If you thought the Louisville game was bad you have another thing coming.
Pitt, playing its third game in six days, did its best to set the game of basketball back decades for the second time in that span in a 78-61 loss to visiting North Carolina State Tuesday night at the Petersen Events Center.
North Carolina State (11-8, 1-5 ACC) entered the contest winless in ACC play, but delivered the knockout punch from the opening tip, as the led by as many as 28 in the first half. Pitt (15-3, 4-2) put together a 13-2 run in the second half to close within 14, but the Panthers were never in the game as they followed that up with going nearly five minutes without a basket as the Wolfpack stretched the lead to back over 20.
The ACC’s leading scorer Cat Barber finished with 31 points on the night for North Carolina State to lead all scorers. The Wolfpack also got big games from Abdul-Malik Abu with 16 points and 10 rebounds and Maverick Rowan with 14.
“The first half at both ends of the floor was our best half of the year,” said North Carolina State head coach Mark Gottfried. “We defended really well and we did a good job of not allowing them second chance points in the first half. That was the biggest key, the way we started the game. That was a really, really good team we beat.”
Jamel Artis led Pitt with 16. Michael Young added 14 in the loss.
Pitt shot just 36.7 percent on the night.
“Disappointing and a bad loss for us,” said Pitt head coach Jamie Dixon. “I felt good about our preparation coming into today after the win against Boston College. I felt good about what we were doing and that came to a quick end. To get outrebounded by 14 in the first half and be down by 25 really set the tone and kind of made it impossible to come back. We didn’t do anything well today.”
It’s Cold Inside- It was harder to tell which was colder, the temperature outside or the Pitt offense. The Panthers went on a five-minute scoring drought early in the game where they missed 11 consecutive shots. A 1-for-14 stretch from the floor quickly saw Pitt fall behind 25-6.
Things didn’t get any better the rest of the first half as Pitt saw another scoreless drought which lasted over three minutes.
Pitt made just 7-of-28 shot attempts in the first half and made only 1-of-5 three-point attempts. Meanwhile they didn’t defend at all either, allowing the Wolfpack to shoot 58 percent from the floor in the first half, including making 5-of-8 (63 percent) from behind the arc as NC State took a 44-19 lead into the locker room.
Pitt shot the ball better in the second half, making 46.9 percent of their attempts, but couldn’t get back in the game even though North Carolina State cooled off in a major way, shooting just 37 percent from the floor in the second half.
“We came out slow,” said Young. “We weren’t making shots. We were missing layups and that effected our play at the defensive end. They came out ready. They came out hungry for a win and we came out lacksidasical and not ready to play. Being down 25 at halftime is hard to come back from.
Welcome Back Maverick- Rowan, who played locally at Lincoln Park and was a Pitt commit before moving to Florida for his senior year of high school and decommitting, had a solid night.
Despite being greeted with Boos from the Oakland Zoo every time he touched the ball, Rowan finished the night with 14 points on 5-of-11 shooting, including 4-of-6 from behind the arc.
Rowan hit two of those three’s early on consecutive possessions to help bury the Panthers early in the game. He then put the finishing touches on the Wolfpack win, burying a three from the corner with just eight seconds left in the game as the shot clock was winding down.
“He’s not afraid,” said Gottfried. “He’s got a lot of courage. Maverick is going to be a really good player. You have to remember that he should be playing his senior year of high school this year. He skipped his senior year and instead is playing in the ACC. I like his approach and I just kind of felt he was going to play good tonight.”
Crushed on the Glass- It wasn’t just the offense that didn’t compete for Pitt as they were crushed in terms of rebounding 46-30, including a 33-20 disadvantage on the defensive glass.
That’s a result of missing a lot of shots, but Pitt didn’t compete for rebounds until the game was already out of hand.
Lennard Freeman led the way with 14 rebounds for North Carolina State.
“In our last game we played Carolina pretty tough,” said Gottfried. “The difference in the second half was our inability to get a defensive rebound. That has been the emphasis the past couple days. Finish defensive possessions and I thought we did a good job of that tonight.”
The rebounding advantage the Wolfpack had also led to plenty of easy dunks and layups as they outscored Pitt 34-24 in terms of points in the paint.
“We had to outrebound them and we go outrebounded by 16,” said Dixon. “They got every rebound and scored easy baskets in the paint. We have to be better than that. That can’t happen. We got what we deserved.”
Up Next- Pitt hits the road for the next two, beginning with Florida State on Saturday.
Photo Credit: USA Today Sports
