The No. 12 North Carolina men’s basketball team couldn’t match the sharp shooting and the season-high point production of the Pittsburgh Panthers Saturday afternoon at the Peterson Events Center, falling 89-76.
***Listen to the story***
With the loss, the Tar Heels dropped to 18-7 overall and 8-4 in the ACC. With the victory, the Panthers improved to 17-9 on the season with a 5-7 mark in league play.
Pitt’s 65-percent shooting day was the best field goal shooting percentage by a Carolina opponent in the Roy Williams era.
The Panthers were led by sophomore forward Sheldon Jeter, who tallied 22 points on 10-14 shooting.
Sheldon Jeter takes a jumper (Pitt Athletics)
Pitt didn’t miss a single shot for the first five minutes of action in the second half to emphatically cement its authority on the contest.
As for Carolina, despite getting the better of the boards with a 31-27 rebounding edge, it couldn’t find the offensive firepower necessary to keep pace with Pitt in this outing.
UNC head coach Roy Williams says his team ran into a buzzsaw.
“They made a bunch of shots. I think they made more threes in the first half than their average for the year. We helped them because we didn’t guard them very effectively. Their looks were open looks. Still, you don’t have to make them all. But they made a bunch of shots and should be congratulated for that,” Coach Williams says.
***Listen to Roy Williams’ postgame remarks***
UNC junior forward Brice Johnson led UNC in scoring with 19 points while sophomore Kennedy Meeks produced 15 points of his own. UNC’s junior guard Marcus Paige, who normally provides some offensive spark for the Tar Heels, went cold Saturday, only connecting on three shots from the field to finish with a mere eight points.
Outside the lines of the basketball court, Coach Williams says he was touched by the Pittsburgh student section’s tribute to legendary UNC coach Dean Smith.
“That was a pretty neat thing what those kids did out there. They gave me a card signed by a bunch of kids sharing their condolences over the loss of Coach Smith. They also gave me the banner they were holding up before the game. College athletics is not all bad. I told those kids I would keep those. They will never be tossed. I will always have those,” Coach Williams says.
Early on, it was all Pitt. The Panthers, capitalizing on Tar Heel turnovers, sprinted out to a 10-0 lead just three minutes into the contest.
But from there, UNC settled in to the proceedings. A Joel Berry three-pointer cut the deficit down to a five-point margin at 12-7 with 13:20 on the first half clock.
With 7:51 to play, the Panthers led 26-22 and continued to shoot the ball well, while the Tar Heels answered with some solid offensive production of their own coming from a variety of angles – Meeks in the post, Paige from outside and others in between.
But Pitt got more contributions from Jeter and James Robinson to spurt ahead again, taking another 10-point advantage with a 38-28 lead. The Panthers simply couldn’t miss. At the half, UNC trailed Pitt 48-34.
Brice Johnson was one of the lone bright spots for UNC Saturday (Todd Melet)
Out of the locker room, Pitt continued to have its way against the UNC defense, knocking down shot after shot from behind the arc to increase its lead out to 57-38 with 17:08 remaining.
The Tar Heels could muster up little resistance to the hot-shooting abilities up the determined Panther attack firing on all cylinders.
A 21-point Pitt lead with 6:59 to go was plenty enough for the Panthers to cruise to the finish line and earn a much-needed signature win in the ACC with a NCAA Tournament berth in mind.
“That was their `A’ game,” UNC’s Marcus Paige says. “We didn’t bring ours, anywhere close to ours. They needed a big win. They saw this as a great opportunity and took advantage of it.”
Next up for the Tar Heels comes a rivalry matchup with No. 4 Duke Wednesday night in Cameron Indoor Stadium. If UNC doesn’t prevail in that one, it will have lost four of its last five contests with only five games left in the regular season.
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