Here's what Jeff Capel believes is necessary for Pitt to become a 'really good' team

Pitt won 22 games in 2023-2024, and perhaps to an outsider that seems like a nice season.

In another world, at another time, maybe.

It’s almost three times the victory total in former Pitt coach Kevin Stallings’ last season (2017-18), and more than the total Jeff Capel’s teams collected during the 2020-21/2021-2022 seasons — before Pitt got good.

Yet it really is just a tick above mediocre.

That number of victories wasn’t enough to get Pitt into the NCAA Tournament. Clearly, by any definition, it wasn’t what Capel likes to refer to as “really good.”

Capel said Thursday that Pitt has big goals, and he understands how to reach them. Sustaining intensity on both ends of the floor for 40 minutes is how the “really good” teams do it.

“It’s hard, but the really good teams understand how to do it. The really good players understand how to do it,” he said. “They understand how to play through tired. We’re trying to become a really good team. We’re getting closer to that.”

The quest continues Saturday at Wake Forest (15-6, 7-3) in a difficult road test versus a team that won six consecutive games against ACC opponents from Dec. 31 through Jan. 21. Through most of that time span, Pitt lost four in a row.

The goal for the Panthers (14-6, 5-4) is to build on their modest two-game winning streak and rise among the best teams in the conference.

“Hopefully, we’re building on what we’ve done the past two games,” said Capel, who (like any coach) takes nothing for granted.

He hopes to see the same dogged determination that helped his players come up with loose balls and rebounds late in the 73-65 victory Tuesday against North Carolina. He wants his players to sense when they’re tired — and ignore it.

“Normally, when you’re tired, you get inward,” he said. “When you get inward or tired, I was taught — and I didn’t do this well as a freshman (at Duke); as I got older I figured it out — you talk more. Then, your mind is not thinking about being tired.”

Fighting through fatigue shouldn’t be difficult for a veteran team such as Pitt.

• Point guard Jaland Lowe filled a key role as a freshman last season. He’s only 20, but he’s playing nearly 36 minutes and scoring 17.6 points per game.

• Seniors Damian Dunn, Zack Austin and Ishmael Leggett have been part of college basketball teams for several years. Austin and Leggett were freshmen in 2020; Dunn started his career a year before that.

• Guillermo and Jorge Diaz Graham and Cameron Corhen have played nearly three seasons beyond high school.

The game against North Carolina turned into a rousing success, putting a blue blood program away with superior hustle in tense moments. It wasn’t always pretty, and Pitt had a few lulls. In the end, however, Capel liked the way the Panthers played and fought.

“We have to start better,” he said. “I don’t like the way we started (the game) or the way we started the second half (giving up uncontested points). We have to understand what our opponent is trying to do to us.

“One of the things each opponent has tried to do, especially with our backcourt, is to be super physical. We talked about it, but we didn’t really do it right away. We got an out-of-bounds called on us on the side, and our immediate reaction is to turn to the ref and (say), ‘They pushed us.’ ”

Capel doesn’t want to hear those excuses.

“They’re going to push you. We have to know that. We have to be prepared for that, and we have to attack it,” he said.

As it turned out, Pitt turned a 10-point deficit late in the first half into two at the break. The Panthers started slowly in the second half, but they turned up the defensive intensity and held the Tar Heels to 16 points in the last 18:26. That’s less than a point per minute. Pitt will win a lot of games playing similar defense.

“We adjusted in the last 3 1/2 minutes of the first half, and we stuck with that in the second half,” Capel said. “Proud of our guys for being able to make the adjustment.”

Said Corhen: “We have a lot of fighters, a lot of dudes who don’t put their heads down in tough moments.”