Pitt delivers huge 76-67 upset over North Carolina

Pitt basketball got its biggest win of the season Wednesday, taking down North Carolina 76-67 at the Dean E. Smith Center in Chapel Hill, N.C. for the team's second ACC road win of the season and extending the Panthers' win streak to three games. It's only the second time the program has strung together three straight ACC wins since 2013-2014 under Jamie Dixon. The win advanced Pitt to 11-16, 5-10 in the ACC while dropping North Carolina to 18-8, 10-5 in the ACC.

The Panthers came out of the locker room playing strong with 7-0, 9-0 and 12-0 runs that pushed Jeff Capel's team to a 40-23 halftime lead. Pitt shot 60 percent from the field in the first half and 67 percent on three-pointers while playing the tough, gritty brand of defense that challenged shots, drew charges and caused turnovers. Pitt won the first half turnover battle 10-9 and thrived scoring off North Carolina's miscues outscoring the Tar Heels in points off turnovers 20-9 heading into halftime.

"The way we started in the first half was outstanding," Capel said after the game. "Our guys were really locked in on both sides of the basketball. We did an amazing job defensively in the first half. To hold that team to 23 points in the first half and 27 percent from the field was what allowed our offense to be really good. In the second half we kept extending the lead. Then we knew they were going to make the run, we were just able to withstand it. Really proud of our guys, it's a big time win that hopefully we can continue to build on."

North Carolina entered the game with the ACC's second-highest scoring offense at 78.7 points per game with the sixth-highest field goal percentage of 45.8, and second-highest three-point percentage of 38.6. It was clear early on that Pitt's players were aware of North Carolina's talents as a shooting team and were executing the plans off the team's scouting report.

"We wanted to have a sense of urgency on the three-point line," Capel said of Pitt's defense. "We knew how well they were shooting it with nine and a half makes a game from out there in conference play. We wanted to have a great effort doing that by switching on time. We did a good job even if we got fortunate because they missed some, but again, I thought we executed what we talked about."

On the night, Pitt held North Carolina to hit only 7 of 26 three-pointers, 26.9 percentage that was the Tar Heels' second-worst shooting performance in the ACC this season. That came as a result of a consistent effort from Pitt on defense, as Jamarius Burton discussed after the game.

"We just knew to close out with high hands and switch to take away shots," Burton said of Pitt's plan to limit North Carolina's three-point shots. "We were locked in and communicating on a different level. We were closing out shooters even though they knocked down some big ones down the stretch. On a defensive end we were locked in tonight."

And when North Carolina tried to drive into the paint, Pitt was equally ready with players consistently cutting off lanes to the basket, drawing five charge fouls on the night. Burton was responsible for three of them.

"It's one of the things we talked about and tried to show on tape," Capel said of Pitt's defense. "We've showed the ability to take charges in this game. We tried to play the percentages with Leaky Black. He's an outstanding player but in conference play he was only averaging three field goal attempts a game and less than one three, by far, a game. We tried to have that guy be the wrong guy and play off of him. Our guys did a great job executing that. Our guys made dirty work plays and that's who we have to be. We've done a pretty good job that last few games of doing that."

"The charges are big momentum boosters for us," Burton said. "We feed off that energy. When I'm getting back in transition so that if we make a mistake and someone makes up for it with a charge, it becomes contagious and our ball club feeds off it."

The defensive energy from Pitt fueled the Panthers' offense that shot 51.1 percent from the floor, the team's best percentage in a win, and 58.8 percent on three-pointers, the best rate they've had this season. Fueling that was another red hot shooting performance from Ithiel Horton who led the team with 19 points, hitting 5 of 5 three-pointers and 4 of 4 free throws. It was the second time in his last three games hitting five or more three-pointers in just his ninth game played with the team this season after his lengthy suspension to start the year.

"It's great having IT on the team," John Hugley IV, said of Horton Hugley finished with 18 points and five rebounds. "He's an elite shooter and an elite player. I think he's going to be a great player if we let him shoot at a high clip. He's just different and we love to have him back. That's what we needed was a shooter. Whenever I got double-teamed there was someone I could kick it to and it's coming together. He's fun to watch."

Horton wasn't alone though, as all five of Pitt's scorers got into the double-digits. Burton finished with 14 points and a team-high of seven rebounds while Mouhammadou Gueye had 11 points with five rebounds. Femi Odukale scored ten points but also finished the game a with a career-high of nine assists. It was the best chemistry displayed by Pitt this season on both ends of the court.

