Pitt Hoops Game Preview: Pitt at North Carolina

There’s no sugarcoating it: Pitt lost a stinger on Saturday against Wake Forest. Pitt led by 16 points at one point, and the game seemed to be well at hand. They were playing well, limiting the turnovers, and even shooting better from beyond the arc than they had in most recent contests.

But obviously, the wheels fell off in the second half, and Pitt lost the game. You need not look further than Dream Backfield’s own Wake Forest game preview to understand why that happened. What were our keys to the game?

1. Keep Wake Forest away from the free throw line. Pitt allowed Wake Forest to the line for 25 free throw attempts, of which the Demon Deacons hit 18. In a game that Pitt lost by just four points, sending a great free throw shooting team to the line 25 times is a brutal. Especially when you consider that only two of those free throws were of the intentional variety. Pitt sent Wake to the line for 23 free throws outside of intentional fouling at the end of the game.
2. Keep hitting the three ball. Pitt actually shot well enough from deep on Saturday, hitting seven of 21 attempts, good for a 0.333 field goal percentage from three-point land. That number doesn’t sound overly impressive, and that’s because it isn’t. And yet, it is Pitt’s fifth highest single game mark of the season, sitting well above the team season mark of 0.291 from three. Moreover, it continues the positive momentum of the past three games, during which the Panthers have shot a combined 0.411 from deep against Binghamton, Canisius, and Wake Forest.
3. Pitt needs big performances from Eric Hamilton and/or Terrell Brown. Mixed bag here. In the first half, Hamilton and Brown combined for six points, seven rebounds, one block, and one steal. In the second half? Seven points, two rebounds, one block, seven personal fouls. Seven personal fouls! There’s no doubt that Pitt’s big men struggled in the second half, after doing a nice job of competing with Wake’s big men in the first half. Undoubtedly that inconsistency played a major factor in the loss.

Saturday’s loss is disappointing to Pitt Panthers fans because in order for Pitt to make a run at a possible NCAA tournament berth, they have to win those games–that is, games against beatable teams. Especially when those games come at home, like Saturday’s matchup with the Demon Deacons did.

Given how tough it is to win games in the ACC, you have to win the winnable ones. It’s as simple as that. Especially when the follow-up game comes courtesy of a road matchup with the always-dangerous North Carolina Tar Heels.

However, there’s also no sugarcoating this: today’s road matchup against UNC is eminently more winnable than any Pitt fan might have guessed just one month ago. In fact, Tar Heels head coach Roy Williams suggested just two days ago that this is the least gifted team that he has ever coached.

Why is that? Let’s dive in.

Fast Facts

• I would be remiss if I failed to mention that the Panthers announced this morning that they have agreed to a two-year contract extension with head coach Jeff Capel through the 2026-27 season. This team has a long way to go, but the positive strides have been so obvious in Capel’s tenure that the extension is well deserved.
• Moving on to North Carolina, this 8-6 start is the worst 14-game start of the Roy Williams era, which dates back 17 seasons.
• Williams, who had already built an impressive dynasty with the Kansas Jayhawks before accepting the North Carolina job in 2003, has won three national championships with the Tar Heels, posted 11 top-10 finishes in 16 full seasons, and compiled an astounding 461-139 record as the North Carolina head coach.
• Williams now sits at 879 career wins, which ties him for fifth all-time in D-I basketball coaching wins with another UNC coaching great: Dean Smith. Williams’ next win will give him sole possession of fifth place all-time. With 11 more wins this year, he can move up to fourth, passing legendary Connecticut head coach Jim Calhoun.
• Pitt has never beaten the Tar Heels on the road, and have last six straight contests to North Carolina overall, by an average margin of 19 points.
• After their recent slide, North Carolina sits at no. 59 in the KenPom college basketball rankings. Following the loss to Wake Forest, Pitt finds themselves at no. 81.

North Carolina Preview

North Carolina has lost three of their past five games against Georgia Tech, Gonzaga, and Wofford. In fact, they have lost five of their past seven games if you include the losses to Virginia and Ohio State. By Roy Williams’ and Tar Heels’ standards, this is about as inauspicious a start as you could have expected from the Tar Heels.

Part of the reason for North Carolina’s struggles so far this season is a rash of injuries that have impacted their best and brightest stars. Cole Anthony, likely a lottery pick in the 2020 NBA draft, is out for a few more weeks following arthroscopic surgery to repair a partially torn meniscus. Junior big man Sterling Manley and star freshman guard Anthony Harris are both out for the season with serious knee injuries.

The biggest of those injuries is undoubtedly Anthony, who lit college basketball on fire before his injury, posting 19.1 points 6.3 rebounds, and 3.4 assists per game with a solid 0.355 three-point field goal percentage.

Nevertheless, any UNC team coached by Roy Williams is going to be dangerous–especially when that matchup takes place in Chapel Hill, N.C.

Chief among those weapons is Garrison Brooks, who leads all active North Carolina players in both points (13.7 per game) and rebounds (8.7 per game). In fact, Brooks has shone brightly since Anthony got hurt. In UNC’s five games without Anthony, Brooks is averaging 18.2 points and 9.8 rebounds per game on an excellent 0.557 field goal percentage.

