CHAPEL HILL, N.C. -- The energy inside the Dean E. Smith Center had all of the roars of a big fight.
But, it was not Mike Tyson versus Evander Holyfield. It was not Tyson Fury versus Deontay Wilder. It was not Muhammad Ali versus Joe Frazier.
It was just another Wednesday night in the ACC. Another night of absolute bedlam. Another night of an epic college basketball game which pit two of the conference's best against each other in a heavyweight clash with NCAA Tournament implications riding on it.
Nike Sibande's stop of an attempted Caleb Love game-winning 3 at the buzzer -- which technically would not have counted anyway -- gave Pitt the 10th and final round of the heavyweight bout at North Carolina, and resulted in a 65-64 win to further solidify the Panthers' case as an NCAA Tournament team in this season's majestic and once-unforeseen run.
"I knew it was coming to Love; I knew it was coming to 2 -- that big man," Sibande said. "They had Love come off the screen. He came off the screen, I seen him gather like he was about to shoot, so I just jumped as high as I can and get the best contest I can as possible.
"... This is what it's all about. This is what you dream of doing as a kid, and this is what it's all about, man. We embrace it, and I love being in this moment. I'm blessed to be here, and to be here in this moment in the present."
Just as the Panthers (16-7, 9-3 ACC) have done all season against ACC teams, they had to match punch-for-punch with one of their best counterparts. Pitt is now 6-3 in one-possession games this season, including having won six of its last seven such games.
"Cardiac" does not just describe the hill near Lothrop Hall.
These Panthers have found ways to fight and claw for, as Nelly Cummings and Jamarius Burton put after the game, those 10 rounds. Their reward is a road Quadrant 1 win, a likely boost in the always-important NCAA NET Rankings, and a possible Associated Press Top 25 ranking by week's end as six days of rest await before their next game.
"We have a saying where we're fighting all 10 rounds," Cummings said. "So, it's all four-minute rounds, and we want to fight all 10 of the rounds, and I think it comes down to, a lot of the times, that 10th round. You can't fight nine and then lose the 10th round and win. We fight all 10 every game, and I think that's what we're going to continue to do."
Added Burton: "The biggest thing for us is to fight the whole 10 rounds. We've been fortunate enough to do that, and we've come out on the winning side of things. ... Coach emphasizes it to us. We just try to win every four-minute segments, and break it down, that's 10 rounds in a 40-minute game, so for us we're just trying to stay locked in on the moment. One possession at a time. Every four minutes, we're just trying to win every four minutes."
Any good championship-level boxer knows how to counter properly and knows how to quickly capitalize on blunders committed by their adversary.
Take the final sequence of plays from Wednesday night's game as an example.
Down 64-63 with 50 seconds remaining, a missed off-balanced layup from Blake Hinson was corralled by Love. North Carolina worked the ball inside to Armando Bacot on the low-left block, and he was met promptly by a double team from Hinson and Federiko Federiko.
Bacot shuffled his feet and was whistled for a traveling violation, giving the Panthers one more chance in that 10th round with 27.7 seconds to play.
After a timeout from Jeff Capel, Pitt set Burton up one-on-one with the undersized RJ Davis, who fouled Burton with 3.4 seconds remaining.
Burton made the Tar Heels pay for that mistake, as he swished both free throws to put Pitt ahead 65-64.
Pitt had to still get one more stop, but North Carolina committed a small-but-significant blunder in setting up its final opportunity.
The Tar Heels inbounded with the intent to work the ball across halfcourt and call a timeout to set up a play, but they took far too long in execution. The setup took 2.8 seconds off the clock before Hubert Davis could get his timeout, which left 0.6 in regulation for a final shot.
Then came the knockout blow from the Panthers' defense.
The official game book does not show a shot recorded by Love at the buzzer -- the one which Sibande disrupted -- so whether a debated foul could have been called or not turns into a moot point, as the game clock had expired before Love had enough time to catch and shoot.
