After coming back to beat Louisville and then decimating Georgia Tech, No. 2 UVa is back in action tomorrow when the Wahoos host lowly Pittsburgh (2 p.m., Raycom).
It appears to be a lopsided matchup for UVa (25-2, 13-2 ACC) which, as the current odds-on favorite to win the league, will be a big favorite over the Panthers. After finally jettisoning Kevin Stallings last year, the Panthers have struggled mightily under Jeff Capel despite a decent start to the season.
With 11 straight losses and the bottom nowhere in sight, tomorrow's game will be very much about how open the Cavaliers leave the door and what sort of lineup combinations they decide to roll with.
Pittsburgh Panthers (12-16, 2-13 ACC)
Head coach: Jeff Capel, 10th year (174-126 overall, 12-16 in one year at Pitt)
Series: UVa leads the all-time series 14-4.
Last Meeting: The Cavaliers beat the Panthers 66-37 in Pittsburgh last season.
Three Things We Know
1. Pitt is in freefall after a promising start to ACC play.
Expectations weren’t exactly high for the Panthers coming into the season, coming off of a winless ACC campaign in 2017-18, which led to Stallings’ dismissal. He was replaced by Capel, who spent the last few years bringing top talent to Duke as Coach K’s lead assistant. And while they had a few setbacks, it seemed like Capel had engineered a quick turnaround for the Panthers after the first half of the season. Pitt opened up the season with a 12-5 overall record and a 2-2 mark in ACC games. Wins over tournament-bound Louisville and FSU were impressive, and it looked like Pitt might be a bubble team with an outside chance to get into the NCAA Tournament. But then the bottom fell out. Since beating FSU on January 14th, the Panthers have dropped their last 11 games and simply haven’t been competitive in the process. Five of Pitt’s 11-straight losses came by double digits, including its most recent setback on Wednesday night at Clemson.
2. The Panthers have struggled on the offensive end, specifically shooting the ball.
After playing the worst offense in the ACC on Wednesday night, UVa will face another team that is struggling to score points. Pitt ranks 168th nationally in adjusted offensive efficiency on the season and 13th in the ACC in conference games only. Pittsburgh ranks near or at the bottom of the conference in nearly all offensive categories: 14th in effective field goal percentage, 14th in two-point field-goal percentage (43 percent), and 12th in the league in 3-point shooting (30.6 percent). The Panthers don’t shoot the ball well from the free-throw line either and they turn the ball over on 19.3 percent of their possessions. One area where Pitt excels is getting to the line. In ACC games, the Panthers have gotten to the line more than any other team on a per-possession basis, and they get 24.1 percent of their points at the line which is third-most in Division I.
3. Pitt has a young team, but a lot more talent than they had last season.
Capel’s top priority when arriving at Pitt was to upgrade the roster and make the Panthers a more competitive team in the ACC. So far, he has already brought more talent to the Steel City than Stallings had to work with last year and more big-time recruits will likely head to Pitt in the years to come. Unfortunately for Capel and the Panthers, they will have to take their lumps as those talented but young players mature and adjust to college basketball. This season the Panthers have three freshmen that play significant roles and will be leaned on heavily tomorrow afternoon. Point guard Xavier Johnson, an Arlington native, is the team’s leading scorer, averaging 16.5 points per game. He has done a nice job running the offense for Capel, and has been the team’s primary distributor averaging 4.5 assists per contest. Johnson does turn the ball over four times per game, which exemplifies the learning curve for him and the rest of his young teammates. Fellow guard Trey McGowens is third on the team in scoring at 11.8 points per game and 6-foot-6 freshman Au’Diese Toney is a more physical presence on the wing, averaging 7.9 points and 5.8 boards per game.
