PITTSBURGH (93.7 The Fan) – Pitt junior Xavier Johnson didn’t start for the second time in his career Wednesday night hosting Virginia Tech. He responded with 32 points, 7 assists and 5 rebounds in an 83-72 victory ending a three-game losing streak. Oh, and Johnson had a pair of steals.
“It helped me relax, to be honest,” Johnson said of not starting. “I saw what they were doing defensively and offensively and when I came in the game, everything seemed to be slow. That’s why my pace was different today.”
“Xavier was incredible,” said head coach Jeff Capel. “Played under control, played with speed, with force, but also with pace. He changed his pace. He was in control the whole game.”
“I don’t think his mission was to score 32. I think it was just for us to play really well. He’s really, really important for us. He has the ability to be really, really good.”
“I’ve seen him erupt like that a couple of times, especially freshman year,” said forward Au’Diese Toney. “It was a matter of time before he displayed it again.”
“I felt like I hadn’t performed the way I was supposed to perform lately,” Johnson said. “To me, it just woke me up and made me more humble and ready to play.”
Edgy practices
Capel said he told Xavier and Ithiel Horton, who responded with 15 points, they wouldn’t start 10 minutes before the game and that decision came from a couple of intense practices Monday and Tuesday.
“The practices were spirted,” Capel said. “They were competitive. They were tough. There was no complaining. We got after it. We challenged them. We held them accountable. We talked about what we didn’t do and guys responded.”
“They weren’t calling any fouls,” Johnson said about Monday’s practice. “We were all hacking each other and competing. We were back to ourselves. We were all playing with an edge. Coach split the team apart. We were all competing against each other. That’s what made us get our edge back.”
Leadership meeting
Toney said he called a meeting with Justin Champagnie and Johnson and told them both they weren’t being good leaders and neither was he. Johnson said they were all real with each other during the discussion and they believe it impacted the performance Wednesday night.
“We just lost our edge,” Toney said of the last three games. “That is all it was. We got too comfortable and relaxed with it and they just busted it in our mound. We just had to take it on the chin and bounce back from it. That’s what we did.”
“We got back to Pitt ball. That’s being that nitty-gritty, grimey-type guys. That’s the way we played tonight with passion on defense.”
“I thought we fought and looked like the team we’ve been most of the season,” Capel said of his 9-5 overall, 5-4 ACC team. “There was a sense of urgency. We had to fix it and we had a big-time performance tonight. The preparation has to be hard. Mindset has to be right and the discipline has to be there.”
Champagnie doubled again
Not the huge numbers we’ve seen this year, but for the eighth time this season, sophomore forward Justin Champagnie had a double-double, finishing with 10 points and 13 rebounds.
Champagnie has a double-double in every ACC game but two. He was a rebound shy at Miami and two rebounds shy at Wake Forest. The only home games Champagnie didn’t have at least 10 rebounds and 10 points were the first two against St. Francis and Drexel.
They couldn’t miss
There was a stretch in the game starting at 9:01 to go in the second half until 2:11 to play in the game where the Panthers didn’t miss a shot. Including free throws, Pitt made 15 consecutive shots.
Toney had 10 points over that span with Johnson scoring 6, Champagnie with 4, Horton with 3 and Abdoul Karim Coulibaly with 2.
They were (mostly) free
Pitt came into the game the worst free throw shooting team in the ACC and made 22 of 25 Wednesday night.
Schedule changes
Earlier in the week it was announced the Pitt-Florida State game at the Pete Saturday was postponed due to COVID issues with the Seminoles program. After Louisville had similar issues and postponed their game at Virginia Saturday, it was determined that Pitt will just play at Virginia Saturday, February 6 at 4p.
The ACC also announced the Pitt will now play a game on Valentine’s Day at Georgia Tech, also at 4p.
So the Panthers next 3 games are as follows
· Saturday, February 6 at Virginia at 4p
· Wednesday, February 10 at Louisville at 9p
· Sunday, February 14 at Georgia Tech at 4p
I would spell out games past that, but as Capel said after the game.
“We think we know who we play, but hell everything can change by the time we get to Saturday.”