Pitt suffers another heartbreaker loss, 57-56 to Virginia

The Panthers just keep taking punches this season.

For a second straight game, Pitt basketball gave up a one-point lead to a power-five opponent in the final seconds of the game. This time it was Virginia in the Panthers' first ACC game of the season with Pitt losing 57-56.

But it wasn't just how the Panthers gave up the final basket that made this loss painful for the Panthers, because the final 16 seconds of this game saw a sad collapse to Pitt's hard fought game. The Panthers held a 56-52 lead as Virginia brought the ball up the court and needed to score quick.

After a missed layup on a drive by Virginia's Armaan Franklin, Virginia got an offensive rebound and a basket from Jayden Gardner as he drove for a layup, drew the shooting foul from John Hugley IV who jumped up to block the shot, and made the shot. He would follow it up with a made free throw to make the score 56-55 Pitt. 

But with nine seconds left in the game, Pitt had William Jeffress try to inbound the ball. He eventually found his man, but a split-second after the referee called him for a five-second violation. Jeffress immediately complained that it was a quick call, but the ball went back to Virginia with Jeff Capel holding onto a timeout.

Pitt initially defended under its basket well and forced Virginia to an unlikely three-pointer from Virginia's Taine Murray, who missed the shot. But the ball bounced out to the free throw stripe and was tipped back to Gardner, who shot a fadeaway jumper with 2.9 seconds left.

Painfully, the ball hit the rim not once, not twice, not thrice, but four times before it would eventually go through the net with 0.9 seconds on the clock. Pitt's deep inbound pass would be intercepted, and the game was over.

It was the same recipe to Pitt's 54-53 loss to Minnesota, when the Gophers also got two offensive rebounds in the final seconds to go up over the Panthers. That's back-to-back one-point losses, with both games featuring multiple offensive rebounds allowed for Pitt's opponent to put up the eventual game-winning shot.

Like Pitt's loss to Minnesota, the Panthers brought the defense. Before the Cavaliers' scoring of five points in the final nine seconds of the game, Pitt was on an 11-0 run that forced Virginia to take low-percentage contested shots and was limiting Virginia's chances in the final minutes.

Before Gardner scored on his running And-1 layup over Hugley with nine seconds left, Pitt had held Virginia without a field goal from the 8:57 mark in the second half. The Panthers can thank a stingy zone defense for that as they forced the Cavaliers to take 21 three-pointers, of which they made four, which hasn't been the recipe of success for head coach Tony Bennett's team.

The defense even held Virginia to hit only two of its final ten shots on the night, but the problem for Pitt was those two were the daggers that finished them. It's been a rough year for the Panthers who fall to 2-6 on the season, on a night where they almost stole a win away from Virginia even without the team's starting point guard Femi Odukale, who was announced to miss the game with an ankle injury.

The Panthers got an inspiring performance with scoring coming from several different players. Hugley led the team with 12 points, followed by Jamarius Burton with 11. But in the place of Odukale was walk-on Onyebuch Ezeakudo, who hit 2 of 4 three-pointers on the night, the last of which put the Panthers up 54-52 with 52 seconds left in the game. He and Mouhammadou Gueye finished with eight points on the night, as William Jeffress and Dan Oladapo also finished with six points.

The Panthers set the stage for what could've been an inspiring performance that could've sparked a momentum shift in the season against Virginia, a team that's regularly been among the best of the ACC. But an epic collapse for a second time this week stole defeat from the jaws of victory.

While it was the second-straight game where Pitt basketball collapsed, it was also the second-straight game where the Panthers put up a fight against a power-five opponent. That's no moral victory, but it's a sign that maybe the Panthers could find answers sometime this season to avoid matching the Panthers' winless 0-18 ACC record in the final year under Kevin Stallings back in the 2017-2018 season.

If that's going to happen, Capel has to find a way to coach his team out of late collapses like this week. Both games featured late offensive rebounds while Pitt's forwards in Hugley and Gueye have been solid there for most games, and both featured fundamental mistakes and breakdowns that allowed their opponents back in the game.

For example, Capel put Jeffress, his 18-year-old sophomore with the ball in a high pressure situation. Then he didn't use the timeout Pitt had to save Jeffress when the time ran out. Being fair to both Capel and Jeffress, it did look like the whistle for the five-second violation that gave Virginia the ball back with nine seconds left, was early, but only marginally so. That had to be a situation where Pitt took caution to give themselves another chance after a timeout.

But like most losses, there's not one moment that can be pointed to for blame. Capel could point to allowing late offensive rebounds late in the game, allowing Virginia to record 30 points in the paint, and the Panthers' ten turnovers that led to eight points for Virginia. They'll have six days to regroup as a team and figure it out.

Pitt now resumes its non-conference schedule against Colgate at the Petersen Events Center at 8 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 9 as the start of its final four games outside of the ACC. The Panthers must win all of those games to avoid their first losing out-of-conference record for a season since the 1976-1977 season.