PANTHERS SWEEP NORTH CAROLINA
Panthers start fast, hold off North Carolina’s rally in 2nd half
Roy Williams looked dejected and defeated, or at least as dejected and defeated as someone with a diamond-paved national championship ring swallowing half of his right ring finger can be in a given moment.
“I’m getting tired of meeting with you guys like this,” the North Carolina coach said dryly Saturday.
What had just transpired was, at many times, jarring, unbelievable and, for many of the 12,376 fans gathered inside the Petersen
Events Center, jubilant. For Williams, though, Pitt’s 66-52 victory against his Tar Heels was a distressingly familiar sight.
For much of the afternoon, one of the most powerful and iconic programs in the sport wasn’t just getting overpowered and outmanned. It was getting dominated, falling behind by as many as 23 in the game’s opening 17 minutes. It’s undeniably a down year for North Carolina, which lost a handful of firstround NBA draft picks from last season’s team and has fallen to 8-9 this season amid a slew of injuries to key players, but to see players in those baby blue, argyle-branded uniforms representing that program was, among any number of suitable adjectives, stunning.
The game didn’t always feel quite that surreal. The Tar Heels made a late push and Pitt went cold in the second half,
making the final score, for North Carolina, much more presentable than it would have been otherwise.
The end result of it, however, even against this depleted team, still resonates. After going nearly five years without a victory against the Tar Heels, Pitt now has two in the past 10 days. A group of players now also has something their former Duke point guard of a coach doesn’t, at least as a player -- a season sweep of North Carolina.
“It’s big time,” Pitt guard Xavier Johnson said. “Rarely, teams can say that. Coach even said that. That’s just rare. He couldn’t even say he did it. That’s big. I can say I did it.”
It marked the first time the Panthers have swept a conference opponent in the regular season since they did it against Syracuse in the 201516 campaign.
“It means a lot, really for our program, not just for these guys,” Pitt coach Jeff Capel said. “North Carolina is one of the great programs in the history of college basketball. Any time you get a chance to sweep them, it’s a pretty special thing. It’s something we don’t take for granted. We know we had to work for it.”
The game’s surprisingly lopsided tone was set early.
Pitt, which entered the day shooting 41.3 percent on the season, made 10 of its first 15 shots and after North Carolina went 4:40 without a point, the Panthers’ lead was up to 16, 26-10. Over a stretch of 11:18, the Tar Heels made just two field goals, a span in which they were outscored by Pitt, 26-8. In the final 11:30 of the first half, Johnson nearly outscored North Carolina by himself (scoring 12 points to his opponent’s 13).
By halftime, an uneven and unpredictable Panthers (12-6, 3-4 ACC) offense had scored 43 points, shot nearly 50 percent from the field, averaged 1.34 points per possession and led one of the sport’s most decorated all-time programs by 20, 43-23, controlling every facet of the game they could.
Pitt’s offense was sparked by an overbearing, unrelenting defense, one that had five steals in the game’s first 12:16 and forced 11 turnovers in the first half. Off those miscues, the Panthers got 18 points.
“They put us back on our heels and we never could get back to where we had a chance,” Williams said.
Faced with a zone much of the second half, Pitt missed 17 of its 22 shots in the final 20 minutes. The Panthers were, as their coach put it, playing too safe, slowed down to the point where they lost any sense of rhythm. Though the Tar Heels (8-9, 1-5) were able to get within 10 in the final two minutes, they were unable to properly or fully capitalize on their opponent’s woes, shooting just 30.6 percent from the field in the second half. North Carolina went only 31.7 percent from the field for the game, the lowest percentage Pitt has allowed in a game this season.
Johnson provided the team’s most forceful offensive push, matching a season high with 20 points and dishing out six assists. Junior guard Ryan Murphy also finished in double figures, scoring 13 points and making three of his eight 3-pointers.
That the victory occurred fewer than four days after a gutting overtime loss to Louisville in the same building was all the more impressive. A team that could have easily been fazed, distracted and bitter, especially given that game’s hotly contested finish, wasn’t.
“Coach talked about discipline a lot,” Murphy said. “I think it’s just us starting to mature and become more disciplined. Conference games happen fast. You can’t dwell
on the past and let that carry over into the next game because then you’re just going to lose again.”
If a season sweep of North Carolina, even one without star freshman point guard Cole Anthony, is a hopeful sign for a rebuilding program, Saturday’s win was an indication that this year’s team is morphing into a better version of itself.
During Pitt’s shootaround Saturday, Capel stressed to his player the importance of being able to get a sweep of a conference team, against a program as prestigious as the Tar Heels, no less. In the hours that followed, they delivered.
“It’s a step,” Capel said. “I don’t know what it speaks to, but it’s a step in the right direction for us. We have to continue to try to put days together where we’re getting better and we’re understand what it takes to become a really good program and a really good team.”