"It's just practice, repetition and extra work," Capel said of Horton's play boosting the team. "Some of the stuff he does on his own and some of it he does with us. Getting in rhythm also needs our guys to understand how to play with him. We have to understand what a weapon he is for us and that helps everyone. It helps Femi and JB (Burton) on their penetration, John and Mo (Gueye) inside. Getting back into the rhythm of playing with us, he's done a great job. He played 40 minutes tonight and he wasn't tired. That's a great sign for us."

"We're just feeding off the energy," Burton said. "We just seemed to get timely threes. We know we can build off of that and then get in the paint. We know we can learn to work off each other better down the stretch. Those three-pointers going down for us are big momentum boosters for us and it gets us energized on defense as well."

Equally as impressive as Pitt's performance to open up a 17-point halftime lead, the third-largest deficit for North Carolina while playing in Dean E. Smith Center since it opened in 1986, was how Pitt maintained its lead in the second half. The Panthers came out of the locker room continuing to control the Tar Heels by extending the lead as high as 21 points with a 59-38 score with 9:15 left in the game. 

But then, North Carolina got hot.

After Pitt established its 21-point lead at the 9:15 mark, the Tar Heels proceeded to make 11 of their next 13 shots to lead runs that went 8-0 and 6-0 in their favor. By the time there was 1:50 left in the game, North Carolina had trimmed Pitt's lead down to just six points. Pitt was facing an aggressive full court trap defense without timeouts in the final minutes and foul trouble to several key players as Burton, Gueye and Hugley all had four fouls in the final minutes of the game. 

But Capel's Panthers never let North Carolina's runs knock them out of control of the game. Even as the Tar Heels were red hot from the field, Pitt kept finding ways to maintain its lead from getting to within a single possession. A loud crowd at Dean E. Smith Center fed off the Tar Heels' second half surges, but big plays from Pitt would stop North Carolina's momentum in key moments. None might've been more key than Hugley's four-point play when he hoisted a prayer of a three-pointer and made it off the backboard while getting fouled by North Carolina's best player, Armando Bacot.

"We kept making plays," Capel said about withstanding North Carolina's late second half run. "Whether it was John's four-point play, we got lucky there, but we had guys driving and getting to the basket. Whether it was JB (Burton) or Femi doing that, or Will with a big time pullup jump shot for us and Noah (Collier) gave us a great finish off a ball screen. Those guys did an amazing job battling through our foul trouble."

"It was a big shot," Hugley said. "Good players make big shots and I made a big shot for my team."

Hugley came into the game knowing he had a big matchup against North Carolina's leading scorer and rebounder, Bacot, who averaged 16.6 points and 12.2 rebounds per game. He's the only ACC player who averages a double-double this season and Hugley came into the game wanting to prove himself against a player that had respect around the country. Bacot was limited to just seven points and eight rebounds while playing just 27 minutes due to foul trouble from guarding Hugley throughout the game.

"Knowing the matchup, I knew I had to go harder," Hugley said of Bacot. "He's one of the best players in the league and I wanted to showcase I could be one of the best big players in the league. I just got to keep improving as a player."

"He's talented and he's competitive," Capel said of Hugley. "When you're talented and competitive, you thrive on playing against really good players as a measuring stick to see where you are. Bacot's one of the best big guys in the country and certainly one of the best big guys in our league. I know John has so much respect for him, but I know he was excited about the challenge and he did some really good things for us. We wanted to keep them out of transition. We did a good job there and we wanted to play post defense early. We wanted to trap Bacot and we did a good job of that, especially John. It also helped getting him on the bench being in foul trouble and he had to sit for extended periods of time. That's another way to defend a very good player, which he is."

"John is capable of that," Burton said of Hugley's big night. "When he's locked in and has high energy on both sides, those are the results we can get from him. It helps our ball club, we're grateful to have him and thankful to be on the floor with him."

Even when Hugley had to sit, also only played 27 minutes because of foul trouble, Pitt got valuable six minutes of playing time from Collier who defended well and got a key dunk in the second half.

"That's my brother," Hugley said of Collier. "I knew he was about to come in and pick it up. He played hard and boxed out Bacot. We held him to eight rebounds and that's big keeping him off the glass when he averages (12). Noah played with a lot of heart and a lot of passion."

