I find the anatomy of this game pretty interesting. It's easy to look at Mossoud's line as an outlier - a guy goes for 31 on 80% three point shooting and you win by 1, not exactly a shocker. There are a few things that make this performance look like less of a freak event though.
First is Mucius going scoreless to offset Massoud's night. Their combined scoring makes the offensive output far less of an outlier. Second is how often Jonah and Massoud were on the floor together. Many of us, myself included, have been critical of how one-dimensional both of those guys are, 3 point shooters who struggle to defend and bring little else to the table offensively. But in line with the Forbes mantra to play scorers and teach defense, they can put up points so they're going to play. I think conventional wisdom would put up a lot of lineups without them together so you have one shooter on the floor at all times. When Pitt finally committed to shutting down Massoud from deep, Jonah got some space instead and we kept the scoring going. It's very hard to mark 2 shooters like them, an ultra quick release guy and another with length to shoot over guys. It'll be interesting to see if that pairing becomes part of our identify moving forward.
We also won despite shooting 11 fewer free throws, having a 5 steal deficit, losing the rebounding battle, losing the turnover battle, and being +7 in fouls committed. All combined, those stats speak volumes as to exactly how outmatched we were physically. They got Ody in foul trouble, when we had to put Massoud on Champagnie he dominated him, Daivien and Whitt combined for 9 turnovers, etc. And even with Massoud's hot night, our overall shooting averages were within a few points of Pitt's.
So to me, this isn't a write-off because of a hot night for Massoud. It's a testament to the vast improvement on defense, the development of Okpomo, the willingness to experiment with lineups, and a commitment to a brand of offense that can compete based on our talent level. It'll be interesting to see if this ends up being somewhat of a pivotal game going forward. 6 losses to start is brutal, but away games at UNC, Duke, UVA, and GaTech are all tough. Then Louisville, VaTech and Pitt are 3,4,5 in the ACC standings. We don't see a top half team again until FSU 4 games from now. This was a huge win for these guys, great momentum for the coming stretch.