Statistically, it’s one of the worst UNC basketball losses of all time.
The Pittsburgh Panthers, who came into Wednesday night’s game in the Smith Center ranked No. 179 by the NCAA’s NET metrics, exploded to a 17-point first half lead, which grew to as large as 21 in the second half, and held on for dear life through a desperate Tar Heel rally to stun Carolina, 76-67.
Final.#CarolinaFamily | @WellsFargo pic.twitter.com/n6hVemMMNb
— Carolina Basketball (@UNC_Basketball) February 17, 2022
The result is UNC’s first Quad 4 loss since the 2019-20 season, and only its second since 2008. It may have provided a fatal blow to the program’s NCAA tournament hopes.
“We just didn’t play the way that I hoped, anticipated, thought that we would play,” said head coach Hubert Davis. “With so much to play for. So much motivation to compete and to have fun. Just very disappointed.”
Carolina led 12-8 early and seemed to be giving the Pittsburgh offense problems, causing three turnovers. That illusion evaporated in a flash as the Panthers caught fire from the field, ripping off a stunning 21-2 run, powered by five consecutive three-pointers from Ithiel Horton and Mouhamadou Gueye. As a team, Pitt shot 60 percent in the first half and 67 percent from beyond the arc.
Carolina had no answer, and couldn’t get out of its own way on offense. The Tar Heels had more turnovers (10) than made field goals (8) in the opening 20 minutes, and shot a pedestrian 27.6 percent from the floor.
The result? A 40-23 halftime deficit.
“We just came out flat,” said sophomore guard Caleb Love. “We weren’t making shots and they were.”
The Panthers cooled off in the second half, and Carolina cut the deficit to 13 points at 45-32. As the Smith Center crowd rose to its feet and the shot clock wound down on Pittsburgh, Panthers big man John Hugley, who shoots 14 percent from downtown, banked in a long three-pointer over Armando Bacot while being fouled. The foul was also Bacot’s third of the game.
“There was a number of self-induced plays that we made that contributed to us not winning tonight,” Davis said. “That four-point play was one of those plays.”
The six-foot, nine-inch, 280-pound Hugley proved to be a difference-maker all night. He would finish with 18 points on 6-10 shooting, but more importantly limited the influence of Bacot. The Tar Heel big man made just two shots all night, finishing with seven points and eight rebounds while playing only 26 minutes through foul trouble. He was the only UNC starter to play under 30 minutes.
At times, it appeared as if the bigger Hugley was having his way bullying Bacot in the post.
“At the end of the day, there’s been more times than not that we don’t handle and we can’t respond to that type of physicality,” Davis said. “That’s a narrative and a reputation that we’re gonna have to change. And that’s something specifically that we’re gonna have to change really quickly.”
For a while, it appeared Hugley’s shot was the backbreaking play. Pitt would expand their lead to 59-38 before Carolina finally kickstarted a rally. Eight straight points from sophomore wing Kerwin Walton whittled the lead back down to 13. The margin continued to hover around that mark before Love finally found his offensive touch. He had scored just four points in the catastrophic first half, but then rattled off 13 consecutive points for the Tar Heels to slice the Panther lead down to 69-61. A Brady Manek layup cut it down to six, as low as it had been since the first half, before Davis called timeout.
On the ensuing inbounds play, the Panthers threw the ball away to Manek around midcourt. Manek immediately passed to Love, but the pass went off his hands and out of bounds. That turnover, combined with a Hugley layup while being fouled on the other end, was the final nail in the coffin.
“We dug ourselves a hole, and it was too deep,” said Love. “We tried to come back late, and there was just not enough time on the clock.”
Carolina ran out of time, and may have run out of gas on its drive toward a potential at-large NCAA Tournament bid. Needless to say, the selection committee doesn’t look too kindly on Quad 4 losses, especially when your team has zero Quad 1 wins, as the Tar Heels do. A chance to finally snag that elusive Quad 1 win looms Saturday in Blacksburg against Virginia Tech, but with Wednesday night’s result, anything less than running the table, ACC Tournament included, may not be enough.
The regular season concludes with another Quad 1 opportunity: a visit to Cameron Indoor Stadium on March 5 in Duke head coach Mike Krzyzewski’s last home game with the Blue Devils. As Meek Mill’s “Dreams and Nightmares” ominously blared through the Smith Center speakers in the second half, the true nightmare for Carolina fans began to manifest itself: a must-win game against their archrivals, in unfriendly confines.
“I used to pray for times like this.”
Not quite.
Featured image via Todd Melet. For a complete photo gallery of the game, click here.
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