"At the free-throw line we had called a play to get the ball, advance the ball up the floor without dribbling," Hubert Davis said. "We go through it every day, we went through it at shootaround, and I haven't watched the film, but we didn't execute it properly. I can't remember who got the ball -- I think it was RJ -- and, so, we dribble the ball up and it was only 0.6 seconds left. We had called a play that gave us a couple looks. One, near the basket, and then number two, coming towards the ball. The one that we passed the ball to was Caleb coming towards the ball, and 0.6 is enough to shoot your regular shot, but it just didn't go in."
I asked Capel about whether that play came up within the Panthers' film study and preparation for Wednesday's game:
"It was something a little bit different that we haven't seen," Capel said. "I thought they were going to run the play they ran against Ohio State in (Madison Square) Garden. That's the one we were anticipating, but we knew we wanted to make the ball come back. We wanted to try to keep it away from going to the basket, and put a bigger guy on the ball. He got a decent look at it. He was hot today, Love was, and fortunately for us, we were able to get a piece of it."
Capel won that battle in forcing North Carolina to go to its secondary option, as Hinson had Pete Nance locked down underneath the basket.
Pitt moves to 4-2 in Quadrant 1 games with respect to the NET, and it is now one game back of Clemson for the top spot in the ACC.
It took every ounce of grit and fight from the Panthers to pull it off in that 10th round.
"These guys don't blink. That's the main thing," Capel said. "We don't blink. The crowd started to go crazy, they made a big shot to tie it, and we just didn't blink, man. We executed, and we've been pretty fortunate to come out on top on those (one-possession) games."
MORE FROM THE GAME
• On a night in which it felt like Love or Bacot were going to take over the game, Pitt found ways to stymie the two biggest scoring threats for the Tar Heels (15-7, 7-4). Sibande and Federiko were the saving factors for the Panthers. Each tied for a game-high plus-10 while Federiko tallied eight points, four rebounds, and three blocks and Sibande 10 points and seven rebounds while playing nearly 29 minutes.
Bacot finished with 15 points and 11 rebounds, but was held to just 3-for-10 from the field.
"I thought (Federiko) was terrific," Capel said. "Bacot's one of the best players in the country, certainly one of the best big guys. I thought he did an outstanding job of pushing him off the block, contesting his shots. He's such a low, especially trying to block him out, but I thought Federiko did an outstanding job."
• The player which did take over the game, and looked like a star in the process, was Cummings. He overcame recent shooting woes by posting a team-high 21 points on 8 of 11 shooting and 5 of 6 from 3. He scored nine straight points in a span of 1:12 to help spark a 15-2 second-half run which was back-ended by a bucket from Federiko and two from Burton. Pitt went from trailing 46-40 with 12:50 to play to gaining a 55-48 lead with 9:12 left.
"These last few days I've had a couple of rough shooting nights," Cummings said. "I don't ever lose trust in my work, so I knew there was going to be a time where I make shots. That's not a thing for me."
THE HIGHLIGHTS
THE 5s
• Pitt: G Nelly Cummings, G Greg Elliott, F Jamarius Burton, F Blake Hinson, C Federiko Federiko.
• North Carolina: G Leaky Black, G Caleb Love, G RJ Davis, F Pete Nance, C Armando Bacot.
THE ESSENTIALS
• Boxscore
• Live file
• Scores
• Schedule
• Standings
• Statistics
THE INJURIES
• Out for the season: F Will Jeffress (foot), F John Hugley IV (personal).
THE SCHEDULE
• The Panthers have a pseudo-bye week before its next game against Louisville at 7 p.m. on Tuesday at the Petersen Events Center. Pitt is then on the road for a game at Florida State at noon on Feb. 11.
"It's huge for us," Capel said of the upcoming week off. "It's huge. It's been -- we do have guys that played a lot of minutes, so it'll be really good. We'll take a couple of days off. Hopefully we'll get recovered and get ready for the next game."
THE CONTENT
• Visit the Pitt team page for more coverage from Chapel Hill, N.C. You can listen to the latest episode of the H2P Podcast below.
