Gameday Preview: Pitt Travels To Chapel Hill to Face Tar Heels – Sat Feb 8th 2025

Feb 8, 2025
BOTTOM LINE: Jaland Lowe and Pittsburgh visit RJ Davis and North Carolina in ACC
play Saturday at 4 pm in Chapel Hill at the Smith Center.

The Tar Heels are 8-2 in home games. North Carolina ranks second in the ACC with
26.3 defensive rebounds per game led by Seth Trimble averaging 4.0.

The Panthers are 5-6 in ACC play. Pittsburgh scores 78.5 points and has outscored
opponents by 7.5 points per game.

North Carolina makes 46.9% of its shots from the field this season, which is 3.5
percentage points higher than Pittsburgh has allowed to its opponents (43.4%).
Pittsburgh has shot at a 46.7% rate from the field this season, 4.0 percentage points
above the 42.7% shooting opponents of North Carolina have averaged.

CAROLINA-PITT

• Carolina is 17-9 all-time against the Panthers, including 7-3 in Chapel Hill (6-3 in the
  Smith Center).
• The Tar Heels hope to prevent a fourth-consecutive home loss in the series. Pitt won
  here in 2019-20, 2021-22 and 2022-23.
• A Pitt victory would equal the longest win streak by an opponent in the Smith Center.
  Duke won four in a row from 1999-2002. Wake Forest shares the second-longest streak
  with Pitt. The Deacons won three in a row from 2002-04.
• Carolina’s 73-65 loss at Pitt wasn’t a one-possession game, but the Tar Heels held a
  one-point lead with fewer than three minutes to play in a game that featured 11 lead
  changes.
• The Tar Heels have played nine one-possession games (decided by one, two or three
  points) this season. That equals the most played by the Tar Heels in a season in the
  three-point era, which began in 1986-87. The 2010-11 team played nine
  one-possession games and won eight.
• The Tar Heels’ five one-possession wins this season already equal the second most in
  the three-point era. UNC also won five in 1998-99 (5-3), 2002-03 (5-2) and 2016-17
  (5-1).
• The losses to Stanford and Wake Forest were just the fourth time Carolina lost by a
  point in back-to-back games. The other instances include the 1929-30 season (Loyola
  Chicago and Duke), 1940-41 (Fordham and St. Joseph’s) and 1967-68 (South Carolina
  and Duke).

SCORING EffICIENCY

• The Tar Heels are 9-1 this season when holding opponents below 105 points per 100
  possessions. Wake Forest (92.0 ppp) is the only team to beat UNC despite scoring
  fewer than 105 points per 100 possessions.
• Carolina is shooting 55.4% from two-point range, its highest two-point percentage
  since the 1997-98 ACC champion and NCAA East Regional champion Tar Heels shot
  56.5% from two-point range.
• The Tar Heels are shooting 32.3% from three, the fourth-lowest percentage in UNC
  history.
• Carolina is 11-4 this season when it makes 30% or better from three-point range and
  2-6 (wins over Georgia Tech and Notre Dame) when it makes less than 30% of its
  three-point attempts.
• The Tar Heels made 27 of 93 (29%) from three-point range in their last four losses.
  Carolina made 7 of 24, including 1 of the last 11, in the loss at Pitt.

WINS AND LOSSES

• In Carolina’s 13 wins the Tar Heels are shooting 9.8% higher from the floor than their
  opponents (49.6 to 39.8%). In the losses, the opponents are out-shooting the Tar Heels
  46.7 to 43.7%.
• The opponents average 83.7 points in UNC’s losses and just 71.3 in the Tar Heels’
  wins.