University of North Carolina Athletics
Know Your Opponent: Pittsburgh
February 13, 2016 | Men's Basketball
Location: Pittsburgh, Pa.
Rankings: Pitt - No. 51 KenPom, NR AP; UNC - No. 9 KenPom, No. 9 AP
Records: Pitt - 17-6, 6-5 ACC; UNC - 20-4, 9-2 ACC
Carolina Series History (Last Meeting): Carolina leads 8-3 (Pitt 89, UNC 76, Feb. 14, 2015, Petersen Events Center)
Sunday's Carolina-Pitt game will come exactly one year after the Panthers put together one of the most impressive offensive performances by a UNC opponent in recent memory. Led by Sheldon Jeter's 22, Pitt scored 89 points on 62 possessions, shot 69 percent on 2s and 53 percent on 3s and led from wire to wire in a 13-point victory that wasn't that close. It would prove to be the high point before a hard fall by the Panthers, who lost six of their final eight and missed the NCAA tournament.
Fast forward one year and Jamie Dixon's club is trying to avoid a similar collapse. Pitt was 14-1 following an 86-82 win at Notre Dame on Jan. 9 and, along with Carolina, one of the two remaining unbeaten teams in ACC play. The Panthers have lost five of eight since, including consecutive losses to Virginia and Miami.
Cameron Wright is gone but the rest of the 2015 core is back for Pitt, including senior point guard James Robinson. Returning juniors Jeter, Jamel Artis and Michael Young have been joined in the starting lineup by graduate transfer Sterling Smith, who played three seasons at Coppin State.
Young leads the team in both scoring (16.6 ppg) and rebounding (6.8 rpg) and is one of five Panthers making better than 56 percent of his 2s. Smith is not one of those five, as he converts almost exclusively from the perimeter (35 of 42 total makes, 44.9 percent from 3). Jeter is the team's best player on the offensive glass, a standout on a team that ranks 20th nationally in offensive rebounding percentage.
Pitt is also deadly from the foul line. The Panthers make 78.0 percent from the charity stripe as a team, the fourth-best rate in college basketball. Young is especially adept at scoring from the line - he ranks fifth in the ACC in free throw rate and makes almost 78 percent of his attempts in league play.
The losses to Virginia (54 possessions) and Miami (59) were Pitt's two slowest games of the season, and Sunday figures to be one of its fastest. That hasn't necessarily been a problem for the Panthers, however. In their two fastest conference games so far, Pitt scored 1.27 points per possession against Georgia Tech and 1.29 PPP against Virginia Tech.
Defensively, Pitt has no elite shot-blockers, but plenty of overall size. Despite no one on the roster standing taller than 6-9, the Panthers rank 14th in the country in average height. Artis and freshman Cameron Johnson are both 6-7 wings who can stretch defenses with their ability to shoot 3s. Johnson was a non-factor against Miami and Virginia but is a 40 percent shooter from deep for the year.
At 40 in the latest NCAA RPI, Pitt is squarely in bubble territory entering the stretch run. The Panthers have six wins over the top 100, including that aforementioned road win at Notre Dame which looks better by the day. There will be plenty of chances to build the resume in a tough final month that continues Sunday in Chapel Hill.
