PITTSBURGH (93.7 The Fan) – At times it was ugly Saturday afternoon at the Petersen Events Center. Notre Dame (12-15, 3-11 ACC) made a furious run late in the game, but Pitt (10-17, 3-11 ACC) held on to break a five-game losing streak in a 73-68 win.
“Really proud of our guys,” said Pitt head coach Jeff Capel. “It was a great win for us. Obviously, we haven’t won in a while, but I thought we did a lot of good things on the court today to allow us to win. I thought our defense in the first half was terrific. I thought we defending the three well today.”
“Listening to the scout, I said in past interviews that we didn’t lock in and listen,” said freshman Roman Siulepa who finished with 22 points, seven rebounds, three steals and three assists. “I think together we knew what we meant to do on the court and it helped.”
One of the best three-point shooting teams in the ACC, the Fighting Irish missed 29, finishing at 24%, 9-38 from beyond the arc, including 2-18 in the first half. Panthers held one of its better games from deep while hitting 11 threes (46%), tying for most during conference play this season.
Four of those threes came from Nojus Indrusaitis, who finished with a career high 17 points (4-6 from 3).
“I look at Nojus like a freshman,” Capel said. “He didn’t play a lot of minutes last year. He was in a great program (Iowa State), but when you don’t play, the game reps are very, very different than what you are doing in practice.”
“He’s a young man that’s talented, but he gets down on himself like most freshmen do, even though he’s a sophomore. His teammates really believe in him. We as a coaching staff believe in him, Nojus has to believe in himself all the time, not drop his head when he makes mistakes.”
“My big thing with him is to play strong. Have a strong face, strong defensively, not get down on yourself and it was good to see him do that this afternoon.”
“Staying aggressive, shooting when I’m open and trying to attack and create for others,” Indrusaitis said. “I feel that’s our game plan and happy we won.”
It was a game the Panthers really needed to have a shot at the ACC Tournament. With its size now at 18, the conference has limited the post-season tourney to the top 15 teams.
Pitt ties Notre Dame with three conference wins which puts them 16th in the conference ahead of Boston College and Georgia Tech. The next highest teams, as of the end of the Pitt game Saturday, are Wake Forest and Stanford with five conference victories. Panthers are at Stanford Wednesday night at 8p with Bill Hillgrove and Curtis Aiken starting Panthers pregame at 7:30 on 93.7 The Fan.
Notes
· Pitt held a 23-1 edge in fast break points
“I think we showed when we did rebound we were able to get back in transition and play against a defense that’s not set and get some easy baskets,” Capel said.
· Pitt had 16 assists on 22 made baskets, one of those assists by the point guard
“I thought in the second half, we did a great job of moving it. Sharing the ball, understanding what exactly we were looking for and what we were trying to get out of our offense and then our guys stepped up and made shots,” Capel said.
· Panthers gave up 16 offensive rebounds, but only nine second-chance points
· Cam Corhen had 13 points, eight rebounds and made 7 of 8 free throws in a game-high 37 minutes and 50 seconds of playing time.
· The 17 bench points were the most by the Panthers since the win over Wake Forest, all of those points were by Indrusaitis as Pitt played only six players
· Panthers had a rare edge in free throw percentage 67% (18-27) to 50% (7-14)
Season talk
“This has not gone anywhere near how any of us thought it would be,” Capel said. “It’s been challenging. It’s been frustrating. It’s been hard. The thing that I’ve been grateful of and appreciate is that our guys have shown up and fought and battled every game. There has been one game in conference where we haven’t and that was Louisville, but the other games we fought, we battled.”
“To lose five straight, these young guys deal with things very differently than I do or maybe other adults. I can separate from it. I can get away from it. I know what is probably out there, but I can get away from it, but they can’t. For them to continue to show up with a great attitude and to try to work, as a coach, I’m grateful to that and I think it speaks to the culture that we’ve built here.”
“We’ve been thrown a lot of adversity this year and all of us will be better for it. The players will be better for it. We’ll be better for it as coaches. We are learning some lessons and we will use it all to help us get better and grow as a team and as men.”