Pitt’s win over Georgia Tech on Wednesday was keyed by several individual performances.
Jamarius Burton scored a team-high 21 points and made some plays down the stretch that willed the team to victory. And Federiko Federiko scored 19 - the most he has scored against an ACC opponent - to help establish Pitt’s first-half lead.
But one of the game’s key performances came from Greg Elliott, Pitt’s top three-point shooter whose bounce-back shooting on Wednesday was big for the win - and possibly even bigger for the Panthers’ chances moving forward.
Elliott saw the ball go through the hoop before the first media timeout on Wednesday, sinking a three less than four minutes into the game to turn an 8-6 Georgia Tech lead into a one-point advantage for Pitt.
He didn’t make - or even attempt - another shot for the next 12 minutes, but when he did hoist one with four minutes left in the half, it went in and pushed Pitt’s lead to 13 points.
Elliott’s two three-pointers in the second half were even bigger.
His first came with less than nine minutes to play. Pitt had overcome Georgia Tech’s brief 52-50 lead, but the Yellow Jackets weren’t going away, and as the clock approached nine minutes, the Panthers were up by one, 60-59. After Nike Sibande grabbed a defensive rebound on a GT miss, Jamarius Burton kicked to Elliott, who sank a three to push the lead to four.
Then, just over a minute later, Elliott did it again. Pitt was looking for an answer to Kyle Sturdivant’s layup that had cut the Panthers’ lead to two at 65-63. The ball moved all over the court, but none of Pitt’s players could find the shot they wanted or a lane to drive.
With the shot clock ticking down, the ball arrived in Elliott’s hands, and he had no choice but to cut loose with a long shot.
The shot went down for three and Pitt’s lead went up to five. The Yellow Jackets would get it to four on two more occasions before the game ended, but that was as close as they got. And while Blake Hinson’s three with 40 seconds left was the dagger, Elliott’s three created the final bit of separation Pitt needed to get the win.
“It was just being ready to shoot.,” Elliott said after the game. “You always have to be ready to shoot. My teammates found me in positions where I could be successful. They did a great job of distributing and passing when they needed to.”
Point guard Nelly Cummings assisted on Elliott’s second three, but Elliott’s three other three-point baskets came off passes from Burton, including both of his big shots in the second half.
It’s no surprise that Elliott’s teammates trust him from deep; the Marquette transfer is second on the team in made three-pointers, having sunk 74, and he leads the team in three-point percentage (at least among players who have attempted more than 10), hitting 42.3%.
But he entered the ACC Tournament on a cold streak.
After a stellar stretch in February when he made 12-of-23 from three in wins over Louisville, Florida State and Boston College, Elliott went cold. He hit 1-of-3 in Pitt’s loss at Virginia Tech and 1-of-4 three days later when the Panthers bounced back to beat Georgia Tech.
He came alive in the home finale against Syracuse, making 5-of-11 from deep, but he missed all five three’s he attempted at Notre Dame and Miami. And even in the Syracuse game, his 5-of-11 was more hot-and-cold than it would appear, as Elliott missed his first six three-point attempts in the game before making five in a row.
Over the final five games of the regular season, Elliott shot 7-of-23 (30.4%); the only other time he made that few three’s in a five-game stretch this season came when he went 5-of-23 against Michigan, VCU, Alabama State, Fairleigh Dickinson and William & Mary.
Elliott broke out of that early-season slump by making 16-of-25 in the next five games, and if Pitt is going to make a run in the ACC Tournament, the Panthers could use a similar bounce-back stretch from him.
“Look, when you can shoot the basketball, you're going to have some time when you maybe go through a cold streak,” Pitt coach Jeff Capel said Wednesday. “The really good shooters they always realize it's something else. Something is wrong with the ball, something is wrong with the rim. It's not them. We want Greg to shoot the basketball. When he has good looks, we want him, we have all the confidence in the world in him, and he made some huge ones today.”