But even with all those contributions, the game still came down to Pitt finishing strong in the final minutes as the Tar Heels tried to finish their comeback. But solid possessions driven by the facilitating of Burton and Odukale helped Pitt continuously break North Carolina's attempts to trap the ball and the Panthers went on a 7-2 run that put the game out of reach in the final minute and a half.

"They believed," Capel said of his players responding to North Carolina's late second half runs. "We started doing a good job of breaking the press because guys were being strong. We made big free throws and we knew they would run and jump to trap the ball screen. We did a really good job of beating the pass. That last four minutes we played it without a timeout. Our guys did a heck of a job not turning the ball over in the last moments to make sure we got plays. Down the stretch we got John back in the game and did a really good job there."

"We just kept our composure down the stretch," Burton said of Pitt's late second half efforts. "We realized that only our mistakes would cost ourselves the game. We just had to take care of the basketball and remember the clock was in our favor. We didn't need to rush anything and just get quality shots down the stretch. Our group is pretty tight at this point. We're locked in and we continue to encourage each other whether we're up 20, up 6 or we're down. It's been a up and down season for us, but we've experienced it. We just needed to stay composed and stay together."

Part of that composure has been built by Pitt's experience in dealing with tight games. Eight of the Panthers' 27 games have been won or lost by a single possession, with Pitt's record being 3-5 in such games. Even though Pitt's lead wasn't down to a single possession since the 10:00 mark of the first half, dealing with that pressure helped the Panthers deal with the high pressure moments of the game.

"We've gained a lot of experience this year," Capel said. "We've had to play a lot of guys with it being their first time at this level, or their first time playing at this part of the year or their first time in different environments. You grow from those even when you fail. Sometimes, failure can be the best teacher. But the thing I'm proud of is we continue to show up. For the most part, we've had really good attitudes and tried to get better each game. We'll enjoy this tonight and move on tomorrow to concentrate on Georgia Tech."

"The season taught us a lot," Burton said. "We had leads and blew them. We've come back and been right there towards the end of games and winning. All those experiences have helped us down the stretch. When we get in those kinds of moments we're staying together and staying composed. We're just trying to make the best play each possession out there. The key for us is to lock in on the scouting report. In order for us to win we have to be all-in on the defensive end. When we move the ball on offense we find the right guy at the right time and we'll give ourselves a great chance of winning on Saturday."

That effort is the growth Capel has been working to get out of his team all season as he strives to rebuild Pitt basketball. Now, on a three-game win streak before facing Georgia Tech, who's 10-15, 3-10 in the ACC, Capel wants to keep his team focused on the aspects of their game that have led to the improvements and success they've experienced over the past week and a half.

"We're just trying to get better," Capel said when asked about the three-game win streak. "I've said this over and over, but our guys have done an amazing job of showing up every day. Even when things were dire and not good while we tried not to listen to outside noise so we could focus on us and control what we could. We did a good job of that and because of that our guys have gotten better. Hopefully we can continue to get better and build on this to have even more belief in what it is we're doing and how we need to play in order to be good."

The strong performance for Pitt wasn't something Capel thought as being out of reach for the Panthers. But he did know it would take time for his team to figure out how to put a complete game together once he got the majority of his projected starters back after Burton recovered from an early season injury and Horton returned back from his suspension. The Panthers are still without senior guard Nike Sibande, who tore his ACL a week before the season opener in an exhibition against Gannon.

"I thought it was in reach for us, especially when we got Ithiel back," Capel said. "We knew it would take time to get in rhythm, but we were close to being whole. The team we felt we'd have at the beginning of the year, we had to adjust to who we were and it took a while. We were down two really talented guys who would be our better players. We continued to battle and stayed together. We got close to whole and we've gotten better because we showed up, we worked and put in the time. That's something we hope to continue to do."

 As Pitt prepares for its final four games before the ACC Tournament, there's a chance the team could take a big step for the program. A strong finish with several of the team's key players who can return next season like Hugley, Burton, Odukale and Horton could set a good tone for a season with much higher expectations next year.

"We've come together in these past few games," Burton said. "We're locking in and understanding that in order for us to win we've got to be together. This is the perfect time doing that down the stretch and fighting to give ourselves a great chance to win."