Takeaways: Pitt Squandered Big Opportunity Against No. 11 Duke

PITTSBURGH — It’s hard to get down about a loss to the No. 11 team in the country, especially when that team has an un-characteristically great shooting night.

But Tuesday night’s loss to Duke has left an ugly mark on Pitt fans’ minds since the final buzzer. Actually, since way before the final buzzer.

Pitt came out with some energy, at least, in warmups. The stadium was buzzing.

However, Pitt looked overmatched from the moment that it surrendered an early 6-2 lead to the Blue Devils in the first three minutes. Duke was forcing Pitt to take difficult shots, and the Blue Devils were finding clean looks on the other end — two layups and a pull-up jumper.

Then came the threes. Jeremy Roach, Tyrese Proctor, and Jared McCain each hit threes over the next four minutes, extending Duke’s lead up to eight with 13:53 to go. The Blue Devils kept their foot on the gas throughout the remainder of the half, immediately silencing the record-setting Oakland Zoo and remainder of the Pitt crowd. In just 14 minutes of game time, Duke had already built a 20-point lead. The crowd was silent. The players on the floor, for Pitt, looked hopeless.

Duke came into the game shooting 49% from the field and 37% from three-point range, which are pretty impressive numbers. But the Blue Devils came into the Petersen Events Center and blew those numbers out of the stadium pretty quickly. In the first half alone, Duke hit 18 of its 30 shot attempts (60%) and nine of its 17 three-point tries (53%). It wasn’t just some miraculous shooting night for the Blue Devils, too. These were, for the most part, elite-level looks at the rim.

The attempts that Duke was taking were wide open, and like good teams (with future pros) do, the Blue Devils made sure to convert on them.

Throughout the second half, Duke did not shoot as well as it did in the first. However, the Devils once again out-rebounded the Panthers and continued to look to Filipowski to put this game away. Offensively, Pitt’s guards struggled to find success, and the Blue Devils locked up Blake Hinson. Zack Austin led the team with 11 points, and was the only player to make more than four field goals.

By the seven-minute mark, most of the Zoo was already back in their dorms and off-campus houses.

Pictured: A near-empty Oakland Zoo with more than seven minutes remaining in Pitt’s game against Duke on 1/9/24.

It was this — not just that the Panthers lost to No. 11 Duke, but how they lost to No. 11 Duke, that disappointed the fan base.

“It wasn’t just one thing that beat us tonight,” Austin said after the game. “I think everything. They just wanted it more tonight.”

“I thought that we didn’t give resistance,” Jeff Capel said after the game. “I thought our game plan was sound coming in, but again, that’s on me. I have to do a better job with our guys.”

FILIPOWSKI IS ON ANOTHER LEVEL

Both Pitt and Duke started 7-foot sophomores in Tuesday night’s game, as Guillermo Diaz-Graham got the nod from Capel, and Kyle Filipowski anchored down low for Jon Scheyer’s Blue Devils.

However, one of the bigs, Filipowski, showed that he is on a complete other level skill-wise playing the position.

The Duke star missed his first shot of the game — a layup. However, he quickly jumped back up at the rim to grab an offensive rebound and put the ball in the basket. 2-0, Duke led.

“We haven’t played anyone like him,” Capel said. “He’s incredibly unique. He was the rookie of the year last year and he’s gotten better as the preseason player of the year. When you have a guy that’s that big, that can score it inside, and when he’s shooting the basketball like he shot it tonight, he’s very difficult to guard.”

Filipowski proceeded to make his next 11 shots from the field. His next 11. Four of those were threes. Yes, the 30% three-point shooter hit all four of his attempts from outside. He dominated in every facet of the game, aside from his five turnovers. Filipowski is surely an NBA Draft prospect, and I don’t think anyone came into this game expecting Diaz-Graham to be on his level just yet. However, Filipowski showed on Tuesday night that he is one of the most talented players in the country, and that he, alone, is on a complete other level than Pitt’s bigs.

Pitt has grabbed 40+ rebounds in nine games. However, in four of Pitt’s five ACC games, it has collected less than 40 boards — including a mere 26 against the Blue Devils.

“They dominated us there,” Capel said about the rebounding effort. “Those guys are big, they’re athletic. Mitchell and Filipowski have great second jumps. They shoot and they follow it right away. We have to get all five guys in there for us to rebound, we can’t have just two or three guys.”

FRESHMEN GROWING PAINS

Jaland Lowe’s carrying violation with just under 11 minutes left summarized the night for Pitt’s young guards.

Dribbling near the top of the key and about to kickstart a play, Lowe made the careless mistake of carrying. It was that kind of night for the young guards leading the Panthers in just their second start together. The Blue Devil guards locked them up. With quick, aggressive switching on screens, Duke forced Pitt’s guards to feel uncomfortable for almost the entirety of the game. Even when Lowe or Carrington used their strengths to blow by a Duke defender, the Blue Devils still managed to force tough shots at the rim and get a hand up on outside jumpers.

Jeremy Roach, Caleb Foster, and Jared McCain easily won the battle of the back courts, as the three combined for 29 points and 13 assists for the Blue Devils on the offensive end, too.

“I think Duke played well defensively, they had a sense of urgency to guard him. They switched ball screens with their starting group. When Ryan Young came in, they went to a drop coverage. They were very physical, they have great size, and they contested shots.”

But these are the learning experiences necessary for the young duo of Carrington and Lowe. It was never going to be a perfect season for the pair — although it felt like it after Carrington’s season-opening triple double and Lowe’s recent emergence off the bench. The reality is that these two guards have as much talent at their age as arguably anyone in the conference. They need time, and more importantly, they need these sorts of experiences, to grow.

Less than one year before Tuesday night’s game, the pair was visiting Pitt — as high school seniors — to watch Pitt’s veterans play at the Pete.

This photo was taken less than one year ago today, when Bub Carrington, Jaland Lowe, and Marlon Barnes were in high school

Tonight, Carrington and Lowe are starting against Duke. pic.twitter.com/Uvrb8IYZkQ

— George Michalowski (@MichalowskiCBB) January 10, 2024

Now, in their rookie years, they are going through the same growing pains that the guards of the past — Cummings, Burton, Elliott, and Sibande — went through years ago at times.

“I don’t believe in burning the tape,” Capel said. “I think you learn from every experience that you go through. My dad used to have a saying, ‘Sometimes you’re the bug, sometimes you’re the windshield.’ You learn from it all. Today, we were the bug. We got splattered all over the windshield. He would say to me, regardless of what happens, you’ve got to wipe that you-know-what off and get back going. That’s what we have to do. We have to learn from this, we have to play harder, we have to be more physical, we can’t let guys just take the ball from us. We have to move more, we have to be able to adapt when teams do something different.”