Pitt wastes big lead in loss to Wake Forest

The question facing Pitt on Saturday after its 69-65 loss to Wake Forest was this:

What was more distressing?

• Losing to what looks to be a second-tier ACC team. Wake Forest (8-5, 1-2) came into the game ranked 106th in the NCAA Net rankings, 12th in the 15-team conference.

• Or, the way the 14th game of the season unraveled. First, Pitt led 22-6 with 10 minutes, 48 seconds left in the first half. But the Panthers (10-4, 1-2) lost because of what coach Jeff Capel called “slippage” in the fundamentals he cherishes most.

Pitt grew stagnant offensively in the first half with guards Xavier Johnson and Trey McGowens in and out of the lineup with foul trouble. That nearly crippled the Panthers, whose lack of depth also showed when sophomore forward Au’Diese Toney missed the game with an elbow injury. The result was Pitt settling for a 30-27 lead at intermission.

Later, there were defensive lapses that allowed Wake Forest to shoot 50 percent from the field in the second half.

Toney’s absence was felt there, too.

“I knew coming in it was going to be a big thing for us because of rotation with how we like to play,” Capel said.

The leaky defense started Monday while giving up 79 points to Canisius.

“This is two games in a row we haven’t done that … where our defense hasn’t been what it was before we took a (holiday) break,” Capel said.

Eventually, poor shot selection with the game in the balance was the final dagger Saturday.

“You have to play 40 minutes,” Capel said. “There are a lot of things that are required to be good, and we have to do all the time.

“We can’t do them for a 10-minute period, think we can take a break and think that we can just turn it back on again.”

Capel wants his players to talk among themselves, especially while playing defense. He wants them to bring the requisite “discipline and focus” to the game.

“You can’t take a play off,” he said. “You can’t be out of a (defensive) stance. You can’t not talk.

“We have to get back (to) understanding what’s required to be really good.”

For the first 10 minutes, Pitt looked like the far superior team, led by guard Ryan Murphy, who over the holiday took some criticism he read on Twitter into the gym back home in Calabasas, Calif., and polished his shot.

“It was saying, basically, I couldn’t shoot,” he said. “So, I went home and I lived in the gym by my house.”

Murphy said he needs to play with an edge.

“I look like a frat boy,” he said. “I have a comb-over. I’m 6-2, so I feel like every time I go out there, I have to prove everybody wrong.”

Overall, that attitude has worked for him. He was 9 for 32 (28.1%) from the field in games last month against Rutgers, Louisville and Northern Illinois. In the next three, including Saturday, he’s 16 for 31.

Finally, in the second half, Wake Forest noticed. Murphy was 5 of 8 in the first half, including two 3s, and helped fuel a 15-0 run. But he was only 2 of 4 after intermission, finishing with a game-high 18 points — six after halftime.

“Usually I would get a little freedom off a bump, off a screen,” Murphy said, “but instead (in the second half), I felt that guy’s hand was still there.”

Wake Forest coach Danny Manning said he did not change his second-half defense to account for Murphy.

“Don’t leave him. It’s that simple,” Manning said of his strategy. “Know where he’s at at all times. That was the defensive assignment in the first half, too, and we didn’t do a good enough job of that.”

The game might have been lost on defense, but the Panthers had several chances to win it.

Down 66-65 with 29 seconds left, McGowens missed a long 3-pointer early in the shot clock. Earlier, he missed two free throws.

With 7 seconds left, Johnson got lost in traffic and missed a jumper.

Finally, down two, McGowens drove the length of the court and had his shot blocked by Wake Forest’s 7-foot Olivier Sarr with 1 second on the clock.

“I thought we panicked,” Capel said, speaking about the final minute. “That’s where we have to grow up. We have to be able to do that in real time.”

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