Panthers win first-ever ACC contest

Anthony “Cat” Barber grabbed the loose ball and sped down the court, his dreads swinging back and forth behind him.

Flying by both his teammates and opponents, the North Carolina State guard floated toward the basket for a layup.  Fouled on the play, he made the shot and the resulting free throw.

That single offensive sequence illustrated a theme that played out often over the course of the first half during Pitt’s inaugural Atlantic Coast Conference game in Raleigh, N.C., which it would go on to win 74-62.

Speed.

“We came out fast. They came out fast. They were a little bit faster than us,” Pitt freshman Michael Young said.  

The Wolfpack (10-4, 0-1 ACC) sprinted to a 15-point advantage and Pitt struggled to keep up.  

But the Panthers (13-1, 1-0 ACC) adjusted as the period went on, closing the deficit to eight, 34-26, by halftime.

The visitors took their first lead of the contest a quarter of the way into the second half in a manner belying the pace of the game, on a fast break connection between Lamar Patterson and Cam Wright, 40-38.

Patterson led Pitt with 22 points and also grabbed eight rebounds and handed out six assists..

The redshirt senior and his teammates knew State wanted to get out in transition, it was the only way they could win, and so weren’t surprised when they did so. The host’s initial success in this approach was made easy by Pitt’s offensive woes. In the first half, Pitt made just a third or its shots, going 9-of-27 from the field.  

For Patterson the root of the atrocious start was clear.

“We were just missing shots. They were open shots,”  Patterson said. “If we’d hit more jump shots they might not have gotten so many transition buckets.”  

The Wolfpack scored nine fast break points but dominated points in the paint 20-8.

Summing up his team’s overall performance during the first, Pitt head coach Jamie Dixon said “we couldn’t have been worse.”

And yet despite that poor performance, the Panthers found themselves trailing by single digits midway through the game.

That small difference meant that  when the team did right its wrongs after the break,the results came quickly.

“We adjusted well when we started attacking the rim,” Patterson said.

Another change that helped rid the Wolfpack of their preferred offensive style was Pitt’s improved effort rebounding. After getting outrebounded 22-12 in the first half, Pitt would win the second half 17-13 with Talib Zanna pulling down a game-high nine boards as well as 15 points.

“We know that it’s no secret remedy,” Dixon said about his team’s rebounding. “It’s nothing hidden. We know what we have to do [in order to win].”

“We took open jump shots to start the game, but they didn’t go,” Dixon said. “The easy way is not always the best way. So open jump shots and soft defense may work at times, but it’s not gonna be a consistent winner for you.”

The Panthers wouldn’t surrender the advantage, as they took their turn running rampant, extending their lead to as many as 24.

Young credited the team’s collective defense as the key to the turnaround.

“In the second half we just played our game, got defensive stops. Our defense led to our offense, we just flowed,” Young said. “It feels good. It’s fun to get stops.

The freshman was the third of his teammates to finish in double-digit scoring with 13 points. He attributed the early struggles to it being the first “big” game the team has played since the team lost to Cincinnati at Madison Square Garden.

“We came out really amped, and everybody was kind of all over the place,” Young said. “We just needed to slow the game down and play at our pace. I think we were playing at their pace, or the pace the wanted us to play at, in the first half. Once it slowed down, and it was at our pace, we got things rolling.”