North Carolina has also gotten significant contributions from senior guard Brandon Robinson, with 10.5 points per game, and top-25 freshman big man Armando Bacot, who averages 9.0 points and 7.9 rebounds per game. Containing Brooks and Bacot on the boards is going to be a major area of focus tonight for the Panthers.

Of course, the flip side is that Brooks and Bacot have combined for just one three point attempt on the year. When two of your three leading active scorers can’t shoot the three ball, that is going to pose some offensive problems for your team.

Robinson is probably UNC’s biggest three-point threat, and he’s been a very high-volume three-point shooter in Anthony’s absence. In those five games, Robinson is hitting 0.366 of more than eight attempts per game from deep. That is right in line with his career 0.363 mark from long range, far from a fluke.

However, as Williams said, this is the least gifted Tar Heels team that he has coached. With the absences of Anthony, Manley, and Harris, UNC has lost some key contributors, leaving them with a couple of stars and some nice if unremarkable role players. Pitt will still be expected to lose this game, especially on the road, but they will have more than a prayer in tonight’s contest.

Pitt’s Keys to the Game

So what does Pitt need to do to beat North Carolina on the road in the unforgiving Dean E. Smith Center? Here are the Keys to the game.

Contain Garrison Brooks.

In light of the Tar Heels’ injury problems, Brooks is going to get his looks. He has taken no fewer than 10 shots in any game since Anthony went down with an injury. He took 18 shots against Georgia Tech in a 96-83 loss on Sunday. Brooks also took an unbelievable 18 free throws against Georgia Tech, and hit an even more unbelievable 17 of those. I don’t expect him to repeat that feat tonight.

There should be no doubt that he will be a major factor on Wednesday night. As North Carolina’s most dominant offensive force, and somebody who is almost exclusively dangerous from mid-range and closer, he is a less dynamic scoring option than some of the stars that Pitt has faced so far this year.

Still, he’s a very good and reliable scorer, and he’ll be a tough matchup for Pitt. Terrell Brown has the skills to alter a lot of shots, but he can be hesitant and ineffective against polished scorers. On the other hand, Eric Hamilton is more aggressive underneath, is extremely effective at drawing charges, and is a much stronger defensive rebounder than Brown.

Neither is a perfect fit to handle a player like Brooks, but both have skills that can certainly add value. It will be interesting to see how Capel uses Brown and Hamilton tonight, as the battle down low could very well decide this one.

Clean up the defensive boards.

North Carolina is very good at scooping up offensive rebounds. Their 206 offensive boards through 14 games ranks no. 14 in the nation. And that’s exactly where you would expect them to be with forces like Brooks and Bacot on the floor, who combine for 6.0 offensive rebounds per game between the two of them.

Pitt ranks no. 290 in the country in offensive rebounds allowed, with 168 through 14 games, good for 12 allowed each game. Pitt could get eaten alive if they allow that many second chances on the road against even a relatively weaker UNC team.

To that end, it would be huge for Capel’s Panthers to get Au’Diese Toney back today. Along with Justin Champagnie and Hamilton, Toney is Pitt’s best defensive rebounder. And not having the size that ag uy like Hamilton possesses, I think you could make a strong argument that he is a more skilled rebounder. Having him on the floor would be a huge boon in limiting Brooks’ and Bacot’s damage.

Regardless of whether Toney can go tonight or not, everybody will need to pitch in on the boards tonight–including Ryan Murphy, Xavier Johnson, and Trey McGowens, all of whom have contributed nicely on the boards this year. Gang rebounding will be a theme tonight, and if Pitt takes their foot off of the gas, they could pay dearly for it.

Defense against the three ball.

Pitt has struggled against the three ball this year at times, and that reared its ugly head during the second half of the Wake Forest game, where the Demon Deacons hit six threes, most of which felt like open looks from the corner.

Limiting the three tonight will actually start with limiting what Brooks can do from inside. If Brooks is dominating inside, that will open up looks from deep for the Tar Heels, and specifically for Robinson.

However, I worry about Pitt going into a zone against UNC, because even though it could help contain Brooks inside, Pitt is often slow to cover open shooters on the perimeter when they play the zone. Since North Carolina is, on the whole, not a very good three-point shooting team, Pitt may still want to give the zone a shot to see how it goes.

When they play man defense, it would be wise to put Murphy on Robinson defensively, since Murphy has shown an ability to stick with his defensive mark beyond the arc with relative consistency.

Either way, this is about as one-dimensional an offensive team as you can imagine from North Carolina. They have a really dominant inside scorer in Brooks, and they have one reliably good outside shooter in Robinson. Of course, they have some nice role players too, but as far as bona fide weapons go, this is their weakest team in recent memory.

Tonight’s game tips off from the Dean E. Smith Center at 7 p.m., and will be broadcast nationally on the ACC Network. Don’t forget to follow @PittHoops on Twitter for live game coverage!