Takeaways: Pitt vs. Nicholls State – Nov. 9, 2019

Pitt dropped a game at the Petersen Events Center in November for just the third time ever on Saturday, as they lost 75-70 to the Nicholls State Colonels.

Pitt took a very early lead with a 1-0 edge after Xavier Johnson hit a free throw to kick off the game. That would be their only lead of the game though, as Nicholls State took the lead on their next possession and never looked back. Pitt never regained the lead, and never even pulled into a tie with the Colonels.

Nicholls had taken Illinois to the wire just a few days prior to their matchup with Pitt, falling to the Illini 78-70 in overtime. While the Colonels have played well to start the season and might be better than their no. 273 KenPom ranking might suggest, this was still a game that the Panthers should have won on their home court.

Film study

As a disclaimer for the film review of the Pitt-Nicholls game, I must say that this game was broadcast on ACCNX, which is the extension of the new ACC Network. I do not have access to ACCNX, and instead followed the game by listening to Bill Hillgrove on 93.7 the Fan and following live on Sidearm Stats. As a result, the only clips that I was able to pull were from the condensed game on the ACC Digital Network.

Apologies for that, since there were surely several other plays that I would have liked to break down from today’s game. Regardless, there were still some interesting moments from today’s game that we can analyze here at Dream Backfield.

First, I want to take a look at a broken pick-and-roll play that Pitt attempted to run early in the first half. As we can see, Trey McGowens motions toward Eric Hamilton, who runs up to set a screen for McGowens. However, McGowens starts to break away before Hamilton gets set for the screen, and he’s actually still about five feet away at the time. Once McGowens broke, Hamilton’s defender stuck with McGowens and the play resulted in a trap and steal for Nicholls State, as McGowens had absolutely nowhere to go with the ball.

As I discussed following the Pitt’s win on Wednesday, Pitt had very little luck with pick-and-rolls against Florida State, and this is another example of just why that is. Teams are keyed in on McGowens and Xavier Johnson’s tendency to try to create points by driving the basketball. As we saw against Florida State, teams seem to be willing to double the ball-handler off of screens with some level of confidence that Pitt will not make the pass to the cutting offensive player. In this instance, that worked in spades for Nicholls, as McGowens never looked Hamilton’s way, and the ball was taken away before he had much of a chance to react.

This play was a mess from start to finish. To more effectively use screens, Pitt needs to vary its offensive approach off of screens to more than simply an attempt to drive to the basket. Otherwise, teams will continue to double the ball-carrier, which will be McGowens and Johnson more often than not, and dare them to make a play.

Next, we have a clip of Pitt running its offense against Nicholls’ zone defense. Nicholls is running a 2-3 zone, and Pitt is attacking with a pretty standard set where they have three players outside the circle, one player at the high post, and one player on the low block. As I noted in my write-up after the Florida State game, I expected that we would see Justin Champagnie playing at the high post against the zone defense, and here he is.

This play starts with the ball in McGowens’ hands, but he quickly hits Ryan Murphy, who is open on the wing. Dexter McClanahan and Jeremiah Buford both race over toward Murphy, and Buford sells out to try to block a shot attempt. Murphy sells the fake and finds a wide open Champagnie in the high post with a bounce pass.

Pitt is in pretty good shape at this point, because with Buford well out of position, Champagnie can hit either Johnson on the wing, or Terrell Brown on the low block, both of whom are wide open. Champagnie dishes to Brown, who slams it home for an easy couple of points.

For a game that really did not go very well offensively for Pitt from start to finish, this was a really well-executed play that resulted in a high-probability shot and points. They probably won’t see a zone defense as strong as Syracuse’s before conference play, but making good on the opportunities that they get now will pay dividends later as they start to feel more comfortable facing zone looks.

Up next is a look at how Pitt played their zone defense against Nicholls early in the first half. To start the play, Nicholls’ Andre Jones passes to Dexter McClanahan at the top of circle, where McClanahan considers his options. Pitt is playing a 2-3 zone look, and Nicholls is starting their offensive set with four offensive players outside the arc and Warith Alatishe at the high post.

If Nicholls could find a way to get the ball to Alatishe at the high post, Alatishe’s job would be to find an open man around the outside for an open look. However, after McClanahan receives the pass from Jones, Xavier Johnson cheats over toward Alatishe hoping to take away the passing lane. Seeing a newly wide open Jones, McClanahan dishes the ball right back to the wing, where Jones has an open triple.

In that situation, Johnson does the right thing by cheating back toward Alatishe, because the defense wants to take away McClanahan’s ability to get the ball to the high post. He probably cheated just a little bit too much, though, and when McClanahan dished it back to Jones, Johnson didn’t have nearly enough time to get back to the wing before Jones got his shot off.

The team’s overall positioning was pretty good, but a simple mistake like that in the zone can be really costly when you’re up against a team that can shoot really well from the outside. On Saturday, Nicholls shot 11-of-24 from beyond the arc, and they took advantage of what felt like every open look that Pitt gave them.

