No. 20 Michigan dominates Pitt in Legends Classic

Perhaps Pitt’s coaching staff could accept an early season loss to a top-20 team.

But not the way the Panthers’ 91-60 loss to Michigan unraveled Wednesday night at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, N.Y.

Preparing to face the No. 20 team in the nation was difficult for Pitt’s rebuilt roster that didn’t have its most important interior player — in practice or games — for the previous six weeks. Center John Hugley hurt his knee Sept. 30 and didn’t return to practice until Monday. Hugley started and played 22 minutes Wednesday, scoring nine points with one rebound.

Hugley’s return was the good news, but what especially discouraged associate head coach Tim O’Toole was how Pitt was unable to fight back when Michigan’s offense was rolling in the second half.

Down only six at halftime, Pitt (1-2) allowed Michigan (3-0) to hit 72% of its shots in the second half with no significant retaliation on the scoreboard. The Wolverines took 25 shots after halftime, and 18 were good.

“We were down six at half. We cut it to five, and then the three 3s that they hit (in a span of 1 minute, 26 seconds) just kind of broke our back,” O’Toole said on the postgame show on 93.7 FM. “It’s unfortunate because the reality of the thing is we take a punch and then we don’t have enough ability to fight back and end the drought.

“This is something we are going to have to spend a lot of time (working on) because we have to get stops.”

O’Toole said the game was “no different” than what happened Friday night at Petersen Events Center in an 81-56 loss to West Virginia. Both games were close for part of the first half, but that was the limit of Pitt’s muscle.

Coach Jeff Capel referenced “a glaring hole” in his defense.

“We have to do harder things at a more intense level,” he said. “When adversity hit the past two games, we dropped the rope. There has to be more of a toughness, both mentally and physically, in those moments.”

“We have to be able to stop the bleeding, and we haven’t done it the past two (games),” O’Toole said.

Pitt has lost two of its three games this season by a total margin of 56 points.

“Once the floodgates opened, we couldn’t stop it,” O’Toole said. “The team has no cohesion as you would normally hope this time of year.”

Fixing the problem won’t be easy, and Pitt has little time to do so before it must play VCU at Barclays in the second round of the Legends Classic at 7 p.m. Thursday.

After returning home, Pitt won’t have much time in practice. The Panthers play three games next week: Sunday, Tuesday and Friday against Alabama State, Fairleigh Dickinson and William & Mary. The first ACC game is Dec. 2 at N.C. State.

O’Toole said the return of Hugley gives “everything a little jolt.”

“We’re happy as heck to have him back,” he said. “I do think once we become more familiar with him being back in the lineup and he can log more minutes, then I think you will have a little bit more productivity on the interior.

“I do think, for us, we have to do a better job moving and playing off each other. We are going to have to clean that up.”

The game was an ambitious undertaking for a team with six new players, plus Nike Sibande, who missed almost all of last season with a knee injury.

Hugley’s task, when he was in the game, was to try to neutralize Michigan’s 7-foot-1 All-American center Hunter Dickinson.

“It was not like you were able to ease your way into it. He got thrown into the fire,” O’Toole said.

But the nature of the game meant Wolverines coach Juwan Howard only had to play his big man for 25 minutes. Dickinson had 11 points and seven rebounds.

Three other Wolverines scored in double digits, led by Howard’s freshman son, Jett, who scored 17 points before fouling out.

Koby Bufkin and Joey Baker each scored 14 while hitting a combined 10 shots among 16 attempts.

The game had a good offensive flow in the first half, with Pitt scoring eight of the first 10 points. The teams exchanged punches for a brief time in the first half before Michigan took a 20-19 lead and expanded it to 38-28 before Pitt closed the gap to 38-32 at intermission. In the second half, Michigan outscored Pitt, 53-28.

For the game, Jamarius Burton, Blake Hinson and Greg Elliott led Pitt in scoring with 14, 13 and 12 points. Pitt hit 21 of 50 shots, only 6 of 20 from beyond the 3-point arc.

O’Toole said coaches need to rely on older players Hugley, Burton, Elliott, Hinson and Nelly Cummings to provide leadership in difficult situations.

“You guys are older guys,” O’Toole said. “The young guys don’t know any better. You older guys have to carry the torch.

“When you get hit, you have to hit back. We, quite frankly, didn’t do that.”