Pitt held off Wake Forest 81-79 on Wednesday night to improve to 14-7 on the season. The Panthers made a school-record 18 three-pointers, but needed a late stop to preserve the victory.
Here are three things that stood out from Pitt’s win over Wake Forest.
Record-breaking night
Pitt’s 81-79 win over Wake Forest was sparked by one of the more impressive offensive performances in program history. The Panthers drained 18 3-pointers as a team on Wednesday, and did so at a 48.6% clip. Pitt assisted 22 times on 28 made field goals and saw four players reach double figures.
"This is by far the best we've shot the ball here and we needed every one of them,” Jeff Capel said in his postgame press conference.
He is correct, as Pitt’s game with Wake Forest came down to the very last possession. Despite a record-breaking night shooting the basketball, the Panthers were unable to create separation from a very skilled Wake Forest team. Pitt needed every single shot like Capel said, but as a credit to them, the Panthers converted them. This is a team that struggled to shoot from deep on Saturday and were upset by Florida State. Pitt was just 7-of-28 from three-point range in that loss to the Seminoles.
Blake Hinson has had some poor shooting performances of late, but the junior forward was on point against the Demon Deacons. He scored all 24 points via the three-point shot. In fact, all 14 of his shot attempts were from deep. He was in a groove from the opening minute and never really cooled down.
The same could be said for Greg Elliott, who finished with 18 points. Like Hinson, all of his points came from long range. After a rough 2-for-12 shooting performance on Saturday, senior point guard Nelly Cummings connected on three from behind the arc as well.
Pitt came into this game third in the ACC with 174 makes from deep. The Panthers are not always the most efficient team at shooting three-pointers, but this is also a group that had to reinvent itself on the fly without having a post presence due to the absence of John Hugley.
The old adage is of course, ‘live by the three, die by three’ and in Pitt’s last two contests, the team really became the living embodiment of that saying. This is kind of who this Pitt team is right now. It’s a dangerous way to live, but when it’s going right and the shots are falling, it can look like how it did on Wednesday.
JB as a facilitator
Pitt came out of the gates firing on Wednesday night. Their first six shots to fall came from three, and with Elliott and Hinson leading the charge, Pitt mounted a 15-point lead in the first. Given the flow of the game, Wake Forest coach Steve Forbes had to change a few things up defensively. He opted for an extended 1-3-1 zone. I think that maneuver slowed Pitt down to a degree, but it also somewhat neutralized leading scorer Jamrius Burton in the process.
The senior guard came into this game averaging 16.5 per game, but was held to six points on 3-of-8 shooting. Burton is not known for his outside shooting prowess. He is more of a guard that likes to find the lane off of penetration and use his size near the basket. The zone defense took away that driving element to his game, but Burton found ways to be successful anyway. Burton dished out a team-high 9 assists and still managed to have a key role on Wednesday.
The senior guard also had an 11-assist game last week against Louisville with a limited scoring output. Burton has been the driving force to Pitt’s success this season, and Wednesday proved It does not always have to be scoring. It also says a lot about this team’s supporting cast that their leading scorer can be held to six points in a game, but they still found a way to secure a conference win.
It was just an important win
Make no mistake about it, Wednesday night’s triumph over Wake Forest was a huge win for this Pitt team on many levels. They needed to erase the bad loss to Florida State from Saturday and avoid a three-game losing streak at home. The Panthers had to have this win to keep pace with the top teams in the ACC and also for NCAA Tournament resumé purposes as well. Not to mention, this is the first time in Jeff Capel’s tenure he has won more than six ACC games in a season.
So yea, the mission was accomplished on Wednesday night.
Pitt has not finished anywhere close to the top five in the ACC standings since the first season the Panthers joined the league back in 2013-14. Pitt is one of three teams with a 7-3 league record currently, just a half-game out of second place.
In some respects ‘bubble’ talk in late January is probably too early in the grand scheme of things to get to worked up over, but for a Pitt program that has been out of the postseason discussion by this time in each of the past six seasons, it’s certainly something. Each and every win Pitt can achieve keeps the season more interesting as they head into the back half of conference play.
Pitt's win on Wednesday was not always pretty. There were defensive breakdowns, eight second half turnovers, and of course the shot clock violation in the final seconds. There are a lot of areas where they can improve on, but stacking wins is the name of the game right now, and that's what the Panthers were able to do.
The road does not get any easier ahead with No. 20 Miami coming to town on Saturday for a crucial ACC showdown between a pair of teams with identical 7-3 ACC records. A loss would not crush or diminish Pitt’s chances for the postseason, but a win would greatly improve them. Either way, it’s January 26th and Pitt Basketball is still playing for something meaningful and really that’s the big takeaway from this game.