Finally, I have another clip of Pitt facing Nicholls’ zone. Pitt races up the court and tries to move the ball before the Nicholls’ defense has a chance to get their defense set, and it works. Just a few seconds into the shot clock, McGowens gets the ball to Au’Diese Toney at the top of the circle. Brown posts up against Elvis Harvey Jr. in the paint, while Alatishe is clearly not ready for the defensive possession, as he is just getting his feet set.

Toney passes to Brown in the paint where he has a favorable matchup. Nicholls’ Kevin Johnson sees the pass down to Brown and notices Alatishe out of position, so he races over to try to help Harvey Jr. cover Brown in Alatishe’s zone. At this point, the play is broken for Nicholls, as Pitt has McGowens and Gerald Drumgoole open on each wing. Brown pulls off a really nice finesse move though, taking one step into the paint and then spinning away from Harvey Jr. to get an easy bucket at the rim. This was a nice example of Pitt using tempo to catch Nicholls out of position and break the zone.

The rotation

After game two of the season, it is becoming increasingly clear that Jeff Capel trusts certain players more than others, and with one exception, it really is not surprising which players those are. For starters, Capel will continue to ride Johnson and McGowens as far as they can take the team. Today, those players could not take the Panthers as far as Capel would have liked, with Johnson finding himself in foul trouble early on and being forced to ride the bench for a significant portion of the second half.

The team does not seem to play as well when McGowens runs the point, which he had to do while Johnson was on the bench, and that was reflected at times during the game. Of course, Johnson has had his own problems running the point this year so far, as he still tries at times to rely a bit too much on his own athleticism to finish plays, and that has resulted in turnovers in a big way. Through two games, Johnson and McGowens have combined for 17 turnovers and just 11 assists. They will need to flip those numbers around for Pitt to realize its potential moving forward.

Capel has also shown a remarkable level of trust in Brown, who was utilized last year primarily as one-half of a two-headed creature with Kene Chukwuka that was largely ineffective, but needed to play because of how small Pitt’s team was. Brown showed flashes toward the end of last season, though, and looks like a completely different player to start this season. Through two games, Brown is averaging 25 minutes per game and has exactly zero turnovers. Brown has also continued to show excellent skill as a shot blocker, as he posted five against Nicholls State, which brought him to 112 for his career. Capel played Brown for a career-high 28 minutes on Saturday, including for the entire second half.

Finally, Murphy has quickly earned Capel’s trust as a key cog in the Pitt basketball machine. Murphy entered the game as Pitt’s sixth man with 16 minutes and 57 seconds left in the first half, and he never left the game. That’s right, Murphy played 37 straight minutes to close this game out. And how could Capel take him out? He shot 10-of-17 from the floor for 28 points, and added five assists. He turned the ball over five times as well, but on a day of sloppy play up and down the court, Murphy was Pitt’s best offensive player today.

Toney also played the entirety of the second half today, and finished with 34 minutes against Nicholls State. While he finished with just 13 minutes against Florida State, it seems that Toney was trusted to play tight defense and give Pitt a chance to come back in the second half. While his offense hasn’t come along as Pitt fans would have hoped, Toney is excellent defensively, and today was no different. While Capel’s staff surely hopes the offense will ultimately turn the corner, Toney will earn his minutes for now on the defensive side of the ball.

Champagnie has also quickly earned significant playing time, as he logged 27 minutes today following his 23-minute appearance in his debut against Florida State. Champagnie struggled shooting today, finishing just 1-for-6 from the floor, but his length and athleticism makes him an asset to this Pitt team. Drumgoole and Hamilton, despite starting Saturday’s game, finished with just 13 minutes and eight minutes, respectively, and Hamilton did not see the court in the second half.

What to look for moving forward

Abdoul Karim Coulibaly finally made his debut on Saturday, as he played for the final four minutes of the first half against Nicholls State. He did not see the court in the second half, but that is likely because Pitt was playing from behind for virtually the entire game and Capel wanted to go with the guys that he trusts to give them their best chance to come back and win the game.

I expect Coulibaly to see more time on the floor on Tuesday, Nov. 11, when Pitt faces off against Robert Morris. Further, I expect to see Pitt play some hard-nosed defensive basketball on Tuesday. Capel could not have been happy with his team’s defensive effort on Saturday, especially in the first half when Pitt allowed Nicholls to shoot 50 percent from the field, including 50 percent from three-point land. That will surely be a point of emphasis for the team heading into their first road game of the season.

After Tuesday’s game, Pitt faces West Virginia in the Backyard Brawl on Friday, Nov. 14. West Virginia forced Pitt to turn the ball over 24 times during last year’s contest, their worst number of the 2018-19 season. Against Nicholls, Pitt turned the ball over a whopping 21 times. If they struggle to protect the basketball against West Virginia’s press the way that they did against Nicholls State on Saturday, Pitt will likely find themselves on the short end of that stick.

At the end of the day, no matter how bad the loss was, it was just one loss. Pitt is still 1-0 in ACC play, and has shown a lot of potential in the early going this year. Hopefully this will be a teachable moment for the young squad, who will surely continue to improve as out-of-conference play continues.

Make sure to keep checking in with Dream Backfield for more coverage of Pitt’s upcoming games over the next few days.