On the day he settled into the college basketball history books — going back-to-back with 20/20 games for only the third time in the past 25 years by a Power 5 player — Justin Champagnie said this with a straight face:

“I don’t like to just hog the ball.”

And no one had any reason to doubt him.

While he scored 24 points and grabbed 21 rebounds only three days after he had 20 and 20 against Northwestern, Champagnie also led Pitt with five assists in a 67-50 victory against Gardner-Webb.

Even more amazing, Champagnie committed no fouls in either game while playing 72 minutes and building a stat line that only a coach, specifically Pitt’s Jeff Capel, could appreciate.

“It’s a big-time performance,” Capel said. “I’m probably more impressed with the five assists and only two turnovers and two blocks. He’s a good player, and he has a chance to be a really good player.”

At halftime, Champagnie noticed he had 10 and 10. “I said, ‘I’m going to get it again,’ and I just did.”

Capel knows a little about players with back-to-back 20/20 games. Of the three who have done it since 1995, Capel has coached two of them: Champagnie and Oklahoma’s Blake Griffin in 2008. (Purdue’s Caleb Swanigan did so in 2016.)

He also is only the third Pitt player to do it in the same season, joining DeJuan Blair (2008-09) and Billy Knight (1971-72). He is the first ACC player since Wake Forest’s Tim Duncan (1996-97), who played against Capel.

Champagnie is part of a nice early-season story, but it’s difficult to tell what Capel is building in his third season at Pitt.

The Panthers are 4-1 with a four-game winning streak since the opening-night loss to St. Francis (Pa.), a team that went on to lose four in a row.

But Champagnie, who hit 10 of 20 shots, said whatever is going on, it is better than what he witnessed last season as a freshman.

“We feel more connected,” he said. “There’s nobody on the team going out there to play for themselves, to get their name somewhere.

“It’s more of a team atmosphere. Last year, it was more, ‘I want to do this. I want to do that.’ This year, everybody wants to do everything together. We want to win together. With that being said, everybody gets their own little piece of the pie every day. That’s the way basketball teams work.”

Capel also is far from ready to make any definitive statements about his team, but he did say: “I like where we are.”

“I like the fact we got off the mat from the first game. We could have allowed that to affect us. We’ve gotten better each game. We’ll see what happens as we go forward.

“I think we have a chance to get a lot better. We have to work to earn the right to do that.”

Champagnie’s performance might have made it easy for some to forget Pitt has been playing good defense.

Four days after Capel praised his team for its intense defense against Northwestern, Pitt held Gardner-Webb scoreless for the game’s first 12 minutes, 17 seconds while taking a 14-0 lead. After shooting 53.4% Thursday in an 86-84 loss to Western Kentucky, Gardner-Webb missed its first 18 shots against Pitt.

“Gardner-Webb is a team that runs really good stuff (on offense),” Capel said. “And one of things we wanted to do was make them uncomfortable, try to disrupt their rhythm a little bit, and I thought we did a good job of that.”

Capel said he was proud of his team’s defense at the end of what he termed an emotional week.

“I knew we were at the end of, as my college coach (Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski) used to say, the energy cycle,” Capel said, noting the team arrived home from Northwestern at 4 a.m. Thursday.

“I was really worried about this game. I knew my team was a little bit tired, and I knew human nature would be an opponent. I was proud of the way they came out defensively.”

Meanwhile, Champagnie said the team is coming together at the other end of the court, too.

“Last year, we had a problem with (players shooting too much),” he said. “As a team, we’re trying to fix that. Everybody gets an assist on the board, moves the ball and shares the love.”

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