A building that 10 months ago was showering boos upon a team that retreated from the court at halftime with seven points scored and a 23-point deficit erupted with joy Monday night as the clock approached 9:15 p.m. and the time remaining on the scoreboard crept toward 0:00.
A Pitt team that last season couldn’t muster a single win against a conference opponent was about to get its second victory in four tries this season, opening up a lead large enough against a top-15 Florida State team that the Panthers were able to bring in their walk-ons and most sparingly used players for the final minute. A chant of “We Want Duke” — a reference to college basketball’s No. 1 team that doubles as something of a national phenomenon — even broke out of the Pitt student section as the cheers amplified and the second surprising win in the past six days neared a refreshingly anticlimactic end.
As Jeff Capel absorbed the scene from his spot on the Panthers sideline at Petersen Events Center, taking in whatever he could from his team’s 75-62 win against the No. 11-ranked Seminoles, he was reminded of why he was standing there in the first place.
“I loved the energy that’s in the building,” Capel said. “That’s the way I remember this program and it’s one of the reasons why I wanted to come here. I remember what it has been and I know therefore what it can become again.”
WE HERE‼️#ZooEra #H2P pic.twitter.com/sh2AByx84i
— Pitt Basketball (@Pitt_MBB) January 15, 2019
That goal is well underway — and is being approached at a rate much quicker than anyone, perhaps even the team’s players and coaches, could have ever anticipated.
In a season full of close calls against ranked teams — a one-point loss in November at Iowa, a six-point setback Saturday at N.C. State — Pitt not only broke through for the biggest win of Capel’s burgeoning tenure, but it did so with relative comfort, building a double-digit lead in the final eight minutes to snap an 11-game losing streak to opponents ranked in the top 15 of the major national polls.
Behind 30 points from Trey McGowens and 18 from Xavier Johnson, the two brightest stars on a suddenly promising roster, the Panthers were able to wear down the Seminoles. With their two best players providing the scoring, they mitigated Florida State’s substantial size difference by going right at its tallest players, driving into them, drawing contact and going to the free-throw line as they have done so often and so effectively this season. They attempted a season-high 46 free throws, making 38 of them, with McGowens (18 of 19) and Johnson (10 of 10) accounting for 29 of those shots.
“Really just fearless, I guess,” McGowens said. No matter how big, I’m just going to compete and then you’re just going to have to make a great play, like [West Virginia big man Sagaba] Konate did. That’s what coach says, make them make a better play, so that’s really what we’ve been trying to do.”
Those free throws also helped buoy a Pitt offense that shot just 34.8 percent from the field, though its defense performed admirably as the game wore on, forcing the Seminoles to miss 26 of their 34 shots in the second half.
In a game they led for more than 25 minutes, the Panthers nursed a two-point advantage, 51-49, after a dunk from Florida State’s Christ Koumadje with 9:59 remaining. From that point, McGowens took over, scoring seven unanswered points to put his team up nine. The Seminoles wouldn’t get within five for the rest of the game, a threat that lasted only 56 seconds before Pitt once again went up by three possessions.
For McGowens, the late push gave him at least 30 points for the second time in his past three games. After no freshman had scored that many points in a game in the more than 110 years of Pitt basketball history, McGowens did so twice in five days.
Florida State entered the game on a quick turnaround, traveling hundreds of miles two days after grueling and potentially exhausting two-point loss to Duke. To coach Leonard Hamilton, that only played so much of a role.
“As a coach, you don’t ever really want to accept that,” Hamilton said. “That was an emotional loss for us, but that’s part of what you have to prepare yourself for in the ACC. There’s no doubt we were extremely disappointed, but Pitt lost a game Saturday, too. They bounced back and we didn’t.”
What Hamilton had seen Monday, particularly from a team with three freshmen in the starting lineup, had impressed him too much to devalue his opponent’s win. He saw a program that, thanks to Capel, has regained the sense of swagger it carried as a badge of honor for so many years.
Whether it was the crowd, an audience of 6,780 that seemed like double that at certain moments, or the second win in the past week against a top-30 team, it almost, almost felt like old times. A team that entered ACC play looking to survive can now imagine.
“If we fight and we can play with some semblance of intelligence, we’ll have a chance,” Capel said of Pitt’s remaining schedule. “There are teams we’ll play against that are more talented than us. That’s the reality. But that doesn’t mean they’re better teams.”
Craig Meyer: cmeyer@post-gazette.com and Twitter @CraigMeyerPG
First Published: January 15, 2019, 2:23 a.m.
