Tar Heels Score Road Win At Pitt

Sunday, February 14

Pittsburgh, Pa.

2:00 PM

North Carolina

Pittsburgh

Stephanie Watts finished the Pitt game with 19 points, six rebounds, four assists and three steals in 40 minutes.

February 14, 2021 | Women's Basketball

Box Score Box Score

By: UNC Athletic Communications

PITTSBURGH, Pa. – The UNC women's basketball team is returning from its trip to snowy Pittsburgh with a perfect souvenir: a road win.

Behind 22 points from senior center Janelle Bailey and 19 from grad student guard Stephanie Watts, the Tar Heels beat the host Panthers 81-72 Sunday afternoon to earn their first win away from Carmichael Arena this season.

It's the fifth all-time trip UNC has made to Pitt and the first time in program history the Tar Heels have come home with a win.

"It's really great to get a road win, especially at this point in the season when we're playing much better basketball," UNC coach Courtney Banghart said. "This is a team that's just dying to get better. We just have to keep on keeping on."

UNC (10-8, 5-8) has a chance to earn its second road win on Thursday when the Tar Heels play at Clemson.

Pitt led early, 7-3 with 5:52 remaining in the first quarter, but the Tar Heels went on a 9-0 run to take the lead and never gave it back. The visitors were up 21-13 after the first quarter.

"I was just really excited about how much energy we came out with," said Watts, who scored a team-high eight points in the first period. "I think our biggest thing was we wanted to come out strong from the jump and we did just that, so I was just really happy and excited for the team."

Our seniors led the way today as we secured our first road win of the season ✅ Highlights from the win in Pittsburgh ⬇️ pic.twitter.com/8nYDPBxCTq — Carolina Women's Basketball (@uncwbb) February 14, 2021

Free throw shooting was a bright spot throughout the game, with the Tar Heels hitting 83.9 percent of their shots for the second-best performance of the season. They were 6-for-6 in the first quarter and made their first 11 in a row before a miss. On the day, they made a season-best 26 on 31 attempts.

The Tar Heels, who are now 8-1 when taking a lead into the halftime locker room, shot 42.9 percent from the field in the second quarter to build a 42-33 advantage by halftime. Their biggest lead of the game was 14, heading into the fourth quarter.

The Panthers, who were led by Jayla Everett's 22 points, made a 7-0 run midway through the final period to get as close as five points on several occasions, but the Tar Heels continued to hold them off. Coming out of a timeout with 4:29 remaining in the game, Everett scored to make it 69-64 UNC. But Tar Heel freshman Kennedy Todd-Williams answered with a three to again bump her team's lead to eight.

Everett hit a three with 2:07 to play to pull her team within six, 75-69, and score still sat there coming out of a timeout with just under a minute to play. Watts stole the ball on the inbounds and took it in for a layup to again make UNC's lead eight. "Our biggest thing was just getting a stop on that possession, whatever it took," Watts said. "It definitely gave us that little boost at the end."

Pitt again got within five with 32 seconds to play after Everett hit three free throws, but Watts and Petra Holešínská went 4-for-4 from the foul line in the closing seconds to seal the win.

Todd-Williams finished with 12 points and a team-best 10 rebounds, equal to her career high, for her third double-double of the season. With the freshman joining Bailey and Watts in double-figure scoring, the game marked the first time this season that the Tar Heels have had fewer than four players in double figures and still won the game.

UNC's nine turnovers marked a season low in ACC play.

"We know every game is a 'must win' and we know we have to come out with energy," Bailey said. "The games we don't come out with energy don't go so well for us. So that was really big for us. We're just playing for each other."