitt is not going to shoot 86 percent from the free throw stripe every night, so they need to cut out some of the messiness.

Once again, that starts with Pitt’s backcourt protecting the basketball. Pitt turned the ball over 21 times on Monday, and an incredible 13 of those came from Xavier Johnson and Trey McGowens. We can talk in circles about how talented these young players are–and they are, to be sure–but at some point they need to put Pitt in a better position to win than they have been so far.

Johnson specifically has been able to provide jolts of lightning to the offense when he protects the basketball. Prior to the game against Kansas State, Johnson played around 50 straight minutes of turnover-free basketball with 23 points, 11 assists, and four steals. That’s one heck of a stat line. But the bad Johnson showed up for much of Monday’s contest as he provided zero assists and turned the ball over eight times.

McGowens has had his own problems as well, and he finished against the Wildcats with three points and three rebounds to go with five turnovers before he fouled out late in the second half. Johnson fouled out, as well. The only saving grace is that Johnson made a few big shots in the second half to keep Pitt in the game.

But if he had missed some of those shots? Maybe Pitt loses, and we’re talking about how Pitt’s talented sophomore backcourt cost them the game.

Aside from the those two players, Ryan Murphy finally got going a bit, despite continued struggles from beyond the arc. Terrell Brown and Eric Hamilton both contributed meaningful play in the interior, with Hamilton putting up a career night for the second straight game, posting a double-double. I thought that Pitt looked its best when Hamilton and Brown were on the floor together on Monday, and I suspect we will see more of them on the floor at the same time moving forward.

Game Preview

I’ve been giving my keys to the game in recent game preview posts, and today will be no different. But today, I’ll be omitting the fact that the “good” versions of Johnson and McGowens need to show up. That continues to be very obvious, and it will be a key to virtually every game this year.

So what else does Pitt need to do to win against Northwestern tonight and return to Pittsburgh as champions of the Fort Myers Tip-Off? Here are the Keys to the game.

Pitt must limit the damage by Northwestern’s frontcourt pairing of Nance and Young.

A lot of the damage that Nance and Young do comes from their ability to dominate on the glass. With 25 offensive rebounds between the two of them, Pitt absolutely must try to keep them out of position under the basket. Pitt has really struggled to keep opposing teams off of the offensive glass–the Panthers have allowed 91 offensive boards through seven games, which ranks very near the bottom of the league at no. 338 in the country.

As I mentioned earlier, this is particularly why I expect Pitt to use Brown and Hamilton on the floor at the same time today. Using a smaller lineup as Pitt often does could leave one of Nance or Young open to physically dominate the unlucky Panther player stuck boxing them out on the low block. Abdoul Karim Coulibaly should also continue to see minutes tonight, but he still strikes me as a little bit raw defensively, especially compared with some of the more physically dominant and/or polished type of big that Pitt will face tonight.

Of course, Justin Champagnie and Au’Diese Toney have proven themselves to be more than capable rebounders as well, so Pitt will not be required to have Hamilton and Brown on the court together all night, but it would be good to see them on the floor together a little bit. Once again, this highlights the greater depth that Pitt offers this season compared with last season.

Pitt must force turnovers and turn those turnovers into points.

An important distinction between Pitt and Northwestern is that Pitt has had much more success in the early part of the season in forcing turnovers. Pitt has a very solid 48 steals through seven games, and Northwestern has pretty reliably turned the ball over approximately 13 times per game. They have not turned the ball over more than 14 times yet this year.

Pitt will have a stout challenge against a team that has proven to be much better at protecting the basketball than they themselves are. But Pitt can be pretty good at generating turnovers, and they should be able to force several tonight. A major problem for Pitt is that they don’t consistently turn turnovers into points yet.

Against K-State, Pitt scored just nine points off of turnovers compared with K-State’s 24; they also scored just nine points off of turnovers against Monmouth, despite forcing 16 turnovers. Pitt has had some decent efforts as well, like when they turned 22 turnovers into 22 points against Arkansas-Pine Bluff.

To really separate against good teams, Pitt needs to consistently be able to score points off of turnovers and take advantage of their solid defensive play. Part of that comes with playing smart basketball, and limiting the wild shot attempts in transition by Johnson and McGowens that don’t seem to fall this year as frequently as they did a year ago.

Pitt needs to make its free throws.

 

We saw on Monday just how impactful free throws can be in a close game. If Pitt and Kansas State had shot their season average in free throw percentage, Pitt would have lost 64-60 to Kansas State. Of course, that’s not actually true–you can’t play that game because the sequencing of a lot of the free throws at the end of the game were dependent on Pitt already being in the lead.

Still, Pitt hit some huge free throws at the end of the game. In fact, they hit 11 of their 12 second-half free throw attempts. Regardless of how Northwestern shoots from the line tonight, if Pitt shoots like that, they’ll have a chance to win. Free throws have been a bugaboo for Pitt recently, and at times it seems like they miss more often than they should, even from their best free throw shooters.

But hey, they’re freebies. Uncontested, standardized free looks at the basket. The best teams take advantage when they get to the line and hit their free throws. I suspect that tonight’s game will be close. Northwestern has already shown that they can hang with talented teams, and despite two rough losses, they’ll give the Panthers some matchup problems tonight.

If this game winds up being close–which I suspect it will–Pitt’s ability to continue to shoot free throws at a high level could swing the game one way or the other. And that’s not just true for tonight, but also as we head into meaningful ACC conference play.

That’s it for our game preview today. The game will be televised on FS1 at 8:30 p.m., with a radio broadcast on 93.7 The Fan. Check back in with Dream Backfield after the game for some post-game analysis of tonight’s game!