Pitt misses on what might have been its best chance
Wednesday night was arguably Pitt’s last best hope.
Playing Wake Forest at home meant the Panthers were punching as close to their weight as they possibly could in the ACC. The Demon Deacons came into the game with the next-worst record in the conference to winless Pitt, and their performance did little to suggest they were better than their record. The Panthers built a six-point lead in the first half and never fell behind by more than seven points, keeping it competitive mostly because both teams were equally stagnant on offense.
But even with the conditions as favorable for a Pitt victory as they will be this conference season, the Panthers failed to capitalize and continued on their path to posting the first winless conference record in program history. The Panthers never led in the second half, and Wake Forest hit all 15 of its free throws after the break to hold on for a 63-57 win in front of just 2,420 at the Petersen Events Center.
The Panthers fell to 0-16 in ACC play and 8-21 overall, matching the 1976-77 team’s record for most losses in a single season. The Demon Deacons improved to 11-17, 4-12.
Pitt has two more opportunities to avoid a win-less conference season, but neither one of them is promising. The Panthers' final home game of the season is Saturday against No. 1 Virginia. They face a middling Notre Dame team to end the season, but would have to upset the Fighting Irish on the road.
“We had a shot to win tonight,” Pitt coach Kevin Stallings said. “We had a game we could win and we didn’t. That’s hard for us, and we’re disappointed.”
As they so often have when victory has been in reach late in ACC games, the Panthers made mistakes on both sides of the floor down the stretch, blowing defensive assignments and failing to execute on offense.
The most galling error came out of the under-4 media timeout when freshman guard Marcus Carr fouled Wake Forest’s Brandon Childress on a three-point shot. Childress made all three to give the Demon Deacons a 51-44 lead with 3:43 to go, and the Panthers spent the rest of the game trying and failing to dig out of that hole.
“We foul on a three-point shot coming out of a timeout,” Stallings said. “All we talked about in the timeout was ‘don’t bail them out with a foul.’ We didn’t play with enough discipline to win this game. Our lack-of-discipline plays were too much for us to overcome.”
The Panthers defended well most of the game, but struggled to keep the ball out of the paint in the second half when Wake Forest out scored them there 16-2. Demon Deacons star guard Bryant Crawford scored just two points in the first half, but had 12 in the second to finish with a game-high 14. Center Doral Moore added 13 points and nine rebounds. Guard Mitchell Wilbekin scored 12 points and reserve guard Keyshawn Woods added 11.
“Just playing defense the right way,” Pitt senior guard Jonathan Milligan said when asked what needed to be better down the stretch. “Just sticking to our principles when we get in those clutch moments when we need a stop. Those are times when we need to be fully, fully engaged.”
But they weren’t engaged enough on defense, and they weren’t engaged enough on offense either. In the second half, they made just eight of their 28 shots and relied almost entirely on the 3-pointer for offense. Six of Pitt's eight made field goals in the second half were 3-pointers and they scored just two points in the paint.
Carr and junior Jared Wilson-Frame scored 11 points to lead the Panthers. Freshman Shamiel Stevenson was the only other Panther to score in double figures with 10.
“We tried to drive the ball and get paint touches,” Milligan said. “They were collapsing in so our guys were hitting open guys on the perimeter. They got open shots and we just didn’t knock them down.”
The Panthers missed on a pair of opportunities to make the game close late. Stevenson had a chance to cut the deficit to one with 27 seconds left, but missed the first of two free throws. The Panthers had to foul on the inbound, and Childress both of his foul snots to make it a two-possession game with 26 seconds left.
Wilson-Frame then missed an open dunk with 10 seconds to go, and Wilbekin’s final two free throws sent the Panthers into a game against the nation’s No. 1 team without a win in 2018.