Column | Capel needs to add depth, more shooters before he can expect Pitt to win on the road

Pitt men’s basketball won just three ACC road games since Jeff Capel took the head coaching job in 2018. During that span of time, the Panthers seemed to struggle with similar aspects of the game in nearly every contest away from the Petersen Events Center. 

Wednesday night’s 91-75 loss to Wake Forest certainly fits the script. The blowout loss was solidified before the second half even started. While the Demon Deacons are one of the best teams in the conference this season, a loss of such a dramatic scale brought light to some of Pitt’s biggest weaknesses as a team, despite some great individual performances.

Wake Forest played one of its most efficient games of the season, shooting 54.9% from the field and 51.7% from 3-point range. But these eye-catching numbers shouldn’t be dismissed as a hot shooting night for an excellent team. The Panthers showed an inability to make necessary adjustments, and more importantly, failed to respond with offense of their own.

Pitt conceded a rapid 16-3 run in the first four minutes of play and never recovered. Early deficits and scoring droughts have become commonplace for the Panthers throughout Capel’s tenure. When these struggles occur on the road, it makes it extraordinarily hard to recover.

In the games Pitt has won this season, it’s done so with great defense. Wake Forest’s 91 points were the most the Panthers have allowed all season. For a team that often needs to manufacture offense through forcing turnovers and rebounding the basketball to create transition opportunities, things were certainly lacking on the defensive end.

Wake Forest’s perimeter players, namely graduate transfer guard Alondes Williams, had no problem creating penetration and finding open three point shooters, along with occasional open opportunities around the rim. The Pitt defense didn’t disrupt the Demon Deacon offense in any way, as Wake Forest consistently generated good shots and capitalized on them.

Despite Wake’s scorching hot start, Pitt still had plenty of opportunities to respond and gradually reduce the deficit. Instead, the Panthers shot just 30% from the field in the first half and entered the halftime break down 22 points. While that mark dramatically improved to 64% in the second half, Pitt’s defense never adjusted.

Perhaps the most visible disparity between the two teams was their ability to shoot the basketball from 3-point range. Wake Forests knocked down 28 field goals, 15 of which came from beyond the arc, whereas Pitt made just seven three pointers of their own. Even with junior guard Ithiel Horton back with the team, who attempted just one 3-pointer himself, the Panthers failed to space the floor and remained a non-factor from 3-point range.

One player who did not struggle to shoot the ball, however, was sophomore guard Femi Odukale. In perhaps his most impressive game as a Panther, Odukale shot 10 of 14 from the field, while converting two of his three shots from long distance. While there were very few bright spots for Pitt, Odukale was certainly one of them, as he looked the most confident and aggressive he has all season.

Star sophomore center John Hugley also turned in a strong performance after struggling offensively in the first half. While Hugley’s shots didn’t fall, he rebounded the ball extremely well in the first half and allowed the offense to come to him in the second half rather than forcing the issue himself. He finished with 17 points and 12 rebounds.

Suffering a blowout loss despite two impressive individual performances highlights one of Pitt’s biggest limitations –– its depth. While Capel has had to find solutions for the absence of Nike Sibande all season, the roster is simply not as deep as anticipated. The Panthers received just 12 minutes from frontcourt players off the bench against Wake Forest, leaving Hugley and graduate transfer forward Mouhamadou Gueye to combine for 62 minutes played.

When the starting lineup is struggling, the Panthers have no answers off the bench, particularly offensively. While almost the entire roster is eligible to return, Capel still needs to work on immediate solutions through the transfer portal to bolster the depth and drastically improve his team’s shooting ability.

Overall, disregarding some individual success from Pitt’s star players, Wednesday night’s game exemplified just how large the gap is between the Panthers and the top teams in the conference on both sides of the ball. To begin to close that gap, the Panthers must become more consistent defensively, which they’ve clearly shown the ability to do. But more importantly, they need to greatly improve offensively at all three levels.

While this is certainly not something that will improve overnight, or even this season, Capel needs to focus all of his attention on finding ways to add capable shooters and offensive players to the roster. Until that occurs, the Panthers will continue to lose games against teams like Wake Forest every single time.