North Carolina looked comfortable playing in Petersen Events Center on Tuesday night. The ACC’s fastest-paced and second-most prolific scoring offense raced up and down the court with ease against Pitt and hung 44 first-half points, behind 56.7% shooting from the field, on the Panthers in their own building.
But the second half was a different story.
Pitt (14-6, 5-4 ACC), desperate for another marquee win to add to its resume, used a suffocating defensive effort down the stretch of the second half to spark a 73-65 win. The Panthers held North Carolina to 31% shooting from the field and 1 for 8 from 3-point range after halftime, flipping a two-point deficit into an eight-point win.
“Just big play after big play that our guys made, especially late. We finally were able to come up with some 50-50 balls, get some rebounds,” Pitt coach Jeff Capel said. “Just really proud of a gritty performance and a gritty win and all the credit goes to these guys.”
North Carolina came out firing from 3-point range. While the outstanding backcourt duo of Elliot Cadeau and RJ Davis searched for spots to score, they sprayed passes out to their teammates, and it led to six made 3-pointers on 13 attempts in the first half for the Tar Heels.
Ball screens became an easy opportunity to create points for North Carolina. Pitt’s defenders couldn’t get around picks, so Cadeau and Davis used their speed to beat to the rim retreating big men that had come over to help. Cadeau and Davis combined for 17 points and nine assists during the first 20 minutes of action.
With the Tar Heels torching the Panthers to the tune of nearly 1.3 points per possession, Capel needed an adjustment, and the one he chose was simple. Pitt decided to switch on every screen, and it left everyone out on islands, but each Panther defender dug deep to create stops with pride.
“We just made the adjustment just to switch everything, and I think once we did that, we were less worried about, you know, helping and were more in the gaps,” Zack Austin said.
Pitt’s frontcourt platoon of Guillermo Diaz Graham and Cam Corhen was critical to making this strategy work. If they weren’t able to move their feet with Cadeau, Davis and Seth Trimble and others, the Tar Heels would have punished Pitt’s switching and continued to pour on points.
“Cam was unbelievable, to sit down and guard RJ Davis to make him take contested shots and [Guillermo] had a big one — a big, big one where he switched out and sat down and used his length, spaced him, but was able to contest a shot,” Capel said.
“That's something that we may look at going forward, just looking to switch everything to stay out of rotations.”
Austin was the focal point of Pitt’s tremendous defensive effort in the second half. He blocked five shots in all, including three in the second half. He erased North Carolina’s attempts and became a deterrent in the paint to a Carolina team that shot just 12-of-22 on layups after halftime.
Every player to touch the floor flied around to flood gaps, dived for loose balls and closed out possessions with defensive rebounds. It resulted in a 21-point second half for the Tar Heels, as the Panthers pulled away with 11 free throws over the final 20 minutes.
“Just playing with more intensity, I think that's what we’ve got to get back to,” Jaland Lowe said. “We just had each other's back. We were just fighting, playing every possession like it's our last. ... If we have that mindset every time, then we'll win a lot of games.”
It was over when ...
Austin skied for a two-handed jam in transition with 12:32 left in the second half. He tied the game at 52 by leaping from three quarters of the way up the lane to punish the rim and set the home crowd on fire. His energizing play ignited Pitt’s defense, as well, and keyed the strong finish that earned a much-needed win.
”We hold him to a high standard. He also holds himself to a high standard,” Lowe said. “So when he comes in and makes plays like that, it just ignites everything, gives us a lot of confidence in everything that we do.”
ZACK AUSTIN FLYING DOWN THE LANE ✈️
— NCAA March Madness (@MarchMadnessMBB) January 29, 2025
(via @espn)pic.twitter.com/9OaEgt5XgY
Player of the game
Whenever Pitt needed a defensive spark, it turned to Austin and he did exactly that, blocking five shots in 15 minutes. His 15 points on 5-of-7 shooting, including a 3-of-5 mark from 3-point range, was icing on the cake as Pitt outscored North Carolina by 10 in the second half.
He did it all despite going down to the floor twice and requiring some attention from trainers. In the second half, after defending the rim, he had to exit the game with what Austin later revealed was just a cramp. When he jogged back to the scorers table moments later, the home fans welcomed him back with a standing ovation.
Austin says he didn’t come in to this game with any kind of extra motivation to be a shot-blocking menace, but maybe there’s something about the alternate uniforms Pitt was sporting. After all, Austin blocked five Virginia Tech shots last February while wearing the same kit.
“I think it’s just something about these black jerseys,” he said. “We wore black jerseys last year, and I had five blocks.”
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For the second straight game, Lowe had to put on his cape to keep the Panthers afloat. Their floor general stuffed the stat sheet with a game-high 18 points on 6-of-15 shooting from the floor and a 3-of-6 mark from beyond the arc, to go along with seven assists and six rebounds.
When Pitt was facing it’s largest deficit of the game — 10 points at the 2:11 mark of the second half — Lowe scored eight points in a row on a layup and two 3-pointers to keep his team in the game. And though he didn’t make a field goal in the second half, Lowe dealt six assists to just two turnovers and made three of four free throw attempts to close out the game.
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Capel elected to shrink his rotations even further in this game. He played just seven Panthers and his last sub, Jorge Diaz Graham, played just six minutes. The bench was a massive asset for Pitt during the non-conference schedule and through the first few games of ACC play.
But the games are being played with greater stakes and against better competition, so now the Panthers are leaning more and more on their top six of Lowe, Leggett, Austin, Corhen, Guillermo Diaz Graham and Damian Dunn. If a Pitt reserve makes it into a game from here on out, it will almost certainly be a situational pinch and won’t be for many minutes.
Up next
The Panthers are back in action on Saturday, when they visit Wake Forest, who just took a 13-point loss at Louisville that wasn’t nearly as close as the final score would indicate. Tipoff is slated for noon from Lawrence Joel Veterans Memorial Coliseum, with ESPN2 broadcasting the game.
First Published: January 29, 2025, 4:32 a.m.
Updated: January 29, 2025, 2:47 p.m.