At a stoppage in play in Pitt’s 99-80 victory against Gardner-Webb Monday night, an official approached Panthers coach Kevin Stallings with an unexpected compliment.
“These guys must love playing for you,” he said, adding he felt that way because of the freedom the first-year Pitt coach grants his players.
Stallings was quick with a response.
“That’s interesting,” he said, “because their body language looks like they hate playing for me.”
The encounter, brief as it was, was reflective of a night in which everything that unfolded at the Petersen Events Center wasn’t quite as it appeared.
The Panthers might have won by 19 and nearly broken the century mark, but their coach trudged off the court with a more sharply unsatisfied and disappointed feeling than he did for a three-point, double-overtime win against a Mid-American Conference team just three nights ago. What would appear to be an offensive onslaught and comfortable victory to many was, to Stallings, a missed opportunity for a team working to figure itself out under a new coach.
“I was hired to give them the best that I have every day,” he said. “I think the responsibility they have is to give each other the best they have every day. For the most part, they do a really good job of that; today, not so much.”
The reasons for optimism, the kind Stallings offered little of in his postgame news conference, were evident, even with a quick glance at the box score. Pitt was prolific from beyond the 3-point arc, burying half of their 26 attempts. It finished with 35 made shots on 29 assists, showcasing the crisp ball movement they worked all summer on but couldn’t utilize against Eastern Michigan’s zone defense Friday. Eleven different players scored — even little-used walk-on Ryan Seelye -- a group highlighted by Sheldon Jeter’s 14 points and 13 rebounds, and Cam Johnson’s 18 points on 7-of-8 shooting.
To Stallings, those positives belied an uneven, sometimes lethargic performance evidenced by some of the other numbers on that same, otherwise glowing, stat sheet. There were the 19 turnovers, largely the result of careless play, and the 64 percent shooting mark on free throws. The Panthers defense, the source of much of Stallings’ frustration, again failed to impress, giving up 80 points and ample, sometimes seamless scoring opportunities to an overmatched opponent.
The reason for that was clear to players and coaches alike.
“I think some peoples’ energy just wasn’t there,” Jeter said.
The overall lack of effort and intensity isn’t a characteristic of the group Stallings inherited. In fact, he said it was something he largely hadn’t noticed until a practice Sunday and in the shootaround before the game against the Runnin’ Bulldogs (0-2). At the moment, he said, there’s little he can do to fix it beyond addressing it and hoping his veteran-laden team responds as they should.
The game served as something of a lesson about what an overall lack of effort can bring. It was a lesson, fortunately, that came in a win, but it’s one Stallings is hoping his team grasps before an overbearing schedule begins to take shape.
“What you don’t know when you’re young is you don’t realize and don’t understand that you’re incapable of turning it on and off,” Stallings said. “If you allow it to turn off, you can’t just say ‘OK, I’m going to turn it back on.’ Maybe the greatest of the great ones can do that, but I’ve never known of a college player who can.”
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NOTES — Senior forward Mike Young was named the ACC co-player of the week Monday, sharing the award with North Carolina guard Joel Berry II. ... Young didn’t start Monday due to what Stallings described as “a minor infraction.” He ultimately had 18 points and seven rebounds in 15 minutes of play.
Craig Meyer: cmeyer@post-gazette.com and Twitter @CraigMeyerPG.
First Published: November 15, 2016, 1:58 a.m.
Updated: November 15, 2016, 3:53 a.m.