BROOKLYN, N.Y. — The day his team left for New York for the ACC tournament, Sheldon Jeter didn’t know what the mental state of his Pitt team, particularly that of his fellow seniors, would be like, at least not until they first walked into the Barclays Center.
What he saw encouraged him, giving him hope that the college careers to which he and a handful of his teammates so desperately cling may not be ended after a single game.
“We were upbeat and came out ready to play,” Jeter said. “Our sole focus was just winning by any means.”
That glimpse into his team’s psyche materialized on the court Tuesday night. What has been a frustrating, agonizing, befuddling and occasionally nauseating season for Pitt will continue for at least another day.
Michael Young finished with a team-high 17 points, leading a group of four seniors that combined for 53 points, to lift the Panthers (16-16) to a 61-59 victory against Georgia Tech in the first round of the ACC tournament at the Barclays Center.
Pitt -- which had lost on the road to the Yellow Jackets, 61-52, just seven days earlier -- did what it has so seldom done in conference play, coming back from a late, albeit small, deficit almost immediately after surrendering a lead. By winning a game that was seldom clean or comfortable, one in which neither team shot better than 40 percent, against one of the league’s better defensive teams, Pitt provided a refreshing and late look at a squad that was rarely seen in its first 31 games.
“It reaffirms that we know as a team, no matter what the situation is in a game, that as long as we do the things we need to do -- come together, play hard and execute -- that we’ll have a chance at winning the game, whether down or up and just take it into the next game and have the same mentality,” Young said. “No matter what the score is, no matter what the situation is, down or up, you keep playing and execute and play hard and play together.”
Jeter added 14 points and eight rebounds, while Jamel Artis and Chris Jones also finished in double figures with 11 points apiece. With the win, Pitt, the tournament’s No. 14 seed, will match up against sixth-seeded Virginia Wednesday at 9 p.m. The Panthers beat the Cavaliers, 88-76, in overtime in their first meeting before being steamrolled by them last Saturday, 67-42, a game in which Young and Artis, the team’s two leading scorers, were benched for the opening 10 minutes.
A group that has collectively lacked focus or drive in recent showings, at least based on its on-court demeanor, came out engaged and aggressive, building a 48-41 lead after a 3-pointer from Jones with 7:25 remaining. The Yellow Jackets (17-15), as so many of Pitt’s opponents have the past seven weeks, responded to that deficit by scoring eight unanswered, taking the lead almost as quickly as it lost it.
Then, for the Panthers, came the needed dagger. Artis, who missed nine of his 12 shots Tuesday, responded to the opposing onslaught by cooly burying a 3 that put his team back on top, 54-51, with 3:18 remaining.
“I tried to put that behind me,” Artis said of his subpar night to that point. “I knew it was going to fall.”
Pitt wouldn’t trail for the remainder of the night, aided in large part by a second half in which it drained five of its 12 3s after making only one of 11 beyond the arc in the opening 20 minutes.
A group of four seniors, particularly the pairing of Young and Artis, that has been maligned at various points of the season came through in a crucial position, accounting for 86.9 percent of the team’s points and 19 of its 21 made field goals. The pairing of those performances and the fate that awaits them should they lose in the tournament isn’t a coincidence.
“I think seniors feel urgency,” Pitt coach Kevin Stallings said. “I think the tournament represented sort of a different beginning, a different start. I think they kind of took it upon themselves to approach it a little differently, a little better.”
The win, needed as it was as the Panthers chase whatever it is that may salvage their season, doesn’t change Stallings’ outlook on his team as it prepares for Virginia. It’s the same group he’s known for much of the season, the same one that showed the best and worst versions of itself in two meetings with the Cavaliers this season.
But the players, spurred by whatever hope they may have left, believe something may be afoot.
“This is it for us,” Young said. “The regular season is over, we can’t get none of those games back and we’ve just got to move forward. We believe, our coaches believe, this whole program believes that we can do something special in this tournament. That’s what we came here to do. That’s what I believe we’re going to do.”
Craig Meyer: cmeyer@post-gazette.com and Twitter @CraigMeyerPG.
First Published: March 8, 2017, 2:24 a.m.
