UNC beats No. 25 Pittsburgh, 75-71

The air at the Smith Center was thick with anticipation and apprehension as Brice Johnson toed the free-throw line, North Carolina leading No. 25 Pittsburgh by three with 2.8 seconds left.

Then Johnson, UNC’s impassioned sophomore forward, heard the same message from two people.

“This is the first thing I heard: my dad, in the stands, like, ‘Bend your knees!’” Johnson said after UNC’s 75-71 win against the Panthers (20-6, 8-5 ACC) on Saturday, the team’s sixth in a row.

“The next thing I heard was Marcus (Paige) say, ‘Use your legs!’”

He missed the first shot.

“Ohhh my God,” Johnson thought.

Nervous, he approached the second, bent his knees, let the ball go.

It went in.

“I needed that one,” he said.

So did UNC (17-7, 7-4).

Saturday’s win, by most measures, was the toughest of UNC’s six-game streak, but maybe the most important: it propelled the Tar Heels, weeks ago 1-4 in the ACC, to fourth place in the conference and confirmed that they could dictate the game’s tempo against a vastly different opponent.

Pittsburgh could be UNC’s conference antithesis: methodical, slow and extremely physical. The Tar Heels, a Google-Glass-wearing, social-media-loving program, ensured that Saturday’s game didn’t morph into a grind-it-out, half-court slog.

They ran.

“We like to get out and run, there’s no question,” coach Roy Williams said. UNC had 14 fast-break points; Pittsburgh, eight.

They made threes.

“I was able to get a couple to go down,” said sophomore point guard Marcus Paige. He made five of six, including a four-point play late in the second half.

They hounded Pittsburgh’s ball-handlers.

“We were trying to speed them up (with) our defensive pressure (and force) them into turnovers,” Johnson said. UNC stole the ball seven times and scored 17 points off turnovers.

At the vanguard of UNC’s fastbreaks was junior forward James Michael McAdoo, who, in 37 minutes, scored 24 points and took charge when the team most needed direction.

McAdoo was patently aggressive, at times too much so, Williams said, looking to score every time he touched the ball.

There he was with 5:39 left in the first half, intercepting a pass from a Pittsburgh guard near half court, racing toward an uncontested slam to tie the game at 27 and force the Panthers to take a timeout.

There he was minutes later, arms extended, swinging at his hips, ready to receive a transition pass from Paige, drive the baseline and power the ball through the net. He then flexed, let out a primal scream and bumped chests with Johnson.

“The season wasn’t going the way that I wanted it to go,” McAdoo said. “I took it upon myself to step up my game and take it to another level.”

UNC’s defense has been at another level during the streak, and Saturday it was scrappy and opportunistic.

Sophomore J.P. Tokoto shadowed Lamar Patterson, the Panthers’ leading scorer and best player, for the better part of the game before Leslie McDonald took over late in the second half.

Patterson scored 16, just below his season average, but never looked comfortable.

“We know that Pitt likes to run their offense through Patterson,” Paige said, “and we tried to make it difficult for him.”

After a back-and-forth, body-flying last 20 seconds, Pittsburgh, down 74-71 with seven seconds left, had a chance to tie. Patterson rose behind the arc, let fly, and missed.

After Panthers forward Talib Zanna pulled down an offensive rebound and missed a lay-up, Johnson secured the ball and was fouled.

He then walked to the other end of the court, toed the free-throw line and listened to his father and friend.