The North Carolina men's basketball team (14-10, ACC 7-5) survived the Pittsburgh Panthers (14-9, ACC 5-7) 67-66 on Saturday afternoon in the Dean E. Smith Center.
In a down-to-the-wire battle, UNC's sophomore guard Elliot Cadeau managed to hold off a last-second field goal. The Tar Heels held Pitt to zero points in the final two minutes. Graduate guard RJ Davis led the team in scoring with 18 points, with junior forward Ven-Allen Lubin set a new season-high with 17 points.
"We wanted to make our presence known in the post early," first-year forward Drake Powell said.
UNC got to work early, executing a 12-0 run within the first four minutes of the half to take a 12-3 lead. The guards fed Lubin in the post, allowing the junior forward to score seven consecutive points. However, Pitt chipped away at the deficit to cut it to 14-12 by the first media timeout.
The Tar Heels nudged ahead, 26-17, at the under-ten timeout off of 11-of-15 shooting.
Ball movement stagnated as North Caroline fell into a two-and-a-half minute scoring drought with four minutes left in the half. The Tar Heels were called for nine fouls, allowed the Panthers to get to the line and decrease the deficit to 30-24 at the under-five timeout.
A 13-2 scoring run for Pitt within three minutes tied it at 32-32, but a defensive play by Powell — swatting a ball loose to allow North Carolina to steal it — set up graduate guard RJ Davis to go to the line to build a 35-32 advantage at the half.
Although Pitt temporarily took a two-point lead out of the half, Davis fought back, knocking down five points to increase UNC's lead to 47-44 at the under-15 timeout. With his efforts, North Carolina was 4-of-the-last-5 on field goals.
At the 12:31 mark, Lubin — North Carolina's leading scorer with 15 points at the time — was called for his fourth foul and sent to the bench. It remained a back-and-forth battle as the Tar Heels went scoreless from the field for a four-minute stretch, barely holding onto a 48-47 lead with 11 and a half minutes to go in regulation.
