The Pittsburgh Panthers showed some very classy moves on Saturday with the North Carolina Tarheels visiting. With the recent loss of North Carolina coaching legend Dean Smith, the Pittsburgh faithful brought in a banner with one of Coach Smith’s most famous quotes on it. They also handed current coach Roy Williams a card covered in signatures to show the condolences for the loss to the UNC program.
That was as far as it went for Pittsburgh's being nice to North Carolina. Pitt stormed out to a 10-0 lead right out of the gate. With all the fight that we might expect from this talented Carolina team, the Tarheels brought it back but was mostly outmatched for the entire contest. The 12th-ranked Tarheels were unable to put much together to stop the Panthers in their 89-76 loss in Pittsburg.
This has been a really tough couple weeks for the UNC family. Not only did they lose Dean Smith, there was the death of a graduate student, his wife, and her sister, and then there was the basketball team that has now lost three out of its last four.
“It has been a tough week,” Williams said. “That had nothing to do with the game today; Pittsburgh played fantastic. They were so much better prepared than we were.”
Williams was not prepared to make excuses for his team's loss and was very complimentary to the hosting Panthers.
The Panthers never trailed in the game today, shooting 65% from the field. They subsequently handed Williams his worst defensive field goal percentage in 12 years. It almost seemed like UNC was totally disinterested on the defensive end, giving up offensive rebounds that they normally never give up. It was very uncharacteristic for this team.
Sheldon Jeter led Pittsburgh in scoring, pouring in a career-high 22 points. Cameron Wright also added 15 points for Pitt (17-9, 6-6 ACC). The most impressive stat of the night for the Panthers is their 30 assists on 37 field goals.
Brice Johnson did the best he could to keep the Tarheels in the game, scoring 19 points. If the Tarheels, though, were going to win tonight, they needed more from their star guard, Marcus Paige, who scored only eight points on the night.
“Our toughness, our manhood got questioned after the Louisville game, “Jeter said. “Tonight we showed how much of men we are.” Pitt has been questioned all year for its abilities, but the players have shown a lot of promise over this last stretch and are looking to close out the ACC regular season with a strong push. This game was a great place to start.
UP NEXT:
North Carolina plays Duke Wednesday.
Pittsburgh plays at Virginia Monday.