It doesn’t get worse than this for redshirt senior Zack Austin. He ended his Pitt career with an iffy
last-second foul called on him to lose Pitt the game and end his team’s season.
“I’ve been coaching for 25 years, [it was] the worst way to end a ball game,” head coach Jeff Capel said on Pitt’s 55-54 heartbreaking loss to Notre Dame. “…Still can’t believe it.”
Austin’s Pitt career is over and so is senior guard Ishmael Leggett’s.
Austin’s final game in a Pitt uniform consisted of him scoring eight points, grabbing four rebounds and getting called with a game-losing foul. Leggett’s send-off wasn’t much better, tying a season low with four points, but grabbing seven rebounds.
Tuesday’s game portrayed perfectly what Pitt’s 2024-2025 season was, a disappointing and frustrating season.
First half
It was clear why Pitt and Notre Dame played one another on Tuesday afternoon of the ACC Tournament in the No. 12 seed vs No. 13 seed game. Neither team looked good, or even average for that matter, for the entirety of the first half.
The teams scored a total of 47 points in the first half and shot a combined 32.7% from the field in the first half. Pitt and Notre Dame were even worse from beyond-the-arc, shooting a combined 17.9% from three-point range.
Pitt trailed Notre Dame 25-22 at the halftime break and made 28.6% of its shot attempts and went 2-12 from deep. Notre Dame shot 37% from the floor and 3-16 from three-point range.
If the poor shooting wasn’t enough for some basketball sickos out there, the teams really struggled in taking care of the basketball. Notre Dame turned the ball over 10 times in the first half and Pitt committed seven turnovers.
Sophomore guard Jaland Lowe was Pitt’s best player in the first 20 minutes, scoring nine of Pitt’s 22 points. Graduate students guard Matt Allocco and forward Nikita Konstantynovski led Notre Dame in scoring in the first half, both scoring 12 points.
Pitt’s best takeaway from the first half is it held Notre Dame’s top two scorers in check. The Panthers only allowed two points from both sophomore guard Markus Burton — who also committed five turnovers — and junior forward Tae Davis in the first half.
Second half
The teams started to wake up in the second half. It wasn’t anything impressive, but the scoring started to ramp up, especially Pitt’s.
Through the first eight minutes of the half, the Panthers went 1-5 from deep to start the half, which isn’t good but was still an improvement from their first half shooting. Pitt’s real improvement was from two-point range, where it went 5-9, which helped Pitt take its first lead of the half with 14 minutes left in regulation.
Notre Dame also went 5-9 from the field, but couldn’t make a three-pointer and make it to the free throw line, allowing Pitt to hold a 37-35 lead with 11 minutes remaining in regulation.
Pitt maintained the lead or was tied with Notre Dame from 12:06 left in regulation until 2:53. It took a four-point lead with 3:54 left and looked ready to take over the game, but Notre Dame responded with a 5-0 run in the next 1:02 of game action and took a 48-47 lead with 2:52 remaining.
Pitt and Notre Dame would go back and forth, both scoring four points in the next 1:30, but a three by first-year guard Brandin Cummings gave Pitt a two-point lead, hitting a three pointer after missing his first four attempts.
But that lead was short-lived as Notre Dame would score a two-pointer on the next possession. Then, Pitt would go empty on the next possession, turning the ball over and giving Notre Dame the ball with 20 seconds left in regulation.
Pitt ended its season in the most tragic way possible. Redshirt senior forward Zack Austin got called for fouling Davis on a putback shot with no time remaining, giving Davis two shots from the free throw line to seal the game.
Davis made the first and Notre Dame would win the game 55-54, ending Pitt’s season in heartbreaking fashion for the Panthers.