PITTSBURGH — Pitt basketball finally feels at home.
On Wednesday night, Pitt’s back court duo of Bub Carrington and Ishmael Leggett propelled the Panthers to their first home ACC win of the season in a comeback win over Wake Forest, 77-72.
Both teams started out strong offensively, as Wake Forest hit six of its first nine attempts and the Panthers hit five of their first seven. Blake Hinson had the crowd in awe early, pump faking his defender in the air, spinning around him in the air, and rising up for a three pointer shortly after. For the Demon Deacons, 6-foot-10 forward Andrew Carr hit his first two shots of the night to pace the team early and bring them to a quick 15-12 leads.
However, after Pitt’s solid start, the Panthers went cold. Pitt went over five minutes without a bucket from the 13:54 mark down to the 8:17 mark, when Leggett dribbled into a three pointer to cut the Wake Forest lead down to seven, 22-15. After a Wake bucket on the other end, Carrington hit his first three of the night to cut the lead down to six.
The Panthers picked up the pace down the stretch of the first half, closing in on Wake Forest with solid contributions from Leggett and the other guards. However, Wake Forest’s Boopie Miller scored seven points in the final five minutes of the half to launch the Demon Deacons ahead. Pitt failed to score a single point in the final 3:54 of the frame, and went into the half trailing 37-27.
In the first half, Leggett led the Panthers with eight points, while Carrington had seven and Hinson followed with five. Pitt shot 37% from the field in the frame and 40% from three, but only attempted ten threes.
For Wake Forest, Gonzaga transfer Hunter Sallis led the way early with 14 first-half points on 5-for-7 shooting. Carr hit all three of his attempts in the frame to finish with seven points, while Miller and Efton Reid combined for 13.
In the second half, Pitt came out strong and narrowed Wake’s lead down to four within the first five minutes. Hinson hit a jumper, Federiko Federiko made a layup, and Leggett and Carrington each made early jumpers in the half.
Despite buckets from Reid and freshman Parker Friedrichsen, Pitt eventually narrowed the deficit down to just two with a smooth jumper from Carrington and a highly-contested three-point bucket from Hinson. Just over two minutes later, with 10:36 to play, Carrington hit his third bucket of the half, a three-pointer, tying the game at 49.
Tied at 57 with just over six minutes to play, Leggett drained his fourth three of the night, extending Pitt’s lead to a game-high three points. On the ensuing possession, after Pitt earned another stop on the defensive end, Leggett once again took control on the fast break, driving to the rack and earning an and-one at the rim, igniting the Panthers’ crowd.
Sallis, Miller, and Cam Hildreth kept Wake Forest in the game with late buckets. However, Pitt’s defense was controlling the game. Wake Forest hit only three field goals from the 8:30 mark down to the 2-minute mark. When it mattered most, Pitt hit shots, and clamped up on defense.
With less than three minutes to play, Pitt’s Will Jeffress got into the mix — playing his role to perfection. After a massive box out of the 7-foot, 250-pound Reid on one end, Jeffress came out of an out-of-bounds set for Pitt and drove to the hole, completely tricking the Deacons who thought he’d give it back to Pitt’s guards. Jeffress slammed home a two-handed dunk with authority, giving Pitt a seven-point lead.
In the final minutes, Pitt closed out the victory behind an and-one finish from Hinson and free throws from the freshmen, Jaland Lowe and Carrington.
Carrington and Leggett finished as the team’s leading scorers in the win, scoring 24 and 22, respectively. Hinson followed with 17, hitting six of his ten attempts and draining two threes. For Wake Forest, Sallis led with 22 points, while Reid added 14 points and ten rebounds. As a team, the Demon Deacons won the rebounding battle, 35-28, behind Reid’s ten boards and Hildreth’s seven.
Pitt forced Wake Forest to shoot just 27% from three-point range. The Demon Deacons turned the ball over 15 times in the loss, to Pitt’s nine.
With the win, Pitt improves to 13-8 on the year and 4-6 in ACC play.
Pitt will continue its season on Saturday, Feb. 3 at 6 p.m, when it will host Notre Dame in another conference matchup at the Petersen Events Center. That game will be televised on ACC Network.
Lucky that refs didn’t see Leggett move his pivot foot in bounding the ball before Hinson’s late layup. Probably win anyway. Jeffress great job on Efton Reid. Announcer said great coaching job by Capel. Rob Radich, straighten him out.
I was at the game and the refs were pretty bad mostly in favor of Wake, so it more than evens out. Lowe didn’t play bad, but wasn’t good either. But had his best game in awhile and Jeffress brought toughness and energy. Maybe their second best win. H2P
Bub not but. Autocorrect
Nahhhh…Rob is sulking because Pitt won.
Yep. He only posts when they lose. Him and a poster named Jane are only here then. It is comical. Capel made a great decision last night with Jeffress playing the 5. You will never hear him get any credit for that.
See above douche canoe…….
You would not comment anyway funeral or not. They won. Your typical action is to dump on them after losses, but with great defensive effort and the in game adjustments being the proper ones, they put 50 points up in the second half. You had nothing to say.
Not sulking skippy. Out of town at a funeral and missed the game. Keep celebrating mediocrity and bask in Capel’s 88th win at Pitt (versus 89 defeats). Cue the excuses!
Great job of adjusting and putting Jeffries on Reid. He fronted him and denied him the ball and on the pick and roll the guards slid back and he could not touch the ball. That disrupted Wakes offense. The team defense was outstanding in the second half. Great guard play by all 3 guards tonight. Good win against an above average team.
Jeffress is the unsung hero. FredFred couldn’t stop Reid and Jeffress did. Changed the entire game. And the dunk was just awesome.
anyone know where i can watch a free replay. unfortunately, espn watch replay bufferred nearly the entire 2nd half and kept getting errors around the comeback point. terrible experience.
They have a condensed version of the game on YouTube. It is like 13 minutes long