PITTSBURGH (93.7 The Fan) – Both teams in similar positions with their NCAA Tournament resumes, Georgia Tech held on to win at home 71-65 Sunday after a Pitt second half surge. Some takeaways.
Turnovers
Panthers committed 18 turnovers, 7 of those by Xavier Johnson in 21 minutes of action. They led directly to 18 Yellow Jacket points.
“We talked coming into the game that we had to be strong with the ball,” said head coach Jeff Capel. “They lead the league in steals. We weren’t strong with the basketball. Some of the decision-making wasn’t good. That’s what they do. That’s their defense, they steal the basketball.”
Horton Takes Step
Johnson dealing with four fouls for most of the second half, sophomore guard Ithiel Horton ended up playing 33 minutes. Horton was the Panthers leading scorer with 18 points including 4-8 shooting from three.
“I didn’t feel a lot of pressure,” Horton said. “I felt a lot of responsibility to help keep my team in the game. I didn’t do it alone. Au’Diese came in and stepped up. Justin came in and stepped up. Femi stepped up and ran the one for us. Karim was obviously battling down low. It wasn’t just me, it was everybody who stepped up and kept us in the game.”
“He played well,” Capel said of Horton. “Made some shots for us. Got into a good rhythm there, Ithiel is a good player. We need him to believe all the time he is a good player.”
‘Play Through Contact’
“We have to be able to play through contact,” Capel said. “There was a lot of contact out there today. We have to play through that. We have to finish through contact. We had a couple of opportunities in transition where we have to finish. We get fouled, but we went one for two from the line or 0 for 2. In those situations you have to finish.”
The Pitt head coach then reiterated.
“You have to be able to finish through contact and hopeful if there is a lot of contact, maybe you get a foul call,” Capel said. “Until there was 13 or 15 seconds left they only had four team fouls in the second half. We’re a team that tries to drive the basketball. We have to do a better job of playing through contact. We have to be stronger.”
“I would have liked to have gotten to the foul line a little bit more. We drove it, trying to draw some contact. But I guess they teach their guys greatly not to foul."
T Party
A couple of key technical fouls hurt the Panthers in the second half. The first was on Xavier Johnson, called for a flop after the call went initially on Jose Alvarado but changed during a TV timeout. Johnson immediately went from two fouls to four as the flop adds an additional technical.
Second technical was on Horton following a Justin Champagnie contested basket with 10:58 left as he said what every player on the bench says now a days, ‘and one’.
“It wasn’t even like an aggressive ‘and one’,” Horton said. “It was just like ‘and one’, don’t you see the dude’s draped all over him. ‘And one’.”
“To have an external favor affect the game in a negative way. It really hurts. It really hurts. We have to just stay focused and believe in what we do.”
“Obviously the refs aren’t going to be on our side. Given we are just Pitt. I don’t know why.”
Alvarado would add four points by making all four foul shots off the pair of T’s.
A short time later, Alvarado asked the refs for a foul call. There was no retaliation by the officials.
Up Next
Panthers scheduled for an afternoon weekday game on Wednesday. Panthers host NC State (8-9, 4-8 ACC) at 4:30 as the Wolfpack have lost two straight, latest 69-53 at home against Duke.
NC State also lost leading scorer, 6’5” guard Devon Daniels (16.5ppg, 5.1reb, 48%-FG), for the season after the Wake Forest game on January 27.
Panthers Preview begins at 3:30 Wednesday with former Panther Julius Page and Andrew Fillipponi.
“We are going to continue to keep fighting,” Horton said. “We aren’t done yet.”