Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.

The Pitt loss last year set up Carolina’s magical March.

The last time Pittsburgh was in Chapel Hill, the ACC also-ran Panthers delivered such a devastating loss that they left town with the Tar Heels barely hanging on the NCAA bubble with an 18-8 record but zero Quad 1 wins.

As we know, the Heels won 11 of their next 13 games before dropping the heartbreaker to Kansas for the NCAA championship. But how did they get there and how much did the low point against Pitt play into it?

The team said it had some kind of meeting after being outshot 51 percent to 41 percent from the floor and 10-7 from 3-point range. But a closer look shows that UNC won virtually every other aspect of the game – more offensive rebounds, assists, blocks and steals and fewer turnovers.

So ever-optimistic Hubert Davis had much to build on from that embarrassing and perhaps dangerous loss. Carolina won at Virginia Tech and N.C. State and beat Louisville and Syracuse at home for four straight Ws going to Duke for the memorable regular season finale.

In that game, the Blue Devils were ahead 56-49 with under 13 minutes to play. From there, Carolina outscored the stunned host 45-25 to complete a 55-point second half and win going away, 94-81. The shocking victory that soured Mike Krzyzewski’s swan song at Cameron Indoor essentially put the Tar Heels in the Big Dance to begin a March where they caught lightning in a bottle that also ended the Dukies’ season and Coach K’s career at the Final Four.

This time, UNC is 15-6 with a net ranking of 31 and is projected as an eight or nine seed in the NCAA Tournament. So stopping a two-game losing streak to Pitt, including the squandered loss up there on December 30, is more on the minds of Davis and his players.

That 76-74 defeat is stuck in their craw after leading by nine points with 12 minutes left and then allowing the much-improved Panthers to outscore them 30-19 to drop their third of four games in which they led after halftime. Forget catching lightning in a bottle again – at least until the tournament – and concentrate on their next six games that could put them back on the bubble if they don’t have their game together.

After Pitt is Duke in Durham Saturday, Wake Forest in Winston-Salem, home games against ranked Clemson and Miami and then the rematch at State, which has not lost since the game here and figures to keep winning with the next two against Florida State and Georgia Tech.

So doing what it takes against rugged Pitt is the only the first course on the menu.

 

Featured image via Todd Melet

Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

Related Stories
‹
Chansky's Notebook: NIT Not for All
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler. Playing in the NIT is good for some teams, not so good for others. Now that all the hubbub over UNC snubbing the National […]
Chansky's Notebook: Beware the Unforeseen
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler. Unintended consequences have become the cancer of college athletics. Sometimes you have to wonder how smart are some of the people who make rules […]
Chansky's Notebook: Stuck Between Marches
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler. The good and bad of Tar Heel hoops is on public display. The truth about Carolina basketball, one of the biggest brands in sports, […]
Chansky's Notebook: Last Gasp
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler. Pick your poison why Carolina is (likely) not going back to the Big Dance. Unless the NCAA tournament bubble explodes due to global warming, […]
Chansky's Notebook: Fleet Feet, Tender Ankle
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler. Carolina can’t seem to catch a break. The Tar Heels opened the ACC tournament with one of their most impressive games of the season. […]
Chansky's Notebook: Must-Win Match
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler. Buckle up, Boston College will be one tough out tonight. The Tar Heels have not lost their opening game of the ACC tournament since […]
Chansky's Notebook: True Vindication?
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler. Who has the mental edge going into this Carolina-Duke game? Paolo Banchero, the freshman first pick in the 2022 NBA draft, was right in […]
Chansky's Notebook: Losing is Winning
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler. The Tar Heels are better since February 4, but so is Duke. The preseason question about the Blue Devils was not whether they had […]
Chansky's Notebook: High Slamma Jamma
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler. If the Virginia game was weird, this one was other-worldly. Armando Bacot hit a single free throw to keep him from going scoreless for […]
Chansky's Notebook: Nothing But The Truth
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler. It’s time to evaluate UNC Basketball through the lens of reality. As the Tar Heels head into the eight days that will determine their […]
›