Road gets tougher as Pitt basketball preps for ACC opener at Virginia

No matter what the Pitt basketball team has been through this season — good or bad — coach Jeff Capel is adamant about the Panthers not dwelling on it.

Not with the ACC opener looming Friday night at Virginia.

“We had a really good practice today, attitudes have been good, excited for the first conference game,” Capel said Thursday before his team’s trip to Charlottesville, Va., for a meeting with the defensive-minded Cavaliers at John Paul Jones Arena.

Pitt (2-5) trails in the series 17-4 and has won just one game in eight chances against Virginia (5-3) in Charlottesville.

“We know they’re going to be extremely physical,” Capel said. “We have to be able to match that. One of the things in what we do is you have to move on. You have to have the ability to move on, and it seems like we’ve done that. Hopefully, it shows (tonight).”

Both teams are coming off one-point losses at home in the Big Ten/ACC Challenge. The Panthers fell to Minnesota, 54-53, and the Cavaliers came up short against Iowa, 75-74, in a game Virginia trailed by as many as 21 points in the first half.

The nonconference schedule has been a bit of a nightmare for Pitt, which also has been beaten at home by The Citadel and UMBC. And while the Panthers played a Big Ten school close Tuesday night, the outcome against Minnesota was still a loss.

Of course, Capel said, he has to “look at some of the things we did well,” but “I’m not satisfied. I’m not happy. It’s a loss.”

And what an excruciating way to lose as Minnesota rallied with Luke Loewe’s late putback with 2 seconds left to drop Pitt’s home nonconference record to 2-4.

“The main thing is that we want to fight every day,” Capel said. “Every time we step out there, we want to fight and try to get better and try to fight together. Guys have had to step up in different roles, guys have had to play more minutes than maybe they anticipated, and certainly we anticipated them, in different positions.”

Before this season, the Panthers had lost just 11 nonconference games in the 20 years since Petersen Events Center opened. But playing with a shortened roster because of the losses of senior guard Nike Sibande (torn ACL) and junior guard Ithiel Horton (suspension), the team’s top returning 3-point threats, and senior guard Jamarius Burton (knee) for the first two games, Pitt has struggled.

Some might say a couple of those home losses this year were to inferior opponents from inferior conferences. Capel argues otherwise, though, especially in the transfer portal era.

“I don’t look at it as people being inferior to us,” he said. “I don’t look at it that way, and I don’t think most coaches do. Maybe the outside world does, but you know, there’s so much parity in college basketball right now, it doesn’t matter the conference, the affiliation or things like that. If you look around the country, a lot of people are getting beat.”

Virginia awaits Pitt with a revamped lineup of its own but with the same stingy strategy that is akin to coach Tony Bennett’s stubborn train of thought. East Carolina transfer Jayden Gardner, a 6-foot-6, 246-pound senior forward, leads the Cavaliers in scoring (14.0 ppg) and rebounding (8.3 rpg).

“A lot of schools have been greatly affected by the transfer portal, by the way the rules changed,” Capel said. “They have some older guys, but they’re new to their system. The style of play is still the same principles, the same core values, but the personnel is just a little bit different.

“Looking at (Gardner) when he was at East Carolina, he scores the basketball and he rebounds at a high level. Everywhere he’s been, he’s been a very efficient scorer.”

One thing with Virginia that certainly appears to be a constant is its stout defense: The Cavaliers are limiting opponents to an average of 56.3 points per game (10th in Division I) and 39.1% shooting (70th), despite giving up a season high in points to Iowa.

“We try not to overload our guys,” Capel said. “We want to try to play to our principles defensively and do the things we do. Obviously, you have a gameplan for a way you want to do things. But we try to keep it simple for our guys and try to show them and teach them with the two days we have.”

Sophomore forward John Hugley leads Pitt in scoring (15.9 ppg) and rebounding (8.1 rpg) and is shooting 55.1% (38 for 69). He has scored at least 20 points in the past two games, including 25 points and 14 rebounds against Minnesota for his third double-double of the season.

But the next-highest scorers managed just six points apiece as Pitt failed to protect a lead, going scoreless in the game’s final three minutes and suffering its third consecutive loss.

“I understand fully that we’re in a tough stretch right now. I get that,” Capel said. “I understand better than anyone, to be quite frank, what we are going through as a team, as a program right now. Like I said after the last game, I’m really proud of them.

“Our guys continue to show up with a good attitude and are trying to get better. I’m a firm believer if we continue to do that, we will get better and better and, eventually, it will equate to wins.”