Judging by his postgame remarks Saturday, Jeff Capel wouldn’t begrudge anyone for labeling Pitt’s 100-59 beatdown at the hands of Louisville as humiliating.
After all, Capel himself described the loss as “embarrassing,” and there are few other ways to describe a result that ranks in the top five of largest margins of defeat ever suffered by a Pitt men’s basketball squad.
Though some fans may be about ready to give up on the 2025-26 Panthers (and possibly their coach), it’s Capel’s job to turn the page and gear up for Wednesday’s contest at Boston College (8-10, 1-4 ACC).
“You’ve got to flush it,” Capel said Monday during the weekly ACC coaches Zoom conference. “You’ve got to move on. It was one game and just like how we get (players) to flush when you play well. We played really well against Georgia Tech last Wednesday. By the time we got off the plane and got back together the next day, we talked about moving on and flushing.
“Our focus today will be on us and Boston College and starting our preparation for that. We had been playing better, and we had a really bad night against a very good team who played really well. That’s not a recipe for success or looking good. We did not look good, and we did not play well.”
Pitt’s lousy performance versus Louisville, on the heels of a dominant road win at Georgia Tech, must have Capel wondering what version of his team will take the court at Conte Forum in Chestnut Hill, Mass., on Wednesday.
Will it be the one catastrophically out of position defensively and on the glass, as well as almost continuously flustered offensively as was the case at Petersen Events Center last Saturday?
Or can the Panthers (8-10, 1-4) dig deep and rediscover the kind of game they played against the Yellow Jackets, which led them to their first and only ACC league win to date?
Capel will soon have an answer.
“When we’ve been at our best, we’ve really shared the basketball, we’ve played with the necessary force, we’ve been strong and the ball has moved,” he said. “It’s found the right people, and that’s led to us making shots. To me, that’s the formula for us, and then being active defensively and trying to make things difficult.
“Now, that’s easier said than done. That’s where we have to get better, with becoming more consistent, with being more disciplined and being mentally tougher in situations.”
Boston College is coming off an overtime upset of Syracuse, which defeated Pitt on Jan. 10.
For Capel, moving as swiftly as possible from Saturday’s debacle and trying to weave together the better elements of Pitt’s performance so far in-conference are at the forefront as the Panthers hope for a reversal of fortunes versus the Eagles.
“The inconsistencies I think come with inexperience,” Capel said. “I think it comes with our guys wanting to do well, but we panic when things aren’t going too well. Instead of having the discipline to stick with our fundamentals and the things that we work on, sometimes we have guys that think, ‘I have to make a play.’
“That leads to one guy being out of position, affecting the other four guys. It leads to breakdowns we have. If we can get better at that — and a big part of that is mental toughness — we’ll continue to get better.”