Pitt and Duquesne are 'hunting' for quick conference turnarounds

The campuses of Pitt and Duquesne are separated by about two miles.

For the schools’ basketball teams, the starts of their respective conference schedules haven’t been separated by very much either.

The Panthers (10-6) are 1-4 in ACC play. The Dukes (9-6) are 0-3 to begin their Atlantic 10 slate. Also, both teams have had a tough hand to play from a scheduling perspective. Pitt has already lost to No. 7 North Carolina (70-57) and No. 11 Duke (75-53). Duquesne fell at home to Dayton 72-62 on Friday. The Flyers are just outside of the Top 25 in both the AP Poll and the Coaches Poll. They were the preseason pick to win the A-10.

Now Jeff Capel’s Panthers and Keith Dambrot’s Dukes will both try to get their teams back on track Tuesday night with dueling home dates. The Panthers welcome Syracuse. Richmond visits Duquesne. Both games are 7 p.m. tipoffs.

The two teams are still hoping to build on some momentum from last year. The Panthers went from 11-21 in 2021-22 to 24-12 and a NCAA Tournament berth a season ago. Duquesne turned a 6-24 campaign two years ago into a 20-12 result in 2022-23.

“We certainly aren’t where we want to be,” Dambrot said. “I take responsibility for that. But I still think that if we find the right formula, we can have a pretty good season. We have a lot of work to do. But we are still kind of putting the pieces together. I think that is the most difficult thing.”

From Duquesne’s perspective, Dambrot’s biggest challenge to figuring out that “formula” is getting the right combination of players on the court at the right time. The Dukes boast a lot more depth and maneuverable parts than they’ve had in recent years. However, allocating the minutes and finding the right deployment of personnel has proven difficult.

According to point guard Kareem Rozier, the players need to figure out a way to positively influence games in ways that may not be immediately reflected in the box score.

“We’ve got to be able to affect the game in different ways. Not just scoring,” Rozier said after the loss to Dayton. “I think that’s where we are struggling. Hunting plays. Taking a charge, rebounding. Doing the little things to impact the game. Not just scoring. We haven’t been consistent in that.

“When the ball isn’t dropping, it’s like we can’t do anything else to sustain winning. If the ball is not dropping, we can stop them from scoring by defending. And we haven’t done that.”

More sports

• Steelers prefer to ignore odds, history against them as underdog No. 7 seed vs. Bills
• Penguins prepare to face old friend Brian Dumoulin
• Mark Madden: Penguins problems on power play, 3-on-3 OT have hit critical mass

As far as Pitt goes, getting Blake Hinson into a steady scoring rhythm again would be huge. The second-team All-ACC star averaged 21.6 points per game over the first 11 games of the season. He has dropped to 11.4 over his five most recent contests, shooting just 28.3% from the floor. Pitt lost three of those games to ACC competition (Duke, North Carolina and Syracuse).

But Capel believes improvement needs to extend well beyond just one player.

“We have to learn. We have to play harder. We have to be more physical. We can’t let guys just take the ball from us. We have to move more. We have to be able to adapt when teams do something different,” Capel said Tuesday night. “We have to be able to adjust and adapt on the fly and be able to counter it and be able to attack it.”

Neither team expects to have a particularly easy go of it Tuesday. Syracuse (11-5) has already beaten the Panthers once this year, 81-73. Meanwhile, Richmond comes to the UPMC Cooper Fieldhouse at 11-5. The Spiders have won six games in a row, and they are 3-0 in A-10 play.

Last year, the Spiders won the only matchup between the clubs 75-73 on Jason Roche’s game-winning 3-pointer with eight seconds left.

The Panthers and Dukes at least have an advantage in terms of prep time. Duquesne had an extra day to recover and practice after Friday’s loss to Dayton, as Richmond just beat George Mason 77-70 on Saturday night.

Syracuse has had to play twice since Pitt suffered their loss to Duke on Tuesday, Jan. 9. The Orange beat Boston College 69-59 on Wednesday. Then they got smoked by North Carolina 103-67 on Saturday.

“We teach. That’s our job,” Capel said after the loss to Duke. “Our responsibility is to teach through good and bad. You try to show guys areas where we did well. It has to be automatic. It can’t be something that you think about.

“We have to be able to take what we drill and practice and go through. So we’ll talk about those things and just try to continue to build positive habits — winning habits — and continue to get better that way.”

Just two miles away, you can be sure Dambrot is singing a similar song as both coaches hope their players can hit more of the right notes Tuesday night.