Pitt topples North Carolina to sweep season series with Tar Heels

If anyone knows where to draw the line between good and great, it’s Jeff Capel, who won a national championship as an assistant at Duke and coached 18 players who turned into first-round draft choices in the NBA.

“I’ve been around a lot of greatness,” he said. “I think great is the most overused word in sports.”

But he proudly made an exception after Pitt’s 66-52 victory against North Carolina in front of 12,362 at Petersen Events Center.

After beating the Tar Heels, 73-65, on Jan. 8, in Chapel Hill, N.C., Pitt finished the sweep Saturday by opening up a 23-point lead in the first half and doing just enough after halftime to improve to 12-6, 3-4 in the ACC. It is the first time Pitt swept multiple games from an ACC opponent in a season since 2016, when the Panthers beat Syracuse three times.

After the game, when a reporter prefaced a question by referring to Capel as a “great player” at Duke, Pitt’s coach stopped him.

“I was good. I wasn’t great,” he said.

But when someone else asked if beating Duke’s next-door neighbor twice in one season is good or great, he didn’t hesitate with his answer.

“Beating Carolina is great. It’s always great,” he said, “especially if you get a chance to beat them twice.”

It is something Capel never did as a player at Duke, prompting Pitt’s Xavier Johnson to smile and say, “He couldn’t even say he did it. That’s big. I can say I did.”

Johnson deserves to crow a bit. He scored 20 points for only the second time this season, hitting 10 of 12 free throws, mixing in six rebounds, six assists, two steals and a block to his impressive stat line. Plus, he committed only two turnovers while playing point guard for more than 35 minutes.

Truth be told, however, the game was far from great.

“You might say it was an ugly game in the second half,” said North Carolina coach Roy Williams, whose team has lost four in a row while falling to 8-9, 1-5.

North Carolina committed 16 turnovers, 11 in the first half while falling behind, 43-23, at halftime. Williams noted for a time in the first half, the Tar Heels had more turnovers than points.

Pitt was not immune from poor play, shooting only 22.7% from the field in the second half (5 of 22). The Panthers’ last field goal came with 6 minutes, 36 seconds left in the game.

“They didn’t make many shots, either, to say the least,” Williams said. “I don’t want to speak for (Capel), but I don’t think he’s probably pleased with the way they played in the second half.”

Yet, North Carolina, playing without injured point guard Cole Anthony, never crawled closer than 62-52 with 1 minuute, 49 seconds left.

Capel spoke openly about all aspects of his team’s game, good and bad.

“We were selfless. We shared the basketball,” he said of Pitt’s first-half effort. “I thought our defense was good. I thought our defense helped energize our offense.

“Then, we get to the second half, and I thought we played it a little bit safe. We wanted to continue to attack. They went zone and slowed us down a little bit, made us think and we couldn’t get into the same rhythm, and we got to where we couldn’t rebound.”

Ill-timed lulls have been a part of many games this season for Pitt.

“That’s unfortunately who we’ve been,” Capel said. “We have to get better at that. We have to make better decisions. We have to not take our foot off the (pedal) in those situations.”

Pitt caught North Carolina with Williams’ frustration at its height.

“Only (on) any day that ends in y,” he said of trying to keep his team motivated. “It’s hard when somebody’s hitting you right between the eyes when you step out there. You know life’s like that, too. But I happen to be one of those corny, old blankety-blanks that thinks athletics is good for you, and it teaches you how to handle some adversity.

“Right now, we have to handle quite a bit of adversity.”

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