By the Numbers: Pitt vs. Florida State - Nov. 6, 2019

   Pitt beat the Florida State Seminoles 63-61 at the Petersen Events Center on Wednesday to move to 1-0 on the season heading into their out-of-conference schedule. I had a chance to sit down, re-watch the game, and put together some numbers that were key to Pitt's success against the Seminoles. Let's dive in to look for the keys to Pitt's success against Florida State:

13 minutes, 17 seconds in the double-bonus

Incredibly, this is the amount of time that Pitt spent offensively in the double-bonus against Florida State. That time is split nearly evenly between the two halves--Pitt entered the double bonus with 7 minutes, 10 seconds remaining in the first half; and they entered the double bonus with 6 minutes, 7 seconds remaining in the second half. In total, Pitt spent a whopping 33 percent of the game in the double-bonus.

1 minute, 39 seconds allowed in the double-bonus

Conversely, the Seminoles spent less than two minutes in the double-bonus, all of which occurred in the waning moments of the second half. In fact, Pitt did not allow Florida State to even get into the one-and-one bonus at all during the first half, and the Seminoles spent fewer than six minutes in the bonus or double-bonus total for the night.

22-for-31 from the Free Throw line

Pitt made 71.0 percent of its free throw tries on Wednesday, making 22 freebies compared with 13 for Florida State. In the final two minutes of the game with a slim lead, Pitt made five of seven attempts (71.4 percent) to nail down the victory. Last season, Pitt's 69.7 percent free throw shooting ranked no. 203 in the country. Their 71.0 percent rate against Florida State would have ranked no. 164 in the country last season. Of course, this was just one game and one data point. While it was good enough for Pitt to hang on for victory against Florida State, the Panthers will need to continue to improve their free throw shooting if it wants to put away close games against tough ACC opponents.

Fourteen points in the paint

Pitt had just 14 points in the paint against the Seminoles, and just four in the first half. Team leaders for points in the paint were Terrell Brown with eight; Eric Hamilton with four; and Xavier Johnson with two. Florida State had 26 points in the paint, nearly double that of the Panthers.

Thirty-four bench points

Pitt scored thirty four points from their bench, led by Brown (13), Ryan Murphy (13), and Champagnie (8). Last season, Pitt accomplished 30-plus bench points just once in ACC play--they scored 37 in a 73-65 loss against Georgia Tech in Atlanta. They put up more than 20 bench points just six times in ACC play last season, nearly matched by the five times that their bench scored fewer than 10 points in a game in ACC play. With a deeper bench in 2019-20, it's fair to expect more bench scoring than last season. 

11 minutes, 28 seconds to close out the game

Jeff Capel was not afraid to go to his bench last night, as Pitt played used eight players in their rotation, seven of whom played more than 15 minutes. All three players off the bench--Brown, Murphy, and Champagnie--played at least 22 minutes. However, as originally noted by Chris Peak of Panther-Lair.com, the Panthers used the same lineup for the final 11 minutes and 28 seconds to finish off the Florida State Seminoles. That lineup consisted of Johnson, Murphy, Champagnie, Brown, and Trey McGowens. 

1.58 points per possession

The best part? That lineup got the job done in crunch time:

As @PantherLair noted last night, Pitt used the same lineup (Johnson, McGowens, Murphy, Champagnie and Brown) for the final 11:38 in the win against Florida State.

In that time, the Panthers averaged 1.58 points per possession. The rest of the night, it averaged just 0.72

— Craig Meyer (@CraigMeyerPG) November 7, 2019

That's right--in the final minutes of the second half, that lineup put up more than double the points per possession (1.58 points) than all of the other lineup combinations combined (0.72 points) for the first 28 minutes of game play. 

Nine three-pointers

One of the biggest question marks coming into this season was how Pitt would replace the three-point shooting prowess of Jared Wilson-Frame. Well, they hit nine three-pointers in 26 attempts (34.6 percent), with multiple triples hit by each of Murphy (three), Johnson (two), McGowens (two), and Champagnie (two). Murphy, for one, looks like the spot-up shooter that Pitt needs on the wing. However, if those other guys along with Gerald Drumgoole and Au'Diese Toney can knock down a few as well, this team will have more than made up for their shooting deficiencies from the outside.

   After one game, we can only glean so much about the state of this Pitt basketball team. Pitt flashed some moments of great talent, and looked sloppy in other moments--in other words, just what you would expect for a team's first game of the season. They came away with a win against an extremely talented Florida State team, and now turn to out-of-conference play to do some fine-tuning before they return to their conference schedule